MY LIST OF PARTICULARLY INTERESTING PETER HALL RECORDINGS

[[I have added recordings of some of them]

Alex Shand – A Nobleman Lived In A Mansion. Virtue protected is rewarded.

Arthur Lochead – Why Did My Master Sell Me? and The Greenock Railway. Pathos supporting the Abolition movement, and 'engine boiler water tight'. Both lyrics are in online broadsheets.

Bob Cooney – Street songs. With several 'I love a' Co-op verses

Charlie Murray – The Marque Dance At Benshee. A politer variant of the bawdy Ball Of Kirriemuir theme.

Daisy Chapman – Go And Leave Me. A version of the 1st verse text is the chorus of a US song, Columbus Stockage, recorded by Woody Guthrie and others in the 1940s.

Danny Vass – Ching-a-ling-a-ling. Courting song, music hall?

Davy Stewart – Auld Dicky Melvin. 'We'll sing tae the bottle, mair ale'.

Duncan Williamson – No Beggars Here. A poor quality recording, the song possibly made by Duncan himself. [to be checked]

George Davidson – Come Weel Come Woe. A song of courting?

George MacRobbie – Salveson Song discussion. A fragment of a song about working in the Scotland-based whale industry [in South Georgia or other factory island].

Helen Fullarton – Campbeltown Once More. A reminder that the song The Holy Ground popularised by the Clancy Brothers is just one version of the song.

Jimmy Brown – The Honest Workin Man. A much more ornate lyric on the theme was made by Marie Joussaye [check for shared lines!].

Jimmy MacBeath – Flowers Of Edinburgh (cheek slapping) / Ye Canna Put It On Tae Sandy. A couple of gems from the Portsoy born road-tramper who became one of the stars of the Folk Revival.

John Adams – Leave Aff Herdin The Kye

John Stewart – My Courtin Coat. A night visiting song featuring what seems a garment reserved for the purpose.

Lizzie Higgins – Up And Awa Wi The Laverock. One of the finest tradition bearers of Aberdeen sings a song composed by the young Duntocher revival singer Andy Hunter.

Lizzie May Hutchinson – The Lions Den. A widely sung ballad in the UK and USA.

Lottie Buchan – A Freen O Mine Cam Here Yestreen. The ballad My Wife Has Taen The Gee

Maggie MacPhee – Alec & Belle. In honour of the Patriarchs of the Stewarts of Blair

Mary Brooksbank – We Are Out For Higher Wages / The Lassie Wi The Pink Felt Hat.

Mrs Home – The Hillochie Railway Porter. Music hall song? Great lyrics.

Norman Kennedy - Kishmul's Galley. Gaelic waulking song, this is the original that was worked over by Kennedy Fraser.

Robin Hutchison – Last Night I Was In A Granzy. A Cant song, Davie Stewart The Galoot [not the Davy Stewart above] recorded a version for Alan Lomax.

Sandy Forbes – My Mammy Said. A kids' rhyme.

Stanley Robertson – Three Straeling Dragoons. Version of the 'night-visiting' trooper song.

Teenie Hutchison - When The Wid Comes In. One verse about wood for mill bobbins.

Willie Robertson – Willie McIntosh The Barber. Glasgow 'Patter' song.

PETER HALL'S OBITUARY IN THE HERALD

Peter Hall, folk singer and song collector, born London, June 28 1936; died Aberdeen, December 5, 1996
PETER Hall's contribution to the folk song revival in Scotland was enormous. Although born in London and raised in Newcastle, when he moved to Aberdeen to study Medicine in the 1950s he became engrossed in the ballads and songs of the North-east.
National Service (one of his favourite observations was that he was only in the Army for three years but still managed to become a Field Marshall . . . of the long jump) interrupted his medical studies, and when he returned from the Army he became a science teacher and taught latterly at Harlaw Academy in Aberdeen.
At his first teaching post in Peterhead, pupils became used to their science teacher asking if any of their family knew any songs. Acting on these leads and others supplied by Hamish Henderson at the School of Scottish Studies and other word-of-mouth contacts, Hall spent much of his spare time and the school holidays travelling round Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, and Western Ireland with a small Phillips reel-to-reel recorder, logging some 600 songs.
Among the people he recorded was the great Jeannie Robertson and, when he became a founder member of the Aberdeen Folk Club in 1962, Hall encouraged Robertson's then-reticent daughter, Lizzie Higgins, to sing in public, thereby launching a distinguished career.
As well as field recording, Hall, always keen for others to benefit from his research, got involved in publishing folk songs, initially through the Scottish folk song magazine Chapbook, of which he was musical editor from 1964 until its demise in 1969. In 1973, along with Norman Buchan MP, another tireless promoter of traditional songs, he co-edited The Scottish Folksinger, a well-thumbed ``bible'' for singers, professionals, and enthusiastic amateurs alike.
Originally an uncertificated teacher, Hall gained his BEd in 1972 and followed this with an MLit from Aberdeen University in 1985. His thesis, Folk Songs of the North-east, with particular regard to farm servants' songs of the nineteenth century, later appeared in truncated form as the introduction to Volume 111 of the massive Greig-Duncan Collection, which Hall co-edited, and when Edinburgh International Festival staged its marvellous Songs of the North-east series in 1995 Hall was a natural, and superbly well-informed, choice as consultant.
A modest man, Hall played down his own singing capabilities, but he was an engaging performer, accompanying himself on concertina, melodeon and - memorably - a table top to signify a working mill. A Bix Beiderbecke fan, during the late 1950s and early 1960s he also played cornet with the Aberdeen University Jazz Band and Sandy West's Jazz Band.
With John Cormack and Tom Spiers he formed the Gaugers (always given their Aberdonian pronunciation of ``Gougers'') in 1967 and, after several replacements for Cormack, Arthur Watson joined the definitive line-up in 1974.
Their first album, Beware the Aberdonian, released on Topic in 1976, was well-received and in 1990 they launched what was to be a themed series with The Fighting Scot. Unfortunately, after the second volume, Awa' Wi' The Rovin' Sailor, work commitments took Spiers to Argentina.
Despite their relatively rare gigs (they didn't want playing music to become simply a chore), the Gaugers made a big impression, particularly in Brittany, Belgium, and Bavaria, where Aberdeen's Twin City, Regensburg, recognising the real thing, invited them back, and back.
Tom Spiers attributes this acclaim to Hall, who provided much more than a third share of the music. ``He was a combination of enthusiasm, knowledge, generosity, and humour which made him a great companion,'' says Spiers.
Peter Hall is survived by his wife, Marian, daughter, Barbara, and son, Lindsay

Peter Hall 's exciting work as a song collector in the North-East and Ireland is little known, but as his below obituary shows he was massively influential as a collector, editor and performer.
I have been lucky enough to be given a DVD of his recordings, created by his fellow performer Tom Spiers. I share just a few tracks below.