Traditional folk music means many things to many
different people. However, most agree that it is the
product of the hearts and minds of ordinary people,
transmitted orally within a community and gradually
molded to fit the time. Having both place and purpose,
devoid of commercialism, traditional music is something
to perform because it has roots.
Although I'd been singing for years, including rock bands
in the 1960's, in 1970 my life changed when a great friend
and major influence Dave Williams introduced me to The Gardiner and Hammond Brothers folk song collections
from Hampshire and Dorset (via the great books by Frank Purslow), and then played me recordings of Harry Cox.
Suddenly there was a greater purpose for singing, and
access to a new method of expression. My own roots took
hold: a Hampshire son of a Hampshireman, singing unaccompanied songs collected in Hampshire, songs
from some of the villagers and townspeople who lived in
places very well known to me while growing up, and from
an area where all my family lived for generations.
This feeling for sense of place continued and was
indeed enhanced on moving in 1973 to Oxfordshire, the
home of Morris Dancing. It happened by becoming involved
with the revived village dance traditions in both Adderbury
and Kirtlington. Singing suffered in this move, as more
and more time was spent dancing. But vigorous dancing
is a young man's game and as age and hard pavements
take their toll on limbs and joints, so we revert to more
sedentary passions. On moving to the U.S.A. in 1996, the
feeling for place - old place - grew into a wish to be even
more linked to the past and home. So singing takes hold
again. This recording is an expression of where my life
has been and where it is now, its songs reflecting many
of the places and people I've been fortunate to encounter
over time. A love of these stories in song, often huge and mysterious and so connected to where they came from,
is my major motivation. Some songs are old and continue
to be old, some draw their inspiration from a time gone by,
and some have no great age at all, but are just connected
to people met or heard or lived with. I hope you enjoy them
all with me, whatever your own definition of folk music may be.