{"id":6566,"date":"2020-11-04T08:50:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T08:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=6566"},"modified":"2023-05-14T09:01:25","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T09:01:25","slug":"harry-linn","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/harry-linn\/","title":{"rendered":"Linn, Harry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scotland’s Premier Comic Philosopher<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Harry Linn (1846 -90), barely gets a passing mention in the standard histories of the British Music Halls. This may be because his success was largely outside London: in Scotland and northern England, where he was billed as The Idol of the North<\/em> and Scotland\u2019s Premier Comic Philosopher<\/em>. This biography is put together from searches of British newspapers and journals in the late 19th<\/sup> century. It’s likely that there will be more information in Scottish sources that I have been unable to access as yet.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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According to one of his obituaries, Linn “was born and bred in Greenock\u2026 He was a quiet youth … and gave little or no promise of achievement as a professional singer. His father was a clothier in the town and his family was respected<\/em> (Greenock Herald, 14 June 1890). His real name was Alexander Cumming Rutherford Crawford and he appeared under that name as a blackface comedian and clog dancer, working in a double act with his brother in the early 1860s. However, apparently he found more success as a solo act and a songwriter, and the first record of him appearing as \u201cHarry Linn\u201d was at the Royal Music Hall in Leith in December 1866, when The Era<\/em> noted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mr Harry Linn is still gaining fresh laurels with his new songs which the people seem to have particular relish for, knowing that they all proceed from his own brain, and he seems untiring in his exertions to give them something new.<\/em><\/p>\nThe Era, Dec 1866<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He appeared regularly in Leith and possibly elsewhere in Scotland the next few years, establishing himself as a favourite amongst the Scottish audiences. From 1868 on he started to appear in Liverpool and elsewhere in the North, billed as \u201cScotch comic and dancer\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 1860s he was establishing himself as a songwriter, and in an age before copyright was particularly well enforced, was keen to defend his ownership of the songs he wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Era Oct 4 1868<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Through the late 1860s and early 1870s he appeared regularly in the Midlands, Scotland and the North, particularly in his home town of Greenock, in Liverpool and Tyne & Wear. In 1874 Linn left Scotland to undertake a six-month tour of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can find no record of him appearing in London in the 1860s or 70s, although intriguingly someone was using his name:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Era Aug 22 1869<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Era was the main London based newspaper for the Music Hall trade and while Linn was often mentioned in reports of the so-called \u201cprovincial theatres\u201d, it didn\u2019t reflect the high praise he received in the Scottish and northern press. This seems to be reflected in some of the letters and adverts he placed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Era July 30  1876<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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The  Era Jan 20 1878<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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The first published review of a London performance that I can find is not until 1880 – the description of his performance at The Foresters Music Hall in April 1880 seems very noncommittal, perhaps the act that went down so well in the North and Scotland didn\u2019t work so well in the capital<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Era Apr11 1880<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Linn was not the only Scottish comic who tried and failed to make an impact in London: locally successful “Scotch comics” like James Houston, WF Frame and others all failed to transfer their regional popularity to the English capital. It was not until the turn-of-the-century and Harry Lauder<\/a> that “Scotch comics” became something of a fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can find no more records of Linn appearing in London, but he seems to have gone from strength to strength in the North. In particular, contemporary writers suggested that he appealed to a working class audience, as this quote from his obituary in the Glasgow Evening Times<\/em> makes clear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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…anyone who knows the lives and surroundings of our younger Clyde mechanics can testify that in spending their 3d or 6d one or two evenings in the fortnight, they might, in a moral sense, go farther and fare worse… Harry Lynn was peculiarly fitted to please an audience of this class. He could not sing, but what of that?… His voice, if somewhat reedy, was strong enough to fill the hall. His songs were written by himself … [they]<\/em> portrayed the everyday types of humanity with which his audience were familiar, tinkered with a strong colouring of Stockwell Street and Trongate humour.<\/p>\nQuoted in Frank Bruce: Scottish Showbusiness<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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In his later years he tried his hand at management : he became proprietor and chairman of Halls in Greenock and Dumfries (Scotland), and recruited other artists to form a touring concert party which operated very successfully in the North of England and in Scotland. Whilst living in Greenock he seems to have written The Green Oak Tree<\/a><\/em>, which remains the town’s unofficial anthem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He died at the age of 44, on 19 June 1890, after completing a two-week engagement at Carlisle. The reported cause of his death was \u201cpneumonia and debility\u201d. He seems to have left his wife and family in a difficult financial situation, and Mrs Harry Linn took out several adverts in The Era in subsequent years, appealing for bar work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His songs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harry Linn’s songs tended to reflect the standard set of song types that were popular at the time, though he often gave them a specific Scottish flavour which would appeal both to his home audience and the many Scots living in the North and Midlands of England:<\/p>\n\n\n\n