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[Jesse Smith]

I wanted to share an old collection of tunes and songs that I found online. I was searching for the original source of a tune in "John Kirkpatrick's English Choice" tunebook, a waltz named "Bonnets So Blue" that is very different from the usual jig. The other day I finally found a reference to this collection published in 1911 by Alice E Gillington. Seeing the original doesn't really shed any light on why it shares the name with the Morris tune, but at least now I know that it was collected as a Romani/Gypsy dance in Hampshire. There are a few other songs in this book that I have heard on various folk revival recordings as well (e.g., "Green Grow the Laurels").

Anyway, I hope some of you find this interesting/useful:

Songs of the Open Road

[Tone Dumb Greg]

Thanks for that. These little gems keep turning up.

[Jesse Smith]

Yes, I find it interesting to go back to the original sources, not just for some historic context but also to see how the tunes have been "melodeonised" or simply altered over years of session playing. Sometimes I've gone back to Playford or his contemporaries and found interesting differences from the widely known modern versions. "The Happy Clown" and "Prince William" are two recent examples that come to mind.

(In the case of "Bonnets So Blue" however, John Kirkpatrick's published version in his tunebook is identical to the one collected in 1911, even down to the key it's played in.)

[Tone Dumb Greg]

... Sometimes I've gone back to Playford or his contemporaries and found interesting differences from the widely known modern versions....

(In the case of "Bonnets So Blue" however, John Kirkpatrick's published version in his tunebook is identical to the one collected in 1911, even down to the key it's played in.)

Sounds like John's setting is either a direct or second hand copy of the setting in SOTOR.
Are you aware that, in the time of Playford's publications, musicians were judged on their ability to play variations (I think they were known as divisions), so the tunes would not, normally, be played as they appear on the page, by any except beginners.

[Roger Hare]

The last tune in the book Fish and Taters (p.46) is used by Manchester Morris in one of their
North-West dances - I must ask our archivist where we got it from... [Aside: Bar 3 is misprinted?
The last two notes should be quavers, not crotchets?]

Songs of the Open Road is listed in the Bibliography in Folk Song in England by A.L. Lloyd.

Also in t'other Folk Song in England by Steve Roud, where there is a short potted biography
(pp. 645-646), of Alice Gillington, and a short mention on p. 45.

Somewhat tangentially, Charles Parker, who produced the Radio Ballad The Travelling People
was the subject of Archive on 4 on Radio 4 on Saturday April 6:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00040r6

[Graham Spencer]

Thanks for that; I often wonder if my great-great-grandmother,who was a Boswell and travelled in the South and West Midlands, had any connection with the traveller tradition of melodeon-playing.

Graham