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.
These songs of merriment and mayhem were of the kind, Lloyd said, that might be heard ‘around the barroom table of a little country alehouse on a Saturday night not drinking songs in the strict sense – not songs merely in praise of liquor’ but songs that ‘tell a bit of a story songs as sly as a tinker’s wink, as rough as a ploughman’s hand.’ They are accompanied on banjo or concertina.
1 The Derby Ram
2 The Foggy Dew
3 Maggie May
4 When Johnson’s Ale Was New
5 The Butcher & the Chambermaid
6 A Jug of Punch
7 The Parson & the Maid
8 Three Drunken Huntsmen
9 All for Me Grog
10 The Drunken Maidens
11 Rosin the Beau
12 The Farmer’s Servant
13 John Barleycorn
14 A Jug of This
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