Sources etc.
This is an evolving list, and I keep seeing things that I should have put here but haven’t! Always soon to be updated…
Click on a heading to expand it…
The social history of popular music in the Victorian/Edwardian period
- Peter Bailey; Leisure and Class in Victorian England, Rational recreation and the conquest for control 1830-1885; London 1987
- JS Bratton; The Victorian Popular Ballad; London, 1975
- JS Bratton editor; Music Hall Performance and Style; Milton Keynes 1986
- Kate Bowan and Paul A Pickering Sounds of Liberty Manchester University Press 2017
- Dagmar Kift: The Victorian Music Hall, culture class and conflict; Cambridge,1996
- Dave Russell; Popular Music in England 1840-1914, A social history; Manchester 1997
- David Taylor: From Mummers to Madness: A social history of popular music in England, Huddersfield, 2021
- Laurence Selenick; Tavern Singing in Early Victorian London: The Diaries of Charles Rice; London 1997
- Martha Vicinus; The Industrial Muse, London, 1974
Music Hall outside London
- Kathleen Barker; Early Music Hall in Bristol, Bristol 1979
- Judith Bowers: The story of the Britannia Music Hall (Glasgow), Edinburgh 2007
- Frank Bruce: Scottish Show Business: Music Hall, Variety and Pantomime, National Museum of Scotland 2000
- David John Hindle: From a gin palace to a King's palace, provincial Music Hall in Preston, 2007
- J H Littlejohn: The Scottish Music Hall 1880 to 1990, Sutherland 1990
- Paul Maloney: Scotland and the music Hall 1850 to 1914, Manchester 2003
- Jim McDowell: Beyond the floodlights, a history of Belfast Music Halls and Early Theatre, Dublin 2007
- GJ Mellor The Northern Music Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1970
- Robert Poole; Popular Leisure and the Music Hall in 19th Century Bolton; Lancaster, 1982
- Phillip Martin Williams and David L Williams: For your delectation and delight, a history of Music Halls and Theatres of Ashton-Under-Lynne, 2019
Music Hall songs and performers
- Michael Kilgarriff; Sing us one of the old songs; Oxford 1998
- Michael Kilgarriff; Grace Beauty and banjos, London 1998
- Christopher Pulling; They were Singing: And what they sang about; London 1952.
- Derek Sculthorpe, The Lost World of Music Hall, Orlando, 2021
- M Willson Disher: Victorian Song: from Dive to Drawing-Room; London, 1955
Music Hall Song Collections etc
- The Bumper Book of Music Hall Songs, Faber Publishing, 1988
- 60 Old-Time Variety Songs, EMI Publishing, 1988
- Diprose’s Music Hall Song Book Nos. 1-9, London, ca. 1859-1862, republished as part of the British Library Historical Collection: The comic and sentimental Music Hall Song Book, London, nd
- Harry Linn’s Fireside Songbook (c1887), republished as part of the British Library Historical Collection:London, nd
- Henry De Marsan’s New comic and sentimental singer’s journal. Vol 1-60 (1863-1870/71), Vol 61-200 (1870/71-82), later volumes at Library of Congress.
- Music Hall Songster London: W.S. Fortey, 1892, republished as part of the British Library Historical Collection
- Roy Palmer: What A Lovely War: British soldier songs from the Boer War to the present day, London, 1990
- Michael R Turner and Anthony Miall: The Parlour Song Book: a casket of vocal gems; London, 1972
- Michael R Turner and Anthony Miall: Just a song at twilight: The Second Parlour Song Book: a casket of vocal gems; London, 1972
- Michael R Turner and Anthony Miall: The Edwardian song book: drawing-room ballads 1900 to 1914; London 1982
- Peter Gammond; Best Music Hall and Variety Songs; London, 1972
Folk Music and Folksong collections
- David Atkinson and Steve Roud; Street Ballads in 19th-century Britain, Ireland and North America; Oxfordshire, 2016
- James N Healy, Mercier Book of Old Irish Street Ballads, volumes 1 to 4, Cork 1967-69
- Stan Hugill: Shanties of the Seven Seas, Mystic Seaport 2014
- A.L. Lloyd, Folk Song in England, London
- Jon Raven, The Urban and Industrial Songs of the Black Country and Birmingham, Wolverhampton, 1977.
- Steve Roud and Julia Bishop Folk Song in England, London, 2017
- Steve Roud, The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs London 2014
- Fred and Irwin Silber, Folk singers Wordbook, New York 1973
Selected Articles
- Kathleen Barker, Harry Clifton, the Gentlemanly Entertainer, Nineteenth Century Theatre; Vol. 16, Iss. 2, (Winter 1988): 85.
- Michael Diamond : Political Heroes of the Victorian Music Hall, History Today; London (Vol. 40) 1990
- Chris Wright (2016) Forgotten Broadsides and the Song Tradition of the Scotch Travellers in Atkinson/Roud Street Ballads.
Vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley and American popular song
- Philip Furia: The poets of Tin Pan Alley : a history of America’s great lyricists (New York, 1990)
- Thomas S Hischak: The Tin Pan Alley song encyclopedia (Westport Connecticut, 2002)
- David A Jansen: Tin Pan Alley : the composers, the songs, the performers, and their times : the golden age of American popular music from 1886 to 1956 (New York, 1988)
- Nicholas E Tawa: The way to Tin Pan Alley : American popular song, 1866-1910 (New York, 1990)
- William HA Williams: Twas only an Irishman‘s Dream: The Image of Ireland nd the Irish in American Popular Song Lyrics 1800-1920 (Chicago, 1996)
- Parker Zellers: Tony Pastor: Dean of the Vaudeville stage (Michigan, 1971)
Some important websites
- arthurlloyd.co.uk
- British Library Sounds: World and traditional music
- Broadside Ballads Online (Bodleian)
- https://www.fredgodfreysongs.ca/
- Glostrad.com
- Irish Sheet Music Archives
- Killgarriff supplement
- Library of Congress
- Mainly Norfolk
- https://www.mustrad.org.uk/
- Mudcat.org (beware all those who enter here 😉 )
- Monologues.co.uk
- Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches
- Vaughan Williams Memorial library
- Yorkshire Garland Group
Friends and acknowledgements
Sites worth a visit
- https://www.fredgodfreysongs.ca/
- https://musichallalice.wordpress.com/
- Cosmotheka
- https://russchandlermusic.com/
Thanks to:
- Christian Reynolds, Graeme Knights, Monologue John Bartley for their endless supply of songs…
- Singers at the Kelham Island Tavern, Gaslamp and Glossop Labour Club – for putting up with my attempts at singing some of these songs…
- Steve Gardham and the “Artful Codger” (who he?) for all their work on Harry Clifton, JB Geoghegan, Harry Linn and other Music Hall songwriters