Social Dancing

Three interesting and related encounters around dance, tradition and the folk process. A few years ago a call from Nick Wall at Cecil Sharp House sent me across town  to collect a collection of folkdance and tune 78s from a house clearance. They were owned by a local dance caller called Alan Rumbles.  Our pal Bob Spencer in Barrow has just done some sterling work work on greasing and springing the REVERB wind-up gram, and I've digitised them for Gordon Jones at Furness Tradition and digging into the history of the sessions with the help of the Vaughan Williams library.  They put me onto Sean Goddard at the University of Sussex who is doing a PHD on the role of recording and print media in the dispersal and popularisation of traditional dance music. Me and Gordon  had a really interesting zoom chat with Sean, who knew the and the plan is to build a radio show. The missing link here is Mr Rumbles, of whom we know almost 0. Yet.

There had been an assumption that the tradition was dying, and that the first recordists and transcribers were catching the last breath of something. But these records, by Douglas Kennedy and others, did something else. Sean talked about the impact of these 1920s/30s recordings, how they helped to popularise English dance music. He told us how the recordings were made at Maida Vale and Abbey Road, using the studio's pool of musicians alongside others from Kennedy's circle, and how Kennedy- who we'd now call the Producer - would dance around the room while the musicians played, so that they got the tempo, and that we might hear him on a couple of the discs (we can!)

Elements within the Sharp circle had fixed aspects of the tradition and developed a vested interest in the demonstration, teaching and licensing of what they saw as their material. Variants on their dance steps and tunes were not always "officially" recognised. Over time though such heresies become acceptable, and, rather than a corrupting or diluting influence,they can demonstrate the vigour of the tradition. One of our records features George Tremaine of Skelton, Yorkshire, on melodeon, and demonstrates the liberalising influence of Kennedy, being one of the first examples of a musician from within a local tradition recording for EFDSS and for commercial release.

Rather than a by-product of everyday life, Culture is a force in its production and evolution. This evolution requires and encourages involvement with the new; new recording and playback technologies, new people, and what they bring with them. Not everyone approves; In the 30's, there were attempts to enlist UK  folk culture and our traditionsfor grubby, ugly purposes, based around daft ideas of purity and preservation of something-or-other. It's happening again, of course. But our Folk culture is inclusive, not exclusive. Look at the mainstream and you might find Morris, Bhangra, Dub, and You'll Never Walk Alone among its  countless rushing tributaries.  

Nobody owns this process. No-one with the health of their culture at heart would seek to close off or restrict access to the public spaces where it finds its expression and its direction. No individual or establishment owns the folk process or has sole access to the energies that drive it. Those energies often thrive despite the best efforts of individuals or establishments. No one with an understanding of our history could claim the authority to shut that process down with crude, disingenuous mechanisms of their own invention.

At Ulverston Coro last week we saw Pete Morton and his Ghost Of A Sailor show..I know Pete as a great songwriter and interpreter of traditional songs, but this was something different, Pete became a kind of jukebox  full of the most popular songs from decades and centuries long ago, and all were songs  that have been absorbed by the folk process and adapted by we the people whenever we get together to sing...Nessun Dorma, Sweet Caroline, a bit of Woody Guthrie, Jerusalem, Look Back In Anger... he could include Youll Never Walk Alone and We'll Meet again...this was about folk song as the  property of the people; songs learned from wherever they turn up, from other singers, records, films, picked up by football crowds, pub singers, karaoke kings, traditional folk singers.... whoever. Not a contrivance, not a pastiche, just what we sing when we sing. That's what the folk process is...the absorption of a vast range of material into a single stream that shows us who we are.

We wanted REVERB to include something that might signpost a stage in the process, and maybe even help it along a bit. These lads are the latest arrivals, they brought these dances with them from Afghanistan. To me they look like the social folk dances you see at Furness Tradition festival or at Carnival; you dance them with your friends, they're lively and celebratory. Again, technology plays a part...the music is online, they didnt have to cart crateloads of records with them, or get them imported in the way that, say, the Windrush generation did, and when Rahim was scrolling down for tunes you see people in Afghanistan dancing in the video that goes with the tune, and then suddenly the dance is there in the room with you. It was beautiful to watch, and the lads were great company. 

One day, someone will look back at this time, and there will be exhibitions at the Dock Museum like mine that look at the music and dance that was around. Hopefully these lads and their families will be among the voices you'll hear. They'll sound a bit more Barrow than they do now, of course.

More to follow.

And some music...

George Tremain 1947

Paktiawal Mast Attan f. Rehman Kharoti

Thanks to our dancers Noorsalaam, Rahimullah, Abdulrazaq, Hamidullah, and their pal Sartoorshaman, and to Linda, Pat and Pete, and Amy at Full Of Noises for helping get this together.