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HARRY COX

Part Three of a five-part set of linked reviews of traditonal folk song concerning source singers and the folk revival. Click here for Introduction.

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The Bonny Labouring Boy
2000
2CD
Topic Records
TSCD512D

Containing over two hours of previously unissued recordings, this double-CD features songs and tunes - on fiddle and melodeon - from the Norfolk farm worker, Harry Cox (1885-1971).

The rustic English idiom is a long way from Ireland, but with its wavering notes and a meandering rhythm which coils and uncoils without the restraint of percussion, I find in Harry Cox's singing style some justification for a more melismatic approach to English folk singing.

Harry was born in Barton Turf near Great Yarmouth and was a veritable juke box of old songs including broadside ballads like 'The Female Drummer', 'Two Jolly Butchers' and 'Betsy the Serving Maid, Child ballads like 'Bold Archer' and 'Georgie' ('Geordie'), and comical ditties like 'I had an old Hoss' and 'A Happy Family'. The popular 'Irish' folk song, 'The Black Velvet Band' was also a Harry Cox first, and Steve Roud's notes tell us that the earliest versions of this song were not set in Belfast at all, but in Barking in Essex, England. Roud also dispels the Gnostic Christian claims made by Lucy Broadwood for the 'Bold Fisherman'. Three songs on this album are unique to Harry Cox: 'Firelock Stile', 'The Good Luck Ship', and the 'Barton Broad Ditty'. My personal favourites are 'The Fowler' ('Molly Bawn') with its haunting melody, and 'The Transports' which is closely related to 'Van Diemen's Land'.

The survival of these beautiful modal tunes in a general musical environment so wholly dominated by the modern musical scales, is quite surprising. But Harry was not only one of the last links with the tradition of oral transmission but with pre-industrial England and its culture.

Rik - 5 July 2001

TOPIC RECORDS
http://www.topicrecords.co.uk

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