Shaking Out the Sheets: Dirty Linen Classics

From Dirty Linen #44, February/March 1993

by Steve Winick

Peter Bellamy
Both Sides Then
Fled'gling

Peter Bellamy
The Transports
Topic

It is often the case that an artist, be he an impressionist painter or a traditional singer, is not fully appreciated during his lifetime. Perhaps it is something basic to human society that objects limited in quantity, such as the products of a deceased artist, seem the more precious for being rare. Perhaps the death of an artist causes us to re-think his work and to see it as freshly significant. Perhaps we cannot appreciate the treasures with which we are blessed until they are taken away.

An example of just such a dear loss is that of Peter Bellamy. It is only after Peter's tragic death in September of 1991 that some of his classic recordings were re-released on Compact Disc. While we would all rather have Peter alive and singing and his records difficult to obtain, it is at least a fitting tribute to him that Topic saw fit to re-release Bellamy's classic ballad opera The Transports and that Hokey Pokey, by special arrangement with Topic, has made a CD of Both Sides Then. Both should be purchased by anyone with a serious interest in the English folksong revival.

The Transports is an opera composed by Bellamy in the idiom of traditional English folksongs. Bellamy's achievement in conceiving this great work consisted of writing songs that individually tell moving stories about interesting characters and that fit together into the larger narrative pattern of an opera. Furthermore, he was able to make those songs sound like traditional songs, in itself no small accomplishment, and to tailor them to the styles of individual singers whom he knew well. The result is truly magnificent.

The opera tells the story of Henry Cabell and Susannah Holmes, two convicts sent to Australia with the historic First Fleet. It is a gripping story, full of hope and heartbreak, hair-raising suspense and last-minute success. On this 1977 recording, it is masterfully told in song by some of the greatest voices of the English folk revival. Mike and Norma Waterson play the convicted lovers, and Bellamy, playing a street-singer, narrates the tale. One-song Cameos appear by Nic Jones, June Tabor, A.L. Lloyd, Martin Winsor, Vic Legg and Cyril Tawney. Particularly well-cast is Martin Carthy, who plays the "humane turnkey," a sympathetic prison guard whose strong sense of ethics compelled him to journey from Plymouth to London and storm the house of the Home Secretary to ensure that Henry, Susannah and their baby were allowed to remain together as a family.

The songs are accompanied by period instruments grouped in a small ensemble and arranged by Dolly Collins. The sound would fall between most people's conceptions of the "folk" and "classical" music genres--perfect, in fact, for a project halfway between a collection of ballads and an opera. Peter Bellamy's own singing is accompanied by the fiddle of Dave Swarbrick, a musician with the talent to match Bellamy's. For its sound and its story, its singers and its songs, The Transports, Melody Maker's folk album of the year for 1977, is justifibly labeled a classic.

Both Sides Then, Bellamy's 1979 recording of traditional British, Irish and American songs, is also deserving of the moniker. It proceeds from the assumption that, in Bellamy's words, "much of the traditional musics of the British Isles and the United States are but mildly differentiated flowers springing from the same branch." Thus, Bellamy's happy mixture in which Irish Ballads like "The Turfman from Ardee," "Derry Gaol," and "Young Edmund in the Lowlands," rub shoulders with English ones like "The Gallant Frigate Amphitrite," "The Shepherd of the Downs," and "Barbaree." Thus also is fully half the album made up of American songs, including the ballad "The House Carpenter." the shanty "Around Cape Horn" and spirituals like "The Lord Will Provide" and "Amazing Grace."

The most salient feature of this recording, like most of Bellamy's work, is his rich, nasal voice. Since his singing was influenced by Irish and Appalachian singers as well as by the great source singers of his home like Harry Cox and Walter Pardon, he was able to sing each song in his own unique style, simply emphasizing the American, Irish or English influences to fit the particular song. The American numbers, considered by many to be the album's best, smack of the lonesome wail of North Carolina. Bellamy's startlingly powerful vocals and his ability to break his voice at will contribute to the Appalachian flavor of these tracks, as well as to the gut-wrenching emotion of the spirituals. If you can't imagine Peter Bellamy singing "Amazing Grace," we'll understand; it must be heard to be believed.

The American sound is also helped by the accompaniment on two tracks by Bill Shute and Lisa Null. Accompanists on other songs include Dave Swarbrick, Louis Killen, The Watersons and Anthea Bellamy, not to mention Peter Bellamy himself, who plays concertina on several tracks and shows off his highly original guitar style on another. Each song is matched with a well-crafted and fitting arrangement, ranging from unaccompanied solo vocal to seven-part harmony vocals and to instrumental accompaniments featuring guitar or fiddle and concertina. Thus, in its settings as well as its material, the album is varied and interesting from beginning to end. A final thing worth mentioning is that the CD re-release contains one extra track, a wonderfully bawdy ballad called "The Maid of Australia." It also comes with all of Bellamy's original notes to the songs, plus new and more complete notes by Leslie Berman and Edward Haber and a moving biographical essay by Bellamy's friend and colleague Martin Carthy.

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