• Fairport Convention. Notes on the 'folk revival' by Rae West Dec 2019

Fairport Convention. Notes on the 1960s 'folk music revival', A L Lloyd, and the reshaping of history. Rae West 8 Dec 2019.

This was sparked by a chance look at a video on internet, the 2017 'documentary' celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Fairport Convention. Many of the musical talking heads were unsubtitled, though their names appeared at the end. As I write this, it has been clear the the Jewish-owned Youtube was several years into heavy censorship. So any surviving Youtube is under some suspicion. If you find facts about Jews incredible, I should warn you that you're probably not ready for this article.

'Folk' music is in principle a fascinating topic. I have a copy of A L Lloyd's Folk Song in England (Published in 1967 by Lawrence and Wishart, notable as a 'Communist'—i.e. Jewish—publisher; my copy is the 1969 paperback, cover design by Hipgnosis, with a Morning Star (once the Daily Worker) Communist—Jewish—approving sentence in the blurb on the back. I found this book's lack of thread made it rather unreadable; it has five chapters (The Foundations of Folk Song, The Songs of Ceremony and Occasion, The Big Ballads, The Lyrical Songs and Later Ballads, The Industrial Songs) but the contents don't bear much relation to the chapter headings. Perhaps Lloyd awaited the word processor. Lloyd provides endnotes (with many languages), a bibliography (with many languages), sources of his music examples, an index of first lines and variations, and a general index.
I've just noticed it was reprinted in 2008 by faber & faber, with the paperback in 2009. I haven't attempted to check if this reprint was unaltered.

Lloyd says he received an unsolicited grant from the Arts Council. And something to do with The Workers' Music Association. Both are typically Jewish funding structures, offloading costs onto the natives. There's a short clip of Lloyd in the documentary; in a suit, elderly, politely spoken.
Lloyd uses something like Marxist jargon: village life before the enclosures, but nothing on Cromwell and the Bank of England; poverty, seapower, not very credible accounts of industrial songs—it was often very noisy. Lloyd's mother's name and detail is scrubbed from Wikipedia, but we're told he ‘joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and was strongly influenced by the writings of the Marxist historian, A. L. Morton, particularly his 1938 book A People's History of England.’ I recommend Morton—note that there are no mentions whatever of Jews! The book probably was connected with Jewish promotions aiming for the Second World War.
Lloyd's name is given as Albert Lancaster Lloyd; I'd guess Lloyd was a renamed secret Jew, weighing up all the available information. Folk song coming from below was probably largely mythical. See for example Miles Mathis on 'Ewan MacColl' and others with fake names—The Folk Scene was Totally Manufactured. He wrote somewhere on Kirstie MacColl, whose death he thought was faked, and who probably moved to her secret island—though I'd guess the locals may have puzzled over her secret sources of overseas money. And on Peter, Paul and Mary as spreading anti-love messages. A suggestive comparison is with Lilliburlero printed in An Antidote Against Melancholy (1661), supposedly a hugely influential song, essentially pro-Jew, and publicised widely, though most of its bellowers would not have known that. The sounds may even be Hebraic. As far as I know the tune is still used by the BBC in broadcasts overseas.
I found this self-referential refutation of 'folk music' online: ‘In fact Bert Lloyd comes from a long tradition that arguably had more influence on folk song than the oral tradition itself.’
Tucked into my Folk Song in England I found a copy of a Times obituary, dated 2 October 1976. This was Dr Maud Kapeles, born 1885, who was Cecil Sharp's assistant and collaborator. I presume 'Dr' was honorary. In a 'family with many international connexions'. 'At the outbreak [sic] of the Second World War she worked to help, and find work for, Jewish musicians...' I hadn't known, when I tried to read this book, of the networks of publishers, BBC hacks and so on who were secretly 'Chosen People'. I was puzzled to find references to Romanians, Hungarians, gipsies and so on, meaning of course Jews, in a book on English folk, though of course it's natural to the Jewish collective influence. Another name I noticed is Mariana Rodan Kahane, described as Rumanian, a folklorologist. Béla Bartók is in there; suggesting that the nationalist movements in 19th-century Europe had faked and Jewish leaderships.
Lloyd and MacColl met Alan Lomax, another Marxist (read: Jew), ‘a song collector and folklorist. They became even more committed to performing and popularising folk songs and they were determined to show the political content of songs as they moved from their rural origins into the Industrial Revolution.’ ‘If they had to alter songs, make up songs and talk 'seriously' about folk songs then they did—does it happen in any other genre of music that the performers explain the origin and meaning of songs before they sing them? They did this essentially for political reasons—to raise working class consciousness and bring Revolution nearer.’ These are quotes from a website about ten years ago.
The 'Fakesong' idea bubbled away in the late 20th century; I doubt the Jewish connection was suspected, and so will not discuss it here. But let me mention another imposition: from 1760, Ossian was the supposed author epic poems 'discovered' by the Scottish poet James Macpherson. And Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry was a supposed collection of poems and songs published in 1765. About a century after the Restoration, possibly this was arranged to smother true history of the Civil War and Jewish takeover by a thick blanket of Romanticism. Others may have been Cecil Sharp himself, Baring Gould, Scott, Buchan, Motherwell, Jamieson. And possibly Thomas Love Peacock in his populist material in Paper Money Lyrics (published 1837).

Unfortunately his book is not much use before about the time of the industrial revolution. Lloyd mentions a few pre-1900 book titles: William Chappell 'Popular Music of the Olden Time', Gavin Greig 'Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads...' But mostly he leans on collectors, Francis James Child in the USA (1825-1896), and Cecil Sharp in the UK (1859-1924), going around presumably with music MS paper.
Lloyd also collaborated on a book on English Folk Songs, with Ralph Vaughan Williams. Most of the songs are in modern English and 20th century; not old. I have an old copy, bought in 1977, at the Lewes Folk Festival. I recall the Watersons singing outdoors a capella. Come to think of it I have CDs of Fred Jordan—see if you like unaccompanied singing: We Shepherds are the Best of Men or Polly's Father Lived in Lincolnshire (not my copyright; available from Veteran, in Stowmarket), John Langstaff, and Martin Carthy. The songs have endnotes, which I think must be Vaughan Williams's, which in many cases try to draw parallels with much older verse. The bibliography is almost all 20th-century.

In the same way that most accounts of Oxbridge graduates say nothing about what they learnt, if anything, the video of Fairport Convention says nothing about record sales, costs of anything, sales of their LPs/CDs, wages, salaries, promotion, reviews, how they learned their music, subsidies. Almost nothing, giving a hollow-centred view. It would be nice to know at least if they lived on the money from their art.
Most of them seem to have come from Muswell Hill, London N8 (I think). I'm slightly reminded of Queen, from somewhere like Ealing, learning about singing, electronic sounds, drums, and being on stage. The documentary had nothing on their training in music; maybe it looked like cheating to not be self-taught.

The three main members we're informed were Ashley Hutchings (his father led a swing band in the 1940s—ignoring wars seems to be a characteristic of musicians; from my perspective, all these people were smug sleepwalkers, ignoring in particular the Vietnam War and the supposed nuclear crises). Hutchings was shown reading his 1967 diary. He was the one with the big collection and familiarity with Cecil Sharp and the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
And Simon Nicol, another founder member. He reminisced about his 12-string guitar, bought for £40 from a shop on North Finchley.
And Richard Thompson, with a virtuoso guitar style quoting jazz, modal stuff, and other things. At the time he looked a bit effete, if that's the right word, but in 2017 looked very different.
The origin of the band's name was a bit disappointing to me; I expected Rhode Island or a massive calling-together of souls, but in fact it was the name of Hutchings' family house plus a fancy word for a few people. I suppose it's better than the Dunroamin Skifflers.

So we're told there was a 'complete revolution'—British Folk-Rock, English Rock 'n' Roll by kids from Muswell Hill.
Britain, and much of the world, has of course a rich and vast history, mostly unknown. Typical 60s folk material included ships, hangmen, broadsheets describing crimes, Ratcliffe Highway, press gangs. The collectors collected from living exemplars of songs, who couldn't be expected to have memories back to the Middle Ages or earlier. Moreover, musical instruments were expensive (Thomas Hardy has some of his villagers with hand-me-downs) and if they existed (e.g. harps) must have seemed dated. And songs for wide consumption would have problems with honesty vs censorship, in the way that operas with large orchestras paid by patrons, such as aristocrats, were generally not outspoken, and often had absurdly far-fetched plots..
For that matter, written language is itself a notation, which of course can take many forms. In addition to singers, print was influential, no doubt more so than the few practitioners. Lloyd discusses broadsheets, printed songs, of which millions, literally, were printed, and in separate printing centres. They had their collectors, for example the diarist Pepys. These were registered with the Stationers' Company, a legal requirement to control printing.
And yet there must have been events worthy of remembrance: the Great Fire of London, with homeless people wondering what to do; Wyclif, Lollards &c trying to spread Biblical ideas; the Reformation; Little St Hugh, murdered by Jews; the East India Company; conversations which revealed secrets; US civil war; the Cotton Famine. Even if such songs or poems existed, I expect Cecil Sharp would no doubt have suppressed them.
And what about WW1 and WW2, and the covert Jewish victory? There are endless possible songs, on VIP spivs, deaths on the Rhine, Dresden, BBC news lies, Uncle Joe, pros in their reserved occupation, Jewish paper money, a nice bit of meat. I suppose the nearest is Charlie and his orchestra; for example The Man With the Big Cigar which is at the moment still on Youtube, to my surprise. On WW1, the 'Great War', i recently found an officer's diary on WW1: millions of shells, and millions of deaths. But these were largely the lower orders.
The whole subject of accepted material is an interesting test of hypotheses on history. The Dubliners recorded a very effective Skibbereen, but there's a complicated situation with Jews assisting pseudo-Irish groups, revealed more recently in the shape of filth such as Shatter. Lloyd gives an extract by Edmund Spenser on starvation in Ireland, as its Celtic base had its 'back broken'. But Lloyd mentions a 'Soviet folklorist Yury Sokolov', leaving little doubt that Sokolov would be careful to omit songs, if they ever existed, on GULags. The (((British))) Empire was in fact largely Jew-run, so we'd expect nothing on the East India Co, or lures to hardy types to settle the Americas and be 'free', or the Opium Wars. So sea shanties are approved. So is mining, though times before electric lights, electric fans and cages get synthetic horror.
Alexandra Denny ('Sandy') introduced Scottish ballads, English and Irish folk songs, when she joined—displacing Judy Dyble. (I haven't attempted the depressing task of assessing Jewishness in the members, financiers, publicists &c). Sandy wrote her own songs, with elegant handwriting, and sang them, and went on to form 'Fotheringay', the name giving some idea of her view of the past. Ashley founded Steeleye Span, including Maddy Prior, who reminds, or reminded me, of Stevie Nicks, twirling and piercing.
I suspect, though it's a bit saddening, that the upsurge in folk clubs may have had as much to do with breathalysers and action generally against drivers and drink (and the reduction in hard localised manual work). Some pubs had strippers (I suppose I should add they were female). Some aimed for fine dining.

I wonder if singing is 'natural'. Surely the standard method must be transmission from adults to children: I remember one of my sons spontaneously singing "There was a farmer had a dog, and bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O..." combining a tune with a spelling lesson, but without a musical notation. Looking at The English Hymnal, we find All Things Bright and Beautiful of 1848 assigned to the tune GREYSTONE. (It occurs to me that its apparently anti-Darwinian message in fact precedes The Origin of Species).
Lloyd is not very helpful on musical notation. There must have been notations not based on keyboards, surely. He says sight reading was common, and that (e.g.) dairymaids would read and sing broadsheets as they milked. There may have been pentatonic scales; certainly Lloyd gives examples with Greek names but without explanation of their sources. No doubt the Chosen People had more important issues. And in any case singers varied their tunes, the words being relatively inviolate.
In fact, Lloyd quotes with approval the statement that there can be 'no greater mistake' than to suppose illiteracy correlates with musical traditional skill.
It's noticeable that many songs (consider Victorian hymns) have four lines as a maximum, enlivened with perhaps repeated lines or some sort of chorus. One wonders if Eisteddfod songs had long, mnemonic, uninterrupted passages. It seems unlikely that (say) limericks could be set to music very successfully. 'The Vicar of Bray' was set to music, but is obviously too complicated for reliable delivery without a script. Anyway, it seems unlikely to the sceptic that the folk revivals could have been much of a revival.
Songs of the 'I'd rather hang around/ Piccadilly Underground' and 'Great War' songs of the 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary' type must have been professionalised. When the USA was coerced into the war, in 1916, all the Jewish music writers changed the words of their songs to push for war for others to die en masse..
Peter Bellamy, once of the Young Tradition, sang Kipling set to his own music, and died by suicide. I wonder if he did Binyon ('They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn...')

Anyway, back to Fairport Convention. They moved to Farleigh Chamberlain, to a big house, suggested by their manager. And later to a derelict pub in Little Hadham. (Explaining the title 'Full House' for an LP?) They suffered two road accidents—motorway van crash when their long-term manager fell asleep at the wheel and two others were killed; and an impact by Dutch truckdriver, who also fell asleep at the wheel and died at their pub. And two of them lived in Cropredy in Oxfordshire.
They influenced Dutch, Scandinavian, and Spanish music—Germany was unmentioned by Hutchings.

Sandy Denny died young—by falling downstairs, I was told. Dave Swarbrick died a few years ago. (I happened to be in a hospital where the name 'Swarbrick' was marked up; I wondered if it was him, without venturing to find out. He had an influence a bit like Clare Torry on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon).

Peter Sellers' 1958 Parlophone vinyl LP The Best of Sellers final (B side) track is: Suddenly It's Folk Song. Sellers was obviously in touch with Jewish promotions; no doubt this was his comment. Sellers' voice acts a German tape recordist at work, and we have three tracks which might be regarded as containing sex and violence—the finer points of satire not being present. Sellers was in the film Dr Strangelove... (1964), ending with a series of fake nuclear explosions; I'd guess these fakes may have led to the film itself being in black and white.
Bob Dylan—apparently a Jew with family connection in Ukraine, named Zimmerman or Zimmermann—seems to have been defined as a 'protest singer' by his manager Grossman. Blowin' in the Wind was 1963-ish. This was of course fake, making use only of Jewish causes.
Phil Ochs (pronounced Oaks) was more to the point, e.g. with White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land. I've never checked if he was related to the Ochs & Sulzbergers of the New York Times, that testament to the stupidity and cowardice of Americans.
Now I think of it, Shaffer's The Wicker Man complete with pub singing scene suggested sex, maypoles, new spring life in 1973, plus a kill-the-king motif, as if from Frazer's Golden Bough.

Leaping temporally forward about fifty years, I ought to mention Dieudonné in France and Alison Chabloz in Britain, with their songs against the obviously fraudulent burnt offering to the Chosen Race. And I ought mention Sleipnir, the 8-legged horse band from Germany, but of course most of their songs and videos have been removed from Youtube. Alison commented that Richard Thompson converted to Islam, yet more Abrahamic nonsense from the Chosen. Sigh.

Looking back, I have to say the genre was not very successful. Perhaps because it could not, or was prevented from, recovering the true spirits of times gone by. Now be thankful to your maker.