Poor Folk: The Old Sow and Ilkla Moor Baht 'At – Traditionals on 78

While it might produce some great song collectors, England has a frustratingly poor record when it comes to actually recording our own folk songs. English-born recordists such as Hugh Tracey and even the great Cecil Sharp often went further afield for their field recordings (to Southern and Central Africa and north America, respectively).

The trend can be seen in America too (Native American songs were recorded as early as 1890), but it is a fact that many of the earliest wax cylinders that could be considered folk music fall into the ethnographic category, with English recordists often casting their nets beyond Europe.

Of course, we have these recordists to thank for capturing on shellac many cultures which have since vanished, but that surprisingly few people found home-grown folk music worth recording is a constant surprise to me.

Leslie Sarony	Albert Richardson

All this is a preamble to these curious recordings. Whenever English singers or composers touch ‘folk’ material, there is often a sense of condescension there; you can be fairly sure the material will either be popularised (embellished with fashionable harmonies or Bowlderised for crudities) or classicised (by being notated and sung by trained singers – the Vaughan Williams approach) in some way.

These recordings are interesting in trying to deal more honestly with their material. They are not field recordings, so they should not be judged as such. But I would say that Richardson’s ‘Old Sow’ is one of the bravest and most successful attempts to produce a folk recording in a studio setting ever captured on shellac.

The Old Sow - Leslie Sarony (and male vocal choir)

This is the version of the song included on compilations such as Vintage Children’s Favourites 1926-1959. It’s given a little tarting up, with a Gilbert & Sullivan-style chorus bookending the song (which works better on Ilkla Moor Baht ’At, below). It rather irritates me, though, that Sarony fails to make some of the lines scan.

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The Old Sow - Albert Richardson, bass (a capella)

In 1929 Zonophone recorded an unaccompanied rendition of the song by a young sexton whose jobs at the time included “bell-ringing, grave-digging and gardening for the Rector”. The song had been around for at least a century, a version of this song dating back to a broadside of 1828. Richardson later claimed that the recording company had refused to include one stanza that began, “Now, these little pigs shit in the farmer’s hat”.

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On Ilkla Moor Baht ’At - Leslie Sarony (and male vocal choir)

Rather a reversal of the old phrase about the devil not having the best tunes, here is an example of a hymn (‘Cranbrook’ by Thomas Clarke) with secular lyrics. I’m rather dubious about Sarony’s Yorkshire accent, but the Gramophone review of 1934 does credit him for his clarity: “for the first time I have heard the words of this classic”.

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Buttercup Joe - Albert Richardson, bass (with piano accompaniment)

Here Richardson sings another folksy song (it has more of an air of music hall parody of folk music) with earthy subject matter. I think the piano is unnecessary, and creates a slightly odd image of a rustic figure standing by a grand piano at odds with the song’s message.