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James Henry Miller, better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the instigators of the 1960s folk revival as well as for writing such songs as "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Dirty Old Town".
Robert Tannahill was a Scottish poet of labouring class origin. Known as the 'Weaver Poet', he wrote poetry in English and lyrics in Scots in the wake of Robert Burns.
William Motherwell was a Scottish poet, antiquary and journalist.
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. The tunes of most of the ballads were collected and published by Bertrand Harris Bronson in and around the 1860s.
"Farewell to Nova Scotia" is a popular folk song from Nova Scotia, Canada. It was adapted from the Scottish lament "The Soldier's Adieu" written by Robert Tannahill. It was written sometime before or during World War I and popularized in 1964 when Catherine McKinnon used it as the theme song for the Halifax-based CBC TV program, Singalong Jubilee.
Jeannie Robertson was a Scottish folk singer.
The corrido is a famous narrative metrical tale and poetry that forms a ballad. The songs are often about oppression, history, daily life for criminals, the vaquero lifestyle, and other socially relevant topics. Corridos were widely popular during the Mexican Revolution and in the Southwestern American frontier as it was also a part of the development of Tejano and New Mexico music, which later influenced Western music.
"Matty Groves", also known as "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" or "Little Musgrave", is a ballad probably originating in Northern England that describes an adulterous tryst between a young man and a noblewoman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It is listed as Child ballad number 81 and number 52 in the Roud Folk Song Index. This song exists in many textual variants and has several variant names. The song dates to at least 1613, and under the title Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is one of the Child ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child.
The Tannahill Weavers are a band which performs traditional Scottish music. Releasing their first album in 1976, they became notable for being one of the first popular bands to incorporate the sound of the Great Highland Bagpipe in an ensemble setting, and in doing so helped to change the sound of Scottish traditional music. In 2011 the band were inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame.
Murder ballads are a subgenre of the traditional ballad form dealing with a crime or a gruesome death. Their lyrics form a narrative describing the events of a murder, often including the lead-up and/or aftermath. The term refers to the content, and may be applied to traditional ballads, part of oral culture.
John Gerard "Jez" Lowe is an English folk singer-songwriter. Lowe was born and raised in County Durham, in a family with Irish roots. He is known primarily for his compositions dealing with daily life in North-East England, particularly in his hometown of Easington Colliery. He attended St Francis RC Grammar School in nearby Hartlepool and later studied languages at Sunderland Polytechnic. He performs both as a solo artist and with his backing band, The Bad Pennies. In addition to singing his songs, Lowe accompanies himself and The Bad Pennies on guitar, harmonica, cittern, and piano.
"Young Beichan", also known as "Lord Bateman", "Lord Bakeman", "Lord Baker", "Young Bicham" and "Young Bekie", is a traditional folk ballad categorised as Child ballad 53 and Roud 40. The earliest versions date from the late 18th century, but it is probably older, with clear parallels in ballads and folktales across Europe. The song was popular as a broadside ballad in the nineteenth century, and survived well into the twentieth century in the oral tradition in rural areas of most English speaking parts of the world, particularly in England, Scotland and Appalachia.
"Lady Franklin's Lament" is a traditional folk ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws and Steve Roud. The song recounts the story of a sailor who dreams about Lady Franklin speaking of the loss of her husband, Sir John Franklin, who disappeared in Baffin Bay during his 1845 expedition through the Arctic Ocean in search of the Northwest Passage sea route to the Pacific Ocean. The song first appeared as a Broadside ballad around 1850 and has since been recorded with the melody of the Irish traditional air "Cailín Óg a Stór" by numerous artists. It has been found in Ireland, in Scotland, and in some regions of Canada.
"Wild Mountain Thyme" is a Scottish/Irish folk song. The lyrics and melody are a variant of the song "The Braes of Balquhither" by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill (1774–1810) and Scottish composer Robert Archibald Smith (1780–1829), but were adapted by Belfast musician Francis McPeake (1885–1971) into "Wild Mountain Thyme" and first recorded by his family in the 1950s.
The song "All Around my Hat" is of nineteenth-century English origin. In an early version, dating from the 1820s, a Cockney costermonger vowed to be true to his fiancée, who had been sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia for theft and to mourn his loss of her by wearing green willow sprigs in his hatband for "a twelve-month and a day", the willow being a traditional symbol of mourning. The song was made famous by Steeleye Span, whose rendition may have been based on a more traditional version sung by John Langstaff, in 1975.
Alex Campbell was a Scottish folk singer. He was influential in the British folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s and was one of the first folk singers to tour the UK and Europe. His nickname was "Big Daddy," and he was known for his story-telling and singing. He was described by Colin Harper as a "melancholic, hard-travelling Glaswegian."
"I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day" is a traditional Scottish or Irish music hall song written from the point of view of a rich landowner telling the story of his day while buying drinks at a public house. According to Archie Fisher, the song is "an Irish narrative ballad that has been shortened to an Aberdeenshire drinking song".
The Calton weavers' strike of 1787 was the earliest major industrial dispute in Scottish history, when troops fired on demonstrators, killing six. The Calton weavers became Scotland's first working-class martyrs. Ultimately the strike contributed to a workers movement which achieved fundamental changes in the relationship between workforce and employers. The Calton Weavers massacre of 1787 is commemorated in a panel by Scottish artist Ken Currie in the People's Palace, Glasgow, commissioned on the 200th anniversary of the event.
Robert Archibald Smith (1780–1829) was a Scottish musical Ronantic composer, known for his collection Scotish [sic] Minstrel, which began to appear in 1821.
Transportation ballads are a genre of broadside ballads that concern the transportation of convicted criminals, originally to the American colonies and later to penal colonies in Australia. They were intended to serve as warnings of the hardships that come with conviction and thereby a deterrent against criminal behavior. Transportation ballads were published as broadsides—song sheets sold cheaply in the streets, at markets and at fairs. Many have passed into the folk tradition.
