Review of the talk presented by David Sutcliffe on 26th November 2023 via Zoom.
Beth Neill of Windsor Morris, editor of Morris Matters, and Honorary Life Member of the Morris Federation, writes:
“This was a talk closely linked with the launch of David’s book – I was looking forward to it, as it seems that Cecil Sharp has gone from hero to villain over the past century and so was interested in what a new researcher has found out to sway (or not) the balance.
“David had a series of well-structured slides which complemented his narrative and I found his presentation of Sharp’s life really interesting. He has trawled through newspaper archives and Sharp’s notebooks digitised in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library to unearth the material. David’s book is split into 5 main sections – pre-1903 (before he ‘discovered’ folk dance & music), folk songs, folk dance, travels in America and his later years. He is also trying to bring out the roles that Sharp himself felt were important – those of oral historian and performer (playing music and dancing).
“The first biographer of Sharp, Fox Strangways, met him in 1904 when Sharp was already in his ‘40s – but only wrote it in 1933 – while Maud Karpeles, who revised and updated his biography in 1967, had met him in 1909. It seems odd that so few other books have been written explicitly about him.
“His early interest was in folk song and the 1903 collection in Hambridge is well documented: in fact David’s first book was about Charles Marson, Sharp’s friend, who lived there. What appealed to Sharp was the sheer number of variants on a single tune he was able to collect and this number increased when he went across to America with Maud Karpeles, collecting in the Appalachians, where the ‘imported’ British songs had time to diversify even more. David presented the number of songs collected by Sharp and in this he well exceeded the efforts of Vaughan Williams, Baring Gould and George Gardiner. Sharp’s approach was fairly holistic – he aimed for photographs and biographies of the singers as well as recordings.
“By the early 1900s the association and subsequent rivalry with Mary Neal was evident. They had different approaches to their dance presentations – Neal focussing more on teaching children and forming associations with less rigorous structures, while Sharp chose adult teams and strong organisation (including founding EFDS). From dedicating their first morris book in 1907 to the Espérance Guild and the work of Florrie Warren and Mary Neal, Sharp and McIlwaine broke off their collaborative links with her at the end of the following year. Between 1907 and 1914 Sharp collected 15 ‘village’ dance traditions. David pointed out that he was about 50 years too late – many teams had by this time folded and his informants were generally old men.
“David ended up posing two questions: who (Sharp or Neal) should get the credit for the initial morris dance enthusiasm and who was the more qualified person to progress the folk revival? His personal view is that Sharp was a complex, independent and progressive individual even if some of his ideas have proved to be wrong.
“But don’t decide yet – his message is buy the book and make up your own mind. Copies (signed) can be obtained at www.cecilsharpspeople.org.uk. Also do take a look at his website – it is a source of much extra material.
by Beth Neill of Windsor Morris, editor of Morris Matters, and Honorary Life Member of the Morris Federation.
Video Recording
The video recording is now publicly available on the MF YouTube channel (55 mins):
About David Sutcliffe
For over 20 years David worked in care management in Somerset and his wife is a doctor, but they are both retired now and have grandchildren to enjoy.
The new Cecil Sharp biography is David’s second published book, the first being a biography of Rev Charles Marson, the Christian Socialist vicar of Hambridge, who worked with Sharp in their early song collecting.
The Sharp biography has been three years of intense research and writing, referring to newspaper archives, correspondence, diary entries, and any number of articles written in recent decades!
David has been a morris dancer for 30 years and a community choir director for 20 years.
Buy the book
If the talk has whetted your appetite, you can purchase a copy of his book “Cecil Sharp and the Quest for Folk Song and Dance: a new Biography”, ISBN 9781916142473, available in all good bookshops. Price £25.
You can get a signed copy via the website www.cecilsharpspeople.org.uk (£25 plus £5 P&P).
The publishers are The Ballad Partners (Steve Roud & David Atkinson) who have an introductory offer @ £20 plus P&P (www.theballadpartners.co.uk/publications).
