Jim to sing songs from Bostonian’s rich canon

Jim, a founding member of the Londonderry Traditional Singing Circle, will sing at the opening concert of the ‘Man, Woman and Child’ series this Wednesday (November 26) at the Dawson Street venue.

The series, which will also feature Sandra Joyce, Grace Toland, Hammy Hamilton, Róisín Gaffney, Fergus Russell, Roisín White and Len Graham, is essentially a celebration of the Child Ballad Collection: a trove of traditional songs collected by the Bostonian Francis J. Child in England and Scotland between 1882 and 1898.

Jim explains: “Francis Child was an American and he did a lot of recordings of early ballads. Although he did no research into Ireland a lot of the ballads in his collection have travelled over here by way of the oral tradition.

“When you go into his books, he would show that with the song, ‘The Prickly Bush,’ for example, that there are so many different versions. In Finland alone there aare over 50 different versions of this song, all about a girl getting pregnant. These ballads have moved around.”

Countless variants of ‘The Prickly Bush’ have been sung and recorded down the years, not only in traditional circles but by blues and rock artists such as Lead Belly and Led Zeppelin. So although you might not think you’ve heard songs from the collection before, you probably have.

Notwithstanding this, and that many of the songs, or variants of them, are sung in the Irish tradition, no comprehensive study and performance of the ballads had been undertaken in Ireland prior to this project beginning. In each instance, a male singer was paired with a female singer, giving rise to the project title - Man, Woman (the performers) and Child (the Ballad Collection).

On Wednesday at 7pm, following a talk on the collection earlier that day, Jim and Grace Toland, will open proceedings with a rendition of five ballads each.

“I was asked would I be interested in doing five ballads of the Child collection. He collected over 300 ballads in the English language and many of a Scottish background.

“Man, woman and child is the concert name, the ‘man’ being myself, the ‘woman’ being Grace Toland and the ‘child’ being the Child ballad.

“I never thought I knew a Child ballad, but a lot of the songs were all well-known songs from around here and when I lived in Antrim I got a lot of them from around there as well,” says Jim.

One ballad on the list for Wednesday has been recorded by both Ewan McColl and local musician, Dáithí Sproule of Skara Brae and Altan fame, in the past.

“One of the songs I’m going to be doing is ‘Hughie the Graham.’ The Grahams were a family from Scotland and around the Borders who were transported over to Ulster,” says Jim.

There are numerous variants including one where Hughie’s wife is having an affair with a Bishop, the eponymous hero is hanged, and the Bishop gets rid of the opposition. Jim will be singing a version on Wednesday. Jim’s also selected an old Scottish ballad, the root of which is believed to date back to the mid 18th century at the latest.

“Another one I’m doing is Willie Winsbury. Robert Cinnamond, the great singer from County Antrim, also has a version of this, he calls it ‘John Barbour,’” he explains.

He’ll also be doing versions of the ‘False Knight,’ an old English ballad, which plays on the theme of the devil in disguise. One of these, Jim got in Buncrana.

And he’ll be singing a version of the aforementioned ‘Prickly Bush,’ which as Jim says “is about a girl who’s been pregnant, then her family disown her and her true love comes and gets her away.”

He’s looking forward to the gig: “It’s a lovely venue. We’ve been in and had a few meetings in it, so I’m looking forward to it.”

The 2014 strand began in June, when Michael invited new singers on board. Since then they have been devising four new concerts through conversations and meetings in Dublin and Wexford. Visit http://www.manwomanandchild.ie/Home.html