A L LLOYD
Sea songs and shanties
A treasure-chest of seafaring songs delivered by such fine inter-preters as Louis Killen, The Watersons, Bob Davenport, Ian Campbell and Cyril Tawney. The two dozen performances include some of the best-known of all British sea songs and shanties, evoking a long and turbulent history of shipwrecks and sea-battles, of tall ships and whalers and the men who sailed in them.
A L ‘Bert’ Lloyd occupied a unique position in the folksong revival of the 1950s and ’60s. He was a musicologist with an international reputation, who wrote on the social history of British folk music and broadcast many series on traditional musics of the world. A learned and kindly mentor to younger singers, he was himself a performer of great charm, who united in his performances a scholar’s respect for text and a singer’s instinct for expression.
A panorama of industrial folk music
One of the most famous and influential records of the British folk revival, The Iron Muse gathered songs from mine, mill and factory in a powerfully evocative musical document of the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath. Songs by Louis Killen, Anne Briggs, Ray Fisher and others are interspersed with tunes by the Celebrated Working Man’s Band, led by Colin Ross (fiddle). The original album has been extended with songs by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, Dick Gaughan and other Topic artists.
‘As timely in the age of de-industrialization as it was in 1956′ - SING OUT!
The folk ballad,’ wrote A.L.Lloyd, ‘is a folk tale put into verse and set to music. Among British ballads are some of the oldest as well as greatest folksongs we have.’ His claim is trenchantly justified by this exceptional collection, as dramas of the distant past are restaged in vibrant performances by Ewan MacColl, Anne Briggs, Louis Killen, Mike Waterson, Norman Kennedy and Lloyd himself.
Gamblers and sporting blades
These songs of sport and betting evoke a packed landscape of hunts and racecourses, boxing rings and football pitches, cockfighting pits, card tables and poolrooms, in boisterous renditions by Ewan MacColl, A.L.Lloyd and Roy Harris.