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Sleeve Notes
A Shepherd Of The Downs — Surprise, surprise! Here is a song from that little-known Sussex family, the Coppers of Rottingdean. We acquired it from a talented young Tynesider, L.J. Killen. We think that this is the most eloquent and beautiful of all the Coppers' songs, and very difficult to do justice to.
Come Ye That Fear The Lord — This is from the Folk Song Journal No. 32, 1928, which featured the folk influence in hymn tunes. The influence here is 'Sam Hall'.
Foolish, Incredibly Foolish — Heather wrote this chorus, then had to manufacture a song to go with it. She drinks grapefruit juice and rum when someone expansive is footing the bill.
Bold Benjamin-O — There must be a tremendous story behind this song — but the song doesn't tell it.
The Bold Astrologers — Royston learned this from Frank Smythe in 1963, and did nothing with it until Heather added a harmony.
St. Patrick's Breastplate — We both sang this at some of our respective schools (which total twenty). It was allegedly written by St. Patrick, the well-known English snake-hurler. The tunes are credited in 'Songs of Praise' as being ancient Irish hymn melodies. We love them.
The Cutty Wren — This dates from the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 (What Tyler?). Both of us heard it for the first time in Arnold Wesker's Play 'Chips With Everything', but separately.
Will You Miss Me? — An American traditional song, which we learned from the Pennywhistlers, seven American ladies who specialise in Eastern European material.
The Cellar Door — This is Royston's setting of a poem by John Clare (1793-1864). Clare was a Northamptonshire agricultural worker. The work he did planting the quickset hedgerows of the enclosures distressed him more than it is possible for us to know in these days when we are (rightly) bawling out the farmers who are busily removing these field boundaries with their attendant fauna and flora. Much of Clare's poetry is solemn, reflective work. The Cellar Door is an example of Clare's undoubted ability with words, and his rarely-seen sense of humour. For the sake of comparative brevity, Royston cut seven of the sixteen stanzas from Eric Robinson's edition of this poem. The whole, plus many other fine works, can be found in the Oxford University Press publication, edited by Eric Robinson and Geoffrey Summerfield, entitled 'Clare'.
Lovin' Bessie — This is a jig Royston composed for his five-year-old daughter. There was a piece for nine-year-old Rachel, but we couldn't do it on this album. Next time, love.
Chaconne in G Minor — Louis Couperin (1626 - 1661) A bit of an experiment with this piece of Baroque keyboard composition. A chaconne is a piece of music containing a ground bass with variations. For technical reasons, we recorded only two out of Couperin's three variations, and we transposed the work into E minor to accommodate the tuning of the hammered dulcimer.
Gloria Laus — This mediaeval plainchant sets a text by Bishop Theodolphus of Orleans, who died in 821 AD. We abstracted it from a Nonesuch LP of plainchant and polyphony, since we just had to sing it. There is a weak English cover version of this text in the well-known hymn 'All Glory, Laud and Honour To Thee, Redeemer King.'