 |
John Roberts | |
|---|---|
 John Roberts in 2009. | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Cornell University |
| Genres | Traditional folk music |
| Instruments | Vocals, concertina, banjo |
| Years active | 1969— |
| Labels | Golden Hind Music |
| Formerly of | John Roberts and Tony Barrand, Nowell Sing We Clear |
| Website | https://johnrobertsmusic.com/ |
John Roberts (born May 5, 1944)[ citation needed ] is an English musician [1] residing in Schenectady, New York.
Born in England, Roberts moved to the United States to study graduate level psychology at Cornell University, where he formed his longtime music partnership with Tony Barrand in 1968. [2]
He is best known for his musical collaborations with Tony Barrand. As Roberts and Barrand, they performed a cappella and accompanied performances of traditional English folk music. They also performed and recorded fare such as sea shanties of the North Atlantic, and an album of traditional drinking songs. The duo was also half of the related act Nowell Sing We Clear —which in addition to a number of albums—performs an annual yuletide concert series.
Roberts also has a solo career, is a member of the trio Ye Mariners All (with John Rockwell and Larry Young), and performs regularly with upstate New York's Broken String Band. He has 1 brother called Terry. His niece is called Elizabeth. His great niece and nephew are called Harry and Charlotte-Louise.
Sea Fever (2003) Golden Hind Music
Songs of the Sea (2003) Golden Hind Music
Ballads Long & Short (2015) Golden Hinds Music
A sea shanty, shanty, chantey, or chanty is a genre of traditional folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large merchant sailing vessels. The term shanty most accurately refers to a specific style of work song belonging to this historical repertoire. However, in recent, popular usage, the scope of its definition is sometimes expanded to admit a wider range of repertoire and characteristics, or to refer to a "maritime work song" in general.
"The First Nowell", modernised as "The First Noel" ", is a traditional English Christmas carol with Cornish origins most likely from the early modern period, although possibly earlier. It is listed as number 682 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
"Drunken Sailor", also known as "What Shall We Do with a/the Drunken Sailor?" or "Up She Rises", is a traditional English sea shanty, listed as No. 322 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It was sung aboard English sailing ships at least as early as the 1830s.
The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation for the period between the 1650s and the 1730s, when maritime piracy was a significant factor in the histories of the North Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Stanley James Hugill was a British folk music performer, artist and sea music historian, known as the "Last Working Shantyman" and described as the "20th century guardian of the tradition".
"Oh Shenandoah" is a traditional folk song, sung in the Americas, of uncertain origin, dating to the early 19th century.
"Bonny Portmore" is an Irish traditional folk song which laments the demise of Ireland's old oak forests, specifically the Great Oak of Portmore or the Portmore Ornament Tree, which fell in a windstorm in 1760 and was subsequently used for shipbuilding and other purposes.
"(The) Leaving of Liverpool", also known as "Fare Thee Well, My Own True Love", is a folk song. Folklorists classify it as a lyrical lament and it was also used as a sea shanty, especially at the capstan. It is very well known in Britain, Ireland, and America, despite the fact that it was collected only twice, from the Americans Richard Maitland and Captain Patrick Tayluer. It was collected from both singers by William Main Doerflinger, an American folk song collector particularly associated with sea songs in New York. The song's narrator laments his long sailing trip to California and the thought of leaving his loved ones, pledging to return to her one day.
"The Sweet Trinity", also known as "The Golden Vanity" or "The Golden Willow Tree", is an English folk song or sea shanty, listed as Child Ballad 286. The first surviving version, about 1635, was "Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing In The Lowlands ".
"Spanish Ladies" is a traditional British naval song, describing a voyage from Spain to the Downs from the viewpoint of ratings of the Royal Navy.
Anthony Grant Barrand was a British-born American folk singer and academic. He was a Professor of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University, where his courses included "Stalking the Wild Mind: The Psychology and Folklore of Extra-Sensory Perception and Psychic Phenomena", "English Ritual Dance and Drama", and "Folk Songs as Social History".
Roberts and Barrand was a musical group formed in 1969 by John Roberts and Tony Barrand while they were graduate students in psychology at Cornell University. Much of their repertoire is traditional English music, although they have also recorded albums of traditional sea shanties.
Nowell Sing We Clear is a previously four-member musical group that performs an annual yuletide concert series. They have also released a series of related albums.
Margaret Crowl MacArthur was an American singer and player of the MacArthur Harp and lap dulcimer.
"Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire" is a British war song of World War I. The song sarcastically recounts the location of various army members, not to be found in the combat zone, and concludes by describing the location of the old battalion: "hanging on the old barbed wire". A barbed wire fence separated the front-line trench from no man's land, and men brave or unfortunate enough to go over the top of the dug-out were often quickly shot and their bodies caught in the barbed wire. This troop song was not popular with officers, who thought it bad for morale, though attempts to suppress it were unsuccessful.
Tom and Chris Kastle are a maritime music performing duo based in Chicago. They first began performing maritime music in approximately 1977. In the mid-1980s they were known for running "whale watching" concert cruises on Lake Michigan on the sailing schooner Charlotte Ann.
The Mystic Seaport Sea Music Festival, held annually in June from 1979 to 2020 at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut, was among the oldest, and was the largest sea music festival in the United States. It reportedly attracted "the highest caliber of sea music performers, scholars, and fans." The Festival was first organized by Dr. Stuart M. Frank as a place to perform and hear sea music as well as a symposium for ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, and historians.
"Masters in This Hall" is a Christmas carol with words written around 1860 by the English poet and artist William Morris to an old French dance tune. The carol is moderately popular around the world but has not entered the canon of most popular carols.
The Chicago Maritime Festival is a maritime music and culture festival held in Chicago, Illinois, every winter, usually the last weekend in February, usually at the Chicago History Museum. It is not uncommon for over 500 people to participate. It has existed in its present incarnation since 2003 and is the only wintertime festival featuring maritime music in the United States. The main organizers are performers Tom & Chris Kastle.
Louisa "Lou" Jo Killen was an English folk singer from Gateshead, Tyneside, who also played the English concertina.