Tending the Flame

Abstract

This article is an edited conversation between traditional singer, collector and broadcaster Sam Lee and voice and theatre practitioner Joan Mills, who directs the CPR's international Giving Voice festival. It begins and ends with Lee's affinity with nature and a relationship with birdsong that has helped him create the innovative Singing With Nightingales events. Lee's early experiences of song and influences are discussed and, most importantly, his 'apprenticeship' with Stanley Robertson and other renowned singers of traditional British folksong from Traveller communities. The nature of innovation in performance is examined in the context of the responsibility of 'carrying the flame' of tradition as well as the almost inexplicable, magical quality evident in the singing of certain songs, which engenders a sense of their deep legacy while communicating a contemporary immediacy in performance. Lee's radical change of approach during preparations for his latest recording project is also explored as are the sources of this new work.

Notes

1 Sam is referring to the remark attributed to Gustav Mahler, ‘Tradition is not to preserve the ashes but to pass on the flame’, although the source is unknown.

2 See website for Singing with Nightingales: https://bit.ly/2uhjjKR

3 Forest School Camps (FSC) is an organization that is aimed primarily at children between the ages of six and seventeen. FSC has camps running throughout the year, the main ones lasting thirteen nights during late July and August, with one-week and weekend camps at Easter and during the spring and early summer. Being a volunteer-run organization, it relies on cultural/social bonds and enthusiasm from participants for support and staffing rather than monetary incentive. Many, though by no means all, volunteers have ‘grown up’ in the organization. FSC is designed to give children, including those who have never camped before, experiences, life skills and social skills. One part of FSC is the communal singing and sharing of traditional and contemporary songs. A camp fire is often held in the evening at which people are encouraged to sing. FSC songbooks are also printed every few years; these contain some of the more common songs sung on camps.

4 Stanley Robertson was a Scottish story teller and ballad singer, born in June 1940 into a traveller family in Aberdeen, where the family had settled. His family background was rich in tradition, and from his aunt, folk singer Jeannie Robertson, he inherited a huge repertoire of north-east ballads. He was the keyworker for the Heritage Lottery funded ‘Oral and Cultural Traditions of Scottish Travellers’ project, from April 2002 until April 2005. Later in his life he made Sam Lee the inheritor of his songs just as he had carried the legacy from his Aunt Jeannie. He died in 2009. See https://bit.ly/2HGJXVm and Reith (2008).

5 Hamlet Gonashvili (1928–1985), originally from Eastern Georgia, was a singer renowned for the beautiful timbre of his voice. He sang with the Rustavi choir from 1970 until the end of his life. He was considered by many as ‘the Voice of Georgia’, the best interpreter of songs of Kartli and Kakheti, and an outstanding and influential teacher and performer, despite having no formal musical training. The recording Sam refers to is most probably of Orovela.

6 The film installation, The Gainsborough Packet created by Matt Stokes, can be viewed at: https://bit.ly/2YbnmGr

7 Born in Paris into a poor family, Yvette Guilbert began singing as a child. At age sixteen she worked as a model in Paris where her talent as a performer was discovered by a journalist. She then took acting and diction lessons, which in 1886 enabled her to appear on stage at several smaller venues. Guilbert debuted at the Variette Theatre in 1888. She eventually sang at the popular Eldorado Club, then at the Jardin de Paris before headlining at the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre 1890. For her act, she was usually dressed in bright yellow with long black gloves and stood almost perfectly still, gesturing with her long arms as she sang. She was noted in France, England and the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century for her songs and imitations of the common people of France. Sigmund Freud attended performances, including one in Vienna, and counted her among his favourite singers. Guilbert became a respected authority on her country’s medieval folklore; in 1932 she was awarded the Legion of Honour as the Ambassadress of French Song. Guilbert died in 1944.

8 Frankie Armstrong was deeply involved with the British folk song revival of the early 1960s and studied, performed and recorded with leading figures of the folk revival such as Ewan MacColl, Bert Lloyd and Peggy Seeger. She has a wide repertoire of British songs and ballads, which, along with contemporary British songs, still form the basis of her musical vocabulary, including rural, industrial, music hall and contemporary songs –her own and those of other songwriters such as Sandra Kerr, Leon Rosselson and Bertolt Brecht. She has taught and performed throughout the world and is the founder of the Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network.

9 The documentary programmes Sam is referring to are two editions of The Song Hunters series on BBC Radio 4 that Sam presented. You can hear these at https://bbc.in/2Og4Wzx

10 ProfessorJohn Hall was the Head of Performance Writing at Dartington College of Arts and then at Falmouth University. His research has included an examination of how poetry is performed.

11 Inua Ellams is a UK-based poet, playwright and performer with Nigerian roots, whose live performances are highly regarded.

12 Natalia Polovynka is a Ukrainian singer, actress and teacher and author of musical and music-related theatre projects. She is particularly focused on old Ukrainian spiritual music, folk songs and ballads but also contemporary compositions and improvised music. She is artistic leader of Maisternia Pisni. See https://bit.ly/2FmWhIS

13 The ensemble Mtiebi was formed in 1980 by scholar, performer and ethnomusicologist Edisher Garakanidze (1957–1998), as a reaction to the increasing modernization of the performance practices of Georgian traditional music and in order to reconstruct the traditional performance practice of Georgian villagers. Garakanidze did not organize the ensemble from seasoned singers of Georgian traditional songs. Instead he taught Georgian songs to his friends. Mtiebi members often visited villages and participated in village traditional celebrations. Despite their closeness to the village performance practices, Mtiebi did not try to emulate villagers and for a long time they performed without traditional clothes.

14 ‘If an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi’ (Juniper 2003). ‘Wabi-sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect’ (Powell 2004).

15 ‘The Mysie, which can “mak yer hair stand on end” … is a tangible force, a gift, rather like the mantle of the storyteller, which bestows itself upon the sincere performer, at times adopting the human and elemental qualities of a deity-like being. An experience of The Mysie spells a heightening of individual and collective thought, in performance, the creation of a conjoining “atmosphere”. Stanley [Robertson, see below] describes this as “feeling shivers down your spine” … and, reflecting his own deep religious faith, as an appearance that signifies the presence of God. Its ancient power is such that Stanley says, “When ye’ve got that nobody can take it away frae ye” … a tradition bearer becomes part of a dialogue with eternity’ (Reith 2008).

16 Duende is a Spanish term for a heightened state of emotion, expression and authenticity, often connected with flamenco.

17 Hiraeth is a Welsh word that is somewhat difficult to describe in English: it is suggestive of a deep homesickness, yearning and longing.