The Copper Family

A Living Tradition
By Chris Nickson

The Copper Family, of Rottingdean, Sussex, have a long and venerable history, able to trace their roots back in the same place to the late 1500s. For a good two hundred years, quite possibly longer, they’ve been singers, into today’s sixth generation.

Back when America was fighting for independence, Coppers were singing. They were still doing it during the American Civil War and on and on. And they have never sung professionally. They are, as paterfamilias Bob Copper (now 82 and still in good voice) pointed out, “taproom singers,” meaning that you’ll find them at their best in a pub or a bar with a couple of pints inside them.

During the late summer of 1996 they made a few appearances on the West Coast, their third visit to the U.S.. It wasn’t a singing tour per se, more a drinking vacation with a few gigs thrown in for the fun of it. Nonetheless, it gave Dirty Linen the opportunity to catch up with the Coppers, and discover the everyday story of country folk.

“Well, apart from the liver damage we’ve incurred, it’s been a very good holiday,” said John Copper.

“Thank God the organ can repair itself,” agreed Jon Dudley, husband to Jill, who’s the brother of John. Jill and John are Bob’s children. Got that? Good; there’s a test at the end.

But first, a little history...

“Back in the 30s,” Bob recalled, “when I was 15 or 16, people would say, ‘Young Copper, in’t it? Come up ’ere and give us a song.’ The family was renowned for the singing. I can always remember my granddad singing, but he can remember his granddad singing. That man was George Copper, born in Rottingdean in 1794. For any harvest suppers, plowing matches, or any village celebration, they’d ask us. I remember her doing it. They both started work as shepherd boys. My grandfather, James, who was known as ‘Brasser,’ with typical Sussex wit, was a lovely, dignified character in his old age. He had a deep bass voice. He commanded a lot of respect in the village because he ended up a bailiff on a farm which employed most of the people in the village. They used to sing these songs, and they took them very seriously. They might have been three parts cut when they sang ’em, but they took them seriously.”

They were discovered by Kate Lee, a London woman visiting the area, who had an abiding interest in the folk song of England. She invited the brothers up to the big house, where she was a guest, put a bottle of whiskey on the table, and once they were well oiled, got them singing the songs they knew so well.

“It was pure chance,” John continued. “She heard of these buggers who sang, and she was interested in the English tradition, and it was largely as a result of her enthusiasm when she took the songs back to London that they formed the English Folk Song Society (the Dance part came later). The old boys were made honorary members, and forgot all about it.”

But they didn’t forget about singing.

“They it passed to my father and his brother,” Bob said, picking up the tale. “They were two of Brasser’s sons. And then it came down to Uncle John’s son, my cousin Ron, and me, and the four of us sang. We’d go round to celebrations and end up singing in the beer tents.”

And it seemed as if it would remain a family pastime, something local and rural, for another half century. “Then, in 1950, Dad and I did the first broadcast,” said Bob. “We don’t say it started the folk revival, but it did play an important part. It was August, 1950. We were the first people to sing on BBC radio unaccompanied and not be professional singers. We’re boozer singers. The recording got back to BBC House in London, and Brian George, who was chief of programming operations — an Irishman who knew the tradition was alive in Ireland but thought it was dead in England — was amazed to hear this. Of course, traditional singing was going on in England; he just hadn’t found it. He came down to meet Dad and me, then he decided to send people out in the field with recording gear all over the country and compiled a selection of song. To justify the expense, he decided to put on programs of selections. And it’s important to draw attention to the fact that listening figures for any radio program in those days could be between 12 and 13 million. We were on ‘Country Magazine,’ which came on Sunday lunchtime after the news, so a lot of people heard us involuntarily while they were eating.”

From there the Coppers’ star continued to rise. Even if they weren’t directly responsible for the folk revival of the 50s, their influence on it was immense.

“Shirley Collins...” Bob remembered. “She was a schoolgirl when I first met her. A schoolgirl in Hastings, in Sussex. She wanted to get into the folk scene, which we’d managed to stay out of...”

“They wouldn’t have us, would they?” said Jon.

“Then the Young Tradition shook it about and made it their own. But they were absolutely scrupulous in crediting their sources, which only shows respect to things that had gone before,” John added.

Their ‘fame,’ such as it was, even extended to the colonies, as Bob discovered.

“We were absolutely amazed on our first trip over, two years ago, that so many people knew our songs. People were coming out with books I’d published in the 70s (Bob has authored several books), saying they’d waited twenty years to have me sign them. But there were people like Louis Killen and [the late] Peter Bellamy, who’d come over and sung the songs, and who always gave us full credit. They did the groundwork.”

What makes the Copper family so special — and so marvelous — isn’t the fact that they’re folksingers. It’s the songs. The family themselves are the vehicle for this wonderful long tradition of singing for its own sake. As John pointed out, they’re a “living museum piece.”

“It’d be wonderful if Bob’s father could be made aware of how far the songs have traveled,” he continued, “and how enthusiastic everyone is about them so far away from Rottingdean. It’s a real thrill for us that people know our songs well enough to join in. In some cases they sing very well indeed, much better than we do. We always say we can’t do any better than we do. What you’re getting is the real thing. It’s the source, if you like. Bob is a living link with all those old chaps.”

“We do have this wonderful heritage of songs that have been handed down,” Jill agreed. “It’s a tremendous privilege to be born into this family, really.”

“My grandfather and men of that generation sang these songs in the ordinary course of life,” said Bob. “But it’s the social history of country people. Dad became conscious in later life that there was a danger of the songs dying out and he kept them alive. He didn’t force them down our throats. He went to great lengths to write them out, and the new songbook is based on that. It’s very dog-eared now. It was our bible. We used to take it everywhere with us.”

That new songbook is The Copper Family Songbook, which collects 65 of their songs, melodies, words, reminiscences by the members, and drawings by Bob. They use it onstage, too. The music remains much as it must have been in Brasser’s day. “Bob got some good advice from a man called Jack Dylan, who was a producer at the BBC, in the 50s,” recalled John. “At the time Bob was interested in guitar playing, Josh White, Burl Ives style. He got quite proficient, but never used it with our music. Jack said, ‘Whatever you do, boy, don’t try and tart those songs up. Because if you do, you’re in an area where there are people who can do it a lot better than you, and you’ll be out of your depth. If you just sing them the way they were always sung by the old boys, you’ll have something unique.’ And that was instilled into us at a very early age. The songs have a looseness and a character of form that almost every other kind of music lacks.

“And now we’ve grown older, we’ve realized the wisdom of keeping the songs exactly as they are, because they’re a bit of a museum piece, and an authentic repertoire that spans the generations. You hear more or less what was heard a hundred years ago. It’s a living tradition, but it is a tradition first.”

But being a living tradition, it’s not covered in dust, as Bob explained. “Every generation adds its little bit. One thing we consciously did with Ron, Dad and me was speed it up a bit. When we sang at home it was for the joy of singing; nobody was listening, everyone was singing. But if you’ve got a captive audience, you want to move them along a bit.”

“At the same time you have to hold on to those lovely harmonies,” Jill pointed out. “There’s no one beating the drum in our performances, so they meld into the number of voices that are singing. That’s the whole point; it’s a party to sing. We had some marvelous responses in Boston. The place was packed, and they were all so au fait with the repertoire. They all joined in with the choruses, and they formed a huge queue in the middle of the evening to touch Bob’s arm.”

“People who saw me or bought records from the Fifties are amazed I’m still alive!” he laughed.

They’re the family that plays — or at least sings — together. And stays together. These days they all live in a sixty yard radius of each other, still in Sussex. In fact, it’s hard to imagine them existing anywhere else. But it almost happened, as Bob remembered.

“We nearly moved to Vancouver once, in 1954 or 55. We got all the papers, ready to leave. And instead we went to Hampshire. I was collecting for the BBC, and I found this pub in Hampshire, and we decided to take that instead. So we did go west, but not quite as far.”

And what’s to come for the Coppers? Well, the tradition isn’t about to die out, that’s for sure. “The kids are all taking an interest,” said John. “I have three, Jill has three. But we haven’t done much performing in public with them; they’re all at that adolescent, nervous stage, and we didn’t want to put them off. We’re leaving it to take its natural course. Jill’s youngest and my oldest are very close, and both musically inclined, so we think they’re the ones most likely to be carrying the flag forward. But we’re not going to thrust it down their throats. Our dad showed us the fun you could have doing this, the way you could travel and meet people and go to interesting places.”