The Singing Voice of Labour.

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 2:27 am

I have more or less grown up on that sort of stuff. My parents were dedicated to causes like the worker's movement, my father eventually ending up in both national and european parliaments.

During the 80s I listened a lot to the lps Frank Harte did with Donal Lunny. Great stuff.

For some reason he's not very wellknown outside singer's circles.

(Have the one Gaughan did with Andy Irvine, Wombat?)

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 3:00 am

Cowtime, that's quite fascinating. You should write a book about growing up in the mtns.

While not labor (labour) songs, Jean Ritchie has a couple of excellent songs about coal mining, Black Water and West Virginia Coal Mine Disaster.

I heard the Labor party in Australia dropped the "u" from Labour. Wombat?

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:08 am

Flyingcursor wrote:
While not labor (labour) songs, Jean Ritchie has a couple of excellent songs about coal mining, Black Water and West Virginia Coal Mine Disaster.

One very nice song of Rithcie's in this vein is Blue Diamond Mines. It's covered by John Doyle on his brilliant solo CD. One thing I love about Doyle and Karen Casey is that they are consciously carrying on this tradition—one in which I too am steeped. They realise that the struggles of our parents and grandparents have not been won nor have they proven irrelevant. They are as relevant now as they have ever been.

The CD I was referring to earlier is The Bonnie Pit Laddie: A Miner's Life in Music and Song by the High Level Ranters with Harry Boardman and Dick Gaughan.

While on Gaughan, just about every CD contains defiant songs championing the underdog. Even a song like Willie O'Winsbury is made to sound like a worker's song. Never have I heard a more moving line than the one in which Willie tells the king he'll marry his daughter but his lands can go to Hell. (Musically, I prefer the melody Sweeny's Men use for Willie O'Winsbury to Gaughan's slightly diifferent one but nobody does proud defiance like Gaughan. Hear Gaughan sing Crooked Jack. Phew.)

Flyingcursor wrote: I heard the Labor party in Australia dropped the "u" from Labour. Wombat?

That's interesting. I hadn't noticed.

I remember once when I'd had a drink or two and somebody told me that a particularly obnoxious colleague was a leading member of the Socialist left faction of the Labour Party in Victoria. I rolled around under the table laughing uncontrollably for a few minutes. When I surfaced I commented: at last I know what 'socialist left' means, the last socialist left years ago. A few minutes later my friends stopped giggling and dragged themselves back to the table.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:14 am

Recently, to my great delight, this came available.

http://celticgrooves.homestead.com/CG_H ... ublin.html

Frank Harte has supplied songs to anybody and everybody who singing and recording today.
The booklet is a joy , full of info and yarns...

This CD is an essential buy for anyone with an interest in Traditional song.
Trust me Folks, you need this in your collection.

You will be amazed at how many of these songs have popped up on so many well known albums recorded in the last thirty years or so.

Slan,
D.

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:17 am

jsluder wrote:I noticed it's in Real Audio format. Have they cleaned up their act, or is installing their player still equivalent to putting spyware on your machine? I've been avoiding RealPlayer for quite some time, but I'd really like to hear this!

If you are computer savy, you can use <a href="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design ... mplayer</a> to view any format (if you get it before the EU makes it illegal).

carrie · Post by **carrie** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:19 am

Cowtime, terrific stories of real courage. Thanks for sharing those.

A few years ago when I was pitching in on some organizing efforts for service workers, I was playing a lot of labor songs at home. My then 7-yr-old son got Union Maid stuck in his head--just LOVED it--and he used to want to listen to it every night during the bedtime routine, over and over and over. I'd often hear him singing it to himself as he went about his 7-yr-old business--light-sabre fighting, sprinkler running, that kind of thing. He came with me to the rallies sometimes and we talked about that stuff a lot. I think it awoke something in him that will be with him always.

Last year MarkB, btw, pointed me to another bighearted labor musician carrying on the tradition: Len Wallace.

Carol

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:20 am

Peter Laban wrote:
(Have the one Gaughan did with Andy Irvine, Wombat?)

I don't think I do have that one, Peter. Can you remember the name of it?

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:30 am

Wombat wrote:
While on Gaughan, just about every CD contains defiant songs championing the underdog. Even a song like Willie O'Winsbury is made to sound like a worker's song. Never have I heard a more moving line than the one in which Willie tells the king he'll marry his daughter but his lands can go to Hell. (Musically, I prefer the melody Sweeny's Men use for Willie O'Winsbury to Gaughan's slightly diifferent one but nobody does proud defiance like Gaughan. Hear Gaughan sing Crooked Jack. Phew.)

Bang on the money there Wombat.
Gaughan is one of the greatest exponents of political song alive today.

He could sing "Three Blind Mice" and make you wonder about the politics of the farmers wife.

a true great of our times.

Slan,
D.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:54 am

Dick Gaughan and Andy Irvine.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ce&s=music

The Dylan track is superb

Slan,
D.

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:02 am

dubhlinn wrote:Dick Gaughan and Andy Irvine.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ce&s=music

The Dylan track is superb

Slan,
D.

Thanks a lot, D. I go to Sydney in a couple of days so I'll look out for this one and for any Frank Harte I can find. He sounds like my kind of man.

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:32 am

Irvine/Gaughan's Parallel Lines is one of my favorite albums. Incredible guitar & mando/bouzouki playing. (And if only I could have Gaughan's voice...

). The "Dodger Song," a Woody Guthrie number I think, is the weakest track. The Lads of the Fair is a great song, great words, my favorite:

You can see them aa, the lads o the fair
Lads frae the Forth an the Carron water
Workin lads an lads wi gear
Lads wha'd sell ye the provost's dochter
Sodjers back frae the German wars
Peddlers up frae the border
An lassies wi an eye for mair than the kye
At the trysting fair at Falkirk.

and the last verse:

The wark o the weaver's over
Likewise the days o the drover
An the ploughboy sits on a tractor nou
Too high to see the clover
The warkin's no sae steady,
But the lads are aye still ready
Tae drink a health tae the working man
In Falkirk toun the morn.

(by Brian McNeill)

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:56 pm

Bloomfield wrote:Irvine/Gaughan's Parallel Lines is one of my favorite albums. Incredible guitar & mando/bouzouki playing. (And if only I could have Gaughan's voice... ).

You mean after a bottle of Scotch and 80 cigarettes a day and after that Faustian compact with the devil you still can't sing like Dick Gaughan?

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 11:21 am

Wombat wrote:
Bloomfield wrote:Irvine/Gaughan's Parallel Lines is one of my favorite albums. Incredible guitar & mando/bouzouki playing. (And if only I could have Gaughan's voice... ).
You mean after a bottle of Scotch and 80 cigarettes a day and after that Faustian compact with the devil you still can't sing like Dick Gaughan?

Oh.

And here I've been doing a cigarette and eighty bottles of scotch a day... while that may not have been the devil after all, but my landlady; I can't be sure.

jsluder · Post by **jsluder** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 11:55 am

Wombat wrote:... that Faustian compact with the devil ...

My favorite quote from the old Robin of Sherwood TV series: "Contracts with the devil aren't legally binding." -- Friar Tuck

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:13 pm

"Would you boys happen to know Dick Gaughans version of Pancho and Lefty?"

Slan,
D.