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An Hour With Cecil Sharp and Ashley Hutchings
An Hour With Cecil Sharp and Ashley Hutchings
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An Hour With Cecil Sharp and Ashley Hutchings
Ashley Hutchings
Dambuster Records DAM 014 (LP, UK, 1986)
Dambuster Records DAMCD014 (CD, UK, 2000)
Talking Elephant Records TECD448 (CD, UK, 30 October 2020) |
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Recorded at Dambuster Studios, Essex;
Produced by Ashley Hutchings;
Mixed and edited by Richard Digance;
Engineered by Dave Bubb;
Mastered by Bob Jones, CTS, Wembley;
Front cover, photography and artwork by Garry Owen;
Photograph of Cecil Sharp supplied by EFDSS;
Sleeve design by: Dave Bubb;
All outdoor and sound effects recorded at locations in Gloucestershire and
Essex using a Uher report monitor;
Thanks to Val Miles for the loan of the bicycle
Musicians
Martin Carthy: guitar and vocals;
Richard Thompson: guitar
Dave Whetstone: concertina, one row melodeon, guitar
The Cylinders
Very little is known about the cylinder recordings used on this recording.
The original cylinders, from which they were taken, were found mostly
unlabelled and in a dilapidated condition at Cecil Sharp House. They were
made by Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams and date from the very early
years of the 20th century.
Particular thanks to Jim Lloyd, the English Folk Dance and Song Society
and Ursula Vaughan Williams for their consent to use these rare recordings.
Tracks
Side 1 | Side 2 |
- Among the New-Mown Hay
cylinder recording, possibly of Alfred Edghill, Chew Magna, Somerset,
by Cecil Sharp
- Sharp arrives and observes starlings
- Among the New Mown Hay
sung and played by Martin Carthy
- Hutchings introduces Sharp
- Bushes and Briars
cylinder recording of Mrs Humphries, Ingrave, Essex
by Ralph Vaughan Williams
- Sharp avoids being killed by a gypsy
- Banks of the Nile
cylinder recording
- Sharp illustrates the evolution of a folk song on a bicycle wheel
- Sharp opens his case and relates its contents
- Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson and Dave Whetstone play a jig, learnt
from the cylinder recordings, on three guitars
- Hutchings reveals a catalogue of Sharp's illnesses
- The cylinder recording of the previous jig, whistled by “as good a
whistler as ever cocked a lip”
- Sharp finds his lunch and holds forth on vegetarianism, politics,
collecting folk songs and the acceptance of popularisation
- More cylinder whistling
- Sharp extols the virtues of bicycle travel and meets a bird-starver
- Hutchings offers an opinion on moulding music to suit its audience's
taste
- Rambling Sailor
performed by Martin Carthy
- Sharp muses on John Short and the sea
- Rambling Sailor
cylinder recording, possibly of Mrs Verrall, Horsham, Sussex
by Ralph Vaughan Williams
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- Richard Digance and British Telecom decide that Sharp has slept enough
- Sharp continues where he left off, then moves on to pipe-smoking
idiosyncrasies in the Appalachians. He decides to smoke his pipe.
His lungs object. Instead he turns to morris dancing.
- Black Joke
morris tune played by Dave Whetstone on concertina
and Martin Carthy on guitar.
Hutchings on the disagreement between Sharp and Mary Neal
- Cylinder recording by Sharp of Herefordshire fiddler John Lock playing a
hornpipe
- Sharp believes that fiddlers are a strange breed and illustrates why.
He also paints a picture of the Running Set on a moonlit Pine Mountain.
- All My Chickens Have Gone crows an authentic American string-band
- Sharp relates more adventures in the Appalachians
- Part of George Butterworth's Idyll for Orchestra,
The Banks of Green Willow.
Sharp, the delighted botanist, gives way to Sharp, the sad loser of
three dead colleagues
- Turtle Dove
sung by Martin Carthy accompanied by himself and
Richard Thompson on guitars
- Sharp laments the passing of old-fashioned songs and kindly manners
- Turtle Dove
cylinder recording of Mr Pendfold, landlord of the “Plough Inn”,
Rusper, Sussex,
by Ralph Vaughan Williams
- Instrumental version of
Turtle Dove
played on guitars by Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson and Dave Whetstone
- Hutchings sums up and gets himself off the hook
- A rousing instrumental
Among the New Mown Hay
to finish
from Dave Whetstone, one row melodeon, and Martin Carthy and Richard
Thompson, guitars
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Tracks 1, 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 23, 30 Copyright EFDSS;
Track 3, 17 trad. arr. Carthy;
Tracks 10, 31, 33 trad. arr. Carthy / Thompson / Whetstone;
Track 22 trad. arr. Carthy / Whetstone;
Tracks 25, 27 Copyright Control;
Track 28 trad. arr. Carthy / Thompson