GLASTONBURYOFTHEMIND

JOHN T DAVIS PHOTO EXHIBITION RIVERSIDE HAMMERSMITH

A year before his death in 2005 Cyril Tawney had  spent 45 years, longer than anyone, making a living singing folk songs. Born into a naval family a significant part of Tawney’s life work was preserving the salty tongued songs that grew out of the seabound toil of the sailing class.

 But, of course, when it came to publishing said songs it was necessary to use the cleaner versions, mainstream publishers then unwilling to go the full distance into below the decks language.

The magnificent day of singarounds, performances, video and photographic  displays held in Tawney’s honour at Cecil Sharp House had a special purpose - raising funds to insure Tawney’s priceless papers and research (including the versions they tried to hide, banish from history) are properly maintained and housed in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.

The culture in which Tawney was such a central figure is increasingly resonant and potent as young musicians are, naturally, using the extensive library resources at Cecil Sharpe house to seek out the hidden glories of grand tradition, songs that can hit so directly that the eternal truth of folksong takes hold. 

That happenned when Heather Woods sang a passionate call and response with the packed hall centred The Titanic its sailing westward theme,  triumphalism followed by despair and tragedy, so closely mirroring the  current American/Allied nightmare experience in Iraq. So completely that it  sounded more like a warning from history, collectively transmitted, than a mere “metaphor”.

With the great Martin Carthy (later to grace the stage with a rare outing of his arrangement of Scarborough Fair - y’know the one “copyrighted” by Paul Simon) standing right behind me at the back of the hall my first experience at Cecil Sharp was  a surreal 3 dimensional meta reality treat.

Carthy joined in making low, in tune, vocal noises, stretching the line, adding contrapuntal effects. Just the natural sort of infectious sharing  that is, I guess, part and parcel of the folk experience. Humming , vibrating the larynx, but what was it - it sounded like the English equivalent of scat, yodelling or the Irish “diddling”. 

Was there an English  word that defines this vocalese that occurs when words have been transcended? 

Carthy is a patient and thoughtful man, a living resource who sifted through his knowledge when I asked him for The Word.

 ”In the Gypsy tradition there’s a thing call tuning, there’s hollering - but thats something different ..no, ” he decided, “I guess its just called singing.”

Sometimes words are more than enough - the great flinty realism of Shep Wooley’s hard luck blues “If I fell in a cart/Of ladies parts/I’d come out sucking my thumb” Or when Wood “sang goodbye to the careless men/and turned to the barroom wall”. In such a moment you could feel a whole history, a collective voice, life force, ist world war victims,, drugged wild childs, people who went, lost up against that wall, rise up and make its mark. The Woods performance had the substantiation of a Gospel as much as folk performance - an acknowledgement that these too did pass.

The great N Irish film maker John T Davis is engaged currently on a similiar project - preserving the all too easily forgotten. At the excellent photo display culled from his work on his movie Hobo and a  Van Morrison Arena documentary - shots of Dylan and Van at the Acropolis, Van and John Lee Hooker on the Bayou, 20 miles outside of N’awlins down Highway 51  - Davis spoke of his next project, already underway the story of the WW2 in Belfast.

This involves talking to 80/90 year old survivors to get the tale of the personal cost of the devastation that rocked the city tween 1939 - 45.

What is amazing is that no one has done it until now. Davis, whose Shellshock Rock N Ireland punk documentary remains a prophetic film, is just the man for the job. I hope he uncovers some Belfast Wartime songs on his journey too.

Come to think of …where’s the McPeake Family documentary when you want to see it, eh?