Broken Ground
Released in 1999 on Topic TSCD509
Engineered by Ollie Knight at Panda Sound, Robin Hood's Bay
Produced by Ollie Knight
Executive producer Tony Engle
Original photography by Tom Howard
Musicians
Norma Waterson: triangle & vocals
Eliza Carthy: fiddle viola & vocals
Martin Carthy: guitar & vocals
Saul Rose: melodeons & vocals
Special thanks to
Ben Ivitsky: low whistle on The Bay of Biscay, viola on Dorrington Lads
The Phoenix New Orleans Parade Band on The Bald Headed End of the Broom
Digital design by John Haxby
Track Listings:
1. Raggle Taggle Gipsies
2. The Bay of Biscay
3. Sheffield Waltz / Waltz Clog / The Wounded Hussar
4. The Lion's Den
5. Fare Thee Well, Cold Winter
6. Rowling Hornpipe / Our Cat Has Kitted / Bleaton Gardens / Sportsman's Hornpipe
7. The Forsaken Mermaid
8. We Poor Labouring Men
9. The Ditchling Carol
10. Dorrington Lads / Adam a'Bell
11. The Royal Forester / The Bald Headed End of the Broom
Track Notes & extra details by Martin Carthy, 1999
Raggle Taggle Gipsies
The Raggle Taggle Gipsies is about as old an idea as gipsies in these islands are themselves. The story is supposed to be about the Countess of Cassilis who ran away with some gipsies who were hanged for their trouble. Hanging was, of course, par for the course for gipsies at the time - sometimes just for being gipsies - indeed I sometimes thank that some people nowadays yearn for such a time, gipsies being the most reviled (and legislated against) portion of our population. Within Norma's and my lifetime there have been two occasions when her descendant, the Countess, has been confidently reported in the paper as having run away with someone or other. Thirty year ago or more one of the Sunday papers splashed that she had run away with (I think) gipsies, and within the last seven or eight year she was said with equal certainty to have run away this time with a travelling salesman. One wonders what the Count had been putting in her caviar or, on the other hand whether the whole thing feeds on and propagates itself as an ongoing myth. (What did they call an urban myth in the 16th century?) This way of doing the song was given by the beautiful Norfolk singer Walter Pardon to Mike Yates in the 1970s.
The Bay of Biscay
There are two people we have to thank for The Bay of Biscay. One is Mary O'Connor, an Irish woman who lives in Watford and who sang regularly at the Pump House club (organised by the redoubtable Bob Wakeling until apathy - certainly not his own - forced him to close it) and one of whose songs it is, and the other is Deirdre MacLennan from Inverness who got me out of a hole when I couldn't remember the last verse and taught it to me. It's in her repertoire too and there is no song quite like it. It's a song about the never ending ache of loss and it haunts. I don't think I've ever seen it in print.
Sheffield Waltz / Waltz Clog / The Wounded Hussar
The rest of the tunes [besides The Royal Forester] on the album are basically down to Liza's hard work and love of ferreting around endlessly in the books of English tunes which are appearing these days - if you keep your eyes open! The set of waltzes is English, Quebecois and English. The second set of tunes starts with two English double hornpipes in 3/2 followed by a reel from the fine Scotsman Brian MacNeill and closing with an ordinary (single?) hornpipe called The Sportsman's. The third set is of two classic double hornpipes in 9/4 - Dorrington Lads and Adam a'Bell - which come from a manuscript of tunes in the repertoire of a piper called William Dixon who had a massive reputation as a virtuoso. The manuscript is dated 1732 and is apparently reprinted in a book called 'William Dixon: Master Piper: Nine notes that shook the world'.
The Lion's Den
On the second Aldermaston march I met a bloke who taught me two songs. The first was a thing called Tee roo which is The Devil and the Farmer's Wife, and the other was The Lady of Carlisle which I have loved since then but fancied singing an English version if I could find one. The Lion's Den is it, and it comes from a Somerset singer called Charles Neville who met and sang several songs for Cecil Sharp a few years before the first world war. He sang it in five four time and in the major key but with his posthumous permission (hoho) I sing it in free time and in the minor key. Apart from anything else it contains an interesting, not to mention downright mysterious (in an older sense of that word) notion of what constitutes Royalty, and it sure as hell ain't defined in blood terms.
The Forsaken Mermaid
Liza first heard the late lamented Ron Spicer sing his lovely The Forsaken Mermaid in Sussex which was his stamping ground, and both she and her Mam always nursed it close to their hearts. Him too.
The Ditchling Carol
The Ditchling Carol is nowhere near as old as it might appear at first glance. According to Vic Gammon, "... the music is reputedly the work of a shoemaker and church musician called Peter Parsons who was from Ditchling near Brighton and who died in 1901 ... Ditchling was quite a centre for musicians from the old church bands, and the choir itself did quite extensive pre-Christmas carol tours which were apparently very popular but were said to have been frowned on by church reformers who did not like them taking their music to other places ..." 'Other places' included going as far as Dorking twenty five miles or so away, which is nothing these days but these were people who walked to their gigs. The words, he says, were pretty widespread and are a mixture of two versions. His hunch (and he says it's no more than that) is that they were written around 1820-1840.
The Royal Forester / The Bald Headed End of the Broom
The Bald Headed End of the Broom is more widespread than I ever imagined. I had thought of it as piece of 1920s (ish) vaudeville, and remember Mike Seeger singing it with or without the New Lost City Ramblers, but lo and behold it turns up in Northern Ireland in the repertoire of a woman called Martha Gillen and recorded by Seamus Ennis and Sean O'Boyle with a totally different tune. We'd like to thank the Phoenix New Orleans Parade Band for their hard work on this. John Pashley sweated cobs when we asked his lot to do this and almost worried himself into a pile of old laundry about it. He needn't have worried as far as we're concerned. The song is prefaced by a morris tune from the Bampton tradition and called The Royal Forester. Thank them too (again).
Many thanks to Garry Gillard and Reinhard Zierke (and friends) for use of their album information. Check their site on the weblinks for more Waterson:Carthy history.
