Peter Bellamy (1944-1991)

From Dirty Linen #37 December/January 1991-1992

When issue #36 of Dirty Linen went to print, there was, snuggled away in its pages, a review of Peter Bellamy's latest recorded effort, Songs an' Rummy Conjurin' Tricks [Fellside Recordings]. Little did anyone know at the time that the artist would not live to read it. In September, Peter Bellamy took his own life, and lovers of folk music are still mourning his loss.

As part of the Young Tradition, as a solo performer of traditional song, as the premier interpreter of both the repertoire of the Copper Family of Rottingdean and the poetical works of Rudyard Kipling, and as the conceptual genius behind the ballad opera The Transports, as well as other concept albums and stage shows, Bellamy proved himself to be one of the most creative and intelligent people involved in folk singing.

It's been 26 years since Bellamy dropped out of Art College to begin singing professionally. In the early days of 1965, he moved to London, and was literally a starving artist, unable to eke out the meagrest living as a singer. As the year progressed, he met up with Royston Wood and Heather Wood, and the three got a regular gig at a club whose name they would eventually adopt - The Young Tradition.

Singing traditional songs in unaccompanied threepart harmonies, the Young Tradition quickly rose to a position of prominence on the folk scene. In flamboyant costumes, with witty presentation, and with the startling power of Bellamy's voice backed by his companions, they entertained a lot of audiences. They recorded a pair of albums, gained a reputation for excellence and were still unable to make a living as performers. So, in 1969, they broke up. As Bellamy would later point out, they became important and influential, even legendary, after they had ceased to exist.

In 1970, the idea first struck Bellamy to set the poems of Kipling to music, either traditional tunes or his own. This fascination with Kipling continued until Bellamy's death, resulting in no less than five albums of Kipling songs. In addition, it earned Bellamy a lot of flak from people that he termed "dyed-in-the-wool Lefties" who would not look at Kipling in the context of his times, that is, as a relative populist among relative elitists, but only as an imperialist. To these people, Bellamy had one answer that eventually became an album title: "Rudyard Kipling Made Exceedingly Good Songs."

Also in the seventies, Bellamy composed The Transports, a ballad opera in the mold of Ewan MacColl's work, and recruited such people as Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, A.L. Lloyd, and Cyril Tawney to record it. It was released as an album in 1977 and also had several stage runs in England. Some consider The Transports his greatest achievement of all, but throughout the seventies and eighties, Bellamy was known for masterful concerts of straight traditional singing, and also for multimedia concept shows like "Keep on Kipling" and "We Have Fed Our Sea for a Thousand Years." The former was a history of England in Kipling's words, the latter a history of English seafaring, both of which used songs, monologue, and visual media. During this period, Bellamy was trying to find an audience wider than the traditional folk crowd, and so he cut back on the traditional songs in his shows.

But traditional singing was in Bellamy's blood, and the beginning of the nineties found him back to performing mostly a traditional repertoire once again, with the exuberant enthusiasm he has always been known for. His latest album captures him live, chatting energetically between numbers, sounding as happy as can be. Just what led to his tragic suicide is unknown; almost certainly, though, Bellamy felt there was a lack of appreciation for the music to which he had devoted his life. More than once he has commented on how countless performers have ditched traditional music for other forms of "folk" music. Some, he felt, did it for money, something he no doubt understood but regretted. More often, though, he expressed regret that interest in traditional song was simply on the wane, not only with audiences, but with performers as well. He, however, remained steadfast and uncompromising in his devotion to the tradition. He always acknowledged that the unwillingness or perhaps the inability to compromise had led to the demise of The Young Tradition. Perhaps, some 22 years later, it helped lead to his own.

To his friends, Bellamy will always be more than a performer. They remember a sharp mind and a quick wit, a glibness of tongue and a fondness for verbal dueling. They remember his opinions, his beliefs, his convictions. His fans will certainly remember his voice, the magnificent bleat that commanded attention and emotion, perhaps the most interesting voice in the world.

In 1975, Bellamy recorded an album of new songs. Though he was not much known as a songwriter, the words to one of them will bring tears to the eyes of anyone who knew him. They ran:

The time has come to say goodbye, I've sung my songs for you
Songs of old ways, songs of good days still ran bravely with the new
The songs that our Grandfathers sung we'll keep on singin' true
But now it's time for me to say adieu
They sung them under creaking sail, they sung them at the plough
The pattern of their lives has changed, but the leaves still deck the bough
Though all the world was sweeter then, the sweetness still rings through
But now it's time for me to say adieu.

That hand, that mind, that voice will live forever. Adieu, Peter Bellamy.

--Steve Winick

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