Calm and Collected

Calm and collected

Compilation CD, released 2016

Our 2005 CD ‘Parallel Strands’ has been out of stock at Wildgoose Records for some time (though you can still find copies on Amazon and Ebay) and Dusty Diamonds (2008) was in short supply so we decided to do a low-cost compilation album. This CD (which is also available as a download and on ‘Spotify’) brings together 16 tracks from those CDs. We have also added three tracks from the CD from that we recorded in 2013 to go with the book Folk Songs in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ English Folk Song Suite written by Prof. Robert Garofalo. We are grateful to him for permission to include them here. All of these tracks were recorded and produced by Doug Bailey who has also mastered this compilation. We remain deeply grateful for his skill and encouragement. And we hope that you will enjoy this collection.

You can buy the CD directly from us – use e-mail address on the ‘Contact’ page.
The cost is just £7 (plus postage £2.00 for UK delivery)

notes on the songs

Fuller notes on the songs can be found on the page for the original CD, together with links to the sheet music and sound samples. For the tracks taken from Folk Songs in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ English Folk Song Suite I have included additional notes and a song sheet.

1 Hunting the Hare / Adam the poacher – From Dusty Diamonds

‘Adam the Poacher’ was played to Baring-Gould by the old fiddler, William Andrew, of Sheepstor. ‘Hunting the Hare’ came from St. Genys in Cornwall.

Vocals – Martin and Shan, Fiddles – Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll, Concertina – Keith Kendrick

2 Stonecracker John – From Parallel Strands

A song written by Martin about the life of the men who maintained the roads before the advent of modern machinery. Many of them, like Robert Hard, one of Baring-Gould’s singers, did so to earn the dole they got from the parish.

Vocals – Martin Graebe, Guitar – Jeff Gillett, Percussion – Paul Wilson

3 Dives and Lazarus – From Folk Songs in the English Folk Song Suite

Vaughan Williams got this song from Lucy Broadwood, who published it in her English County Songs (1893).

Vocals – Shan and Martin

4 Jack in the Green – From Parallel Strands

This has become one of the most widely recorded of Martin’s songs and has often been assumed to be traditional – very flattering.

Vocals – Martin and Shan, Guitar – Jeff Gillett, Accordion – Paul Wilson

6 Tyburn Hill – From Parallel Strands

Baring-Gould collected this song from from Samuel Fone of Mary Tavy. It is a version of Jack Hall, a song about a burglar executed in 1701. Sam Fone’s version is quite distinct from other collected versions.

Vocal – Martin, English Concertina – Keith Kendrick

8 From Severn, by the Somme – From Parallel Strands

Martin’s song is intended as a memorial to those women who died while in France and other fields during the First World War, supporting the men who were fighting there, and whose efforts have too often been overlooked.

Vocal – Martin

10 John Barleycorn – From Folk Songs in the English Folk Song Suite

The final tune in the English Folk Song Suite. Vaughan Williams has used a version collected by Sharp from Robert Pope of Minehead.

Vocals – Martin and Shan

12 Sly Reynard – The Hunting Song, From Parallel Strands

A Dartmoor version of Bold Reynard the Fox using words from Roger Hannaford with the tune Baring-Gould heard from Sam Fone. We have then added one of my own songs that paints a slightly different picture.

Vocals – Martin and Shan

14 Henry Martin – From Dusty Diamonds

A version of the well-known ballad from Matthew Baker, from Lew Down, with two additional verses sung by Roger Luxton from nearby Bratton Clovelly.

Vocals – Martin and Shan, Concertina – Keith Kendrick

16 Laying My Life on the Line – From Parallel Strands

I used to travel to school by train as a small boy, often on my own, and the ‘gangers’ working on the rails were of great interest. This is another song about the nature of work, written several years after Stonecracker John.

Vocals – Martin and Shan, Guitar – Jeff Gillett

18 I Had Two Ships – From Parallel Strands

Baring-Gould heard this little song from John Woodridge of Thrushleton

Vocals – Martin and Shan, Mandola – Jeff Gillett, Anglo Concertina – Keith Kendrick, Fiddle – Paul Burgess

The musicians

We are fortunate that we were able to get some wonderful musicians and singers to support us on our two Wildgoose CDs. We are grateful to them all for their artistry and their help. Those represented in this compilation include:

Paul Burgess – Fiddle

Becky Driscoll – Fiddle

Jeff Gillett – Guitar and Mandola

5 American Stranger – From Dusty Diamonds

Cecil Sharp collected this song in 1907 from the traveller Priscilla Cooper at Stafford Common, near Seaton, East Devon

Vocals – Shan and Martin

7 Down in the Coal Mine – From Dusty Diamonds

Cecil Sharp collected this song from Louie Hooper and Lucy White at Hambridge in September 1903. It was written by J.B. Geoghegan in 1873.

Vocals – Martin and Shan, Concertina – Keith Kendrick, Fiddles – Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll

9 Bonnie, Bonnie Boy – From Folk Songs in the English Folk Song Suite

This song, collected by Lucy Broadwood from Patience Vaisey in Oxfordshire, is the basis for the 2nd, Intermezzo, movement of the English Folk Song Suite.

Vocals – Shan and Martin, Autoharp – Shan

11 Rouse, Rouse – From Parallel Strands

A wonderful Cornish carol sent to Baring-Gould from St Issy by Mr J W Yeale.

Lead vocal – Martin and Shan, Anglo Concertina – Keith Kendrick, Fiddle – Paul Burgess, Accordion – Paul Wilson. Tuba – Barry Lister, Oboe – Paul Sartin, Additional vocals – Doug Bailey, Lynn Heraud, Barry Lister and Pat Turner.

13 The Setting of the Sun – From Dusty Diamonds

Another song from the remarkable Samuel Fone, of Mary Tavy., in this case an unusual version of a song widely spread through Britain and Ireland.

Vocals – Martin

15 Honiton Lace – From Parallel Strands

One of the first songs that I wrote, based on a letter in the Girls Own Paper in 1897, which described the life of a Honiton Lace-worker.

Vocals – Martin and Shan, English Concertina – Keith Kendrick, Fiddle – Paul Burgess

17 The Great Galleon of Plymouth – From Dusty Diamonds

Another song by Martin, this follows in the footsteps of fantasies like ‘The Crocodile’ or ‘The Derby Ram’ (who takes a bow in the song).

Vocals – Martin, Additional vocals – Doug Bailey, Shan Graebe, Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham

19 My Coffin shall be Black – Roud 1704, From Dusty Diamonds

The words to this morbid little song came from a boy at Altarnun in Cornwall. The tune was collected by Vaughan Williams in Northumberland.Vocals – Martin and Shan, Concertina – Keith Kendrick, Fiddles – Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll, Additional Vocals – Doug Bailey, Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham.

Keith Kendrick – English and Anglo Concertina

Barry Lister – Tuba

Paul Sartin – Oboe

Paul Wilson – Accordion and Percussion

Nick Wyke – Fiddle

Additional vocals – Doug Bailey, Lynne Heraud, Barry Lister,

Sylvia Needham, and Pat Turner

Other CDs

Parallel Strands

This recording was a long time in the making. It had been on my 'To Do' list for at least 5 years and I had done some planning for a solo CD but those plans had not been translated into much action.

Dusty Diamonds

For this, our second CD together, we mined the collections of Sabine Baring-Gould and Cecil Sharp, for these little gems. Some of the songs are presented here for the first time since they were collected.