Why folk and Music Hall? I am not seeped in British folk music from birth, my early exposure to folk songs of the British Isles (in the 1970s) consisted of one or two songs vaguely remembered from primary school, and an overplayed copy of the LP The Spinners In Performance. So I’m not an expert in folk music… Neither am I an expert in British Music Hall, though I do have vague memories of intensely disliking the TV programme The Good Old Days. From memory, I think my dislike was probably just that I thought it was very old-fashioned, not punk enough! So that’s two good reasons not to start a website about folk song and music hall.... Despite this... I've been struck by my experience that it seems whenever people join together to sing folk songs, someone invariably will chip in a Music Hall song (not always me!). Starting to read a bit of the social history of Music Hall, its become apparent that some songs thought of as traditional have sneaked in from the Halls, another songs appear to have “traditional” lyrics set to a tune derived from Music Hall. This despite the fact that the early folksong collectors worked very hard to ignore any songs that traditional singers took from the Halls. I initially assumed that reluctance to acknowledge Music Hall songs in the repertoires of source singers was simple snobbishness on the part of the folksong collectors, particularly but not exclusively, the rather middle-class collectors of the late 19th and early 20th century. I am currently wondering whether this is the whole story, and I'm likely to return to it in a later post. I think it’s worth saying from the outset that both “folksongs” and “Music Hall” songs are slippery categories. Music Hall has its roots in the early 19th century, and arguably was still hanging on by its fingernails in the 1950s, though it was well past its heyday. The high point of the halls was probably between around 1860 and 1920. “Music Hall Songs” are usually taken to be broadly humorous songs, often sung in a Cockney accent, familiar examples being Henery the Eighth, With her head tucked underneath her arm, et cetera. “Music Hall Songs” of this type perhaps predominated in the high Victorian and Edwardian heyday of the Halls, but it’s important to be aware that even in those days songs wouldn’t always be sung in Cockney accents and the repertoire was not limited to these humorous songs. Even then, you would hear sentimental songs, snatches of opera, show songs and even political ditties in the halls. In the early days of the Halls the style of singing was very different, and what we now think of folk songs formed important part of the repertoire. So already, I’m wondering if I need to distinguish between “Music Hall Songs” and songs sung that were in the “Music Hall”. British? I appreciate that using the term “British” in relation folk music is likely to be incendiary to certain readers. I will try to avoid using the term because I don't think there is one essential “British” tradition of folk music and folk music however defined is likely to have varied in different parts of what are now rather arbitrarily defined as the four nations of the UK. So if I do slip into using terminology like "British folk song" please understand that what I really mean is "one or other of the various types of traditional songs found within the British Isles and related songs that may have been found in other parts of the world as a result of the British imperial tradition". The term “British” music hall might be less problematic. There are certainly differences between how Music Hall developed in different parts of the British Isles and between that and how it developed elsewhere in the world. I will no doubt be writing later posts about how Music Hall might be seen as the first truly national popular culture in the British Isles, and some have argued that it was instrumental in the development of British nationalism, but more of that later. The stories of the songs and the people who sang them. There are lots of websites devoted to folk music, there are a smaller number devoted to Music Hall, and rather a larger number of books about the Halls. When looking for songs to sing, I've tended to try to find out who sang them first, who wrote them: the stories of the songs and the places they were sung. I find the stories fascinating, but in order to find them, I've had to search across a wide range of different sources. As I was doing this I wondered whether other people would be interested in the stories, and that's what this site is about...
Last Updated on May 31, 2020 by John Baxter | Published: December 21, 2019
