Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival; The Lives, Song Traditions and Legacies of Sam Larner and Harry Cox; Lindsay

Bruce Lindsay [+–]

Music Journalist and Social Historian

Bruce Lindsay is a freelance music journalist and social history researcher. He is the author of Shellac and Swing: A Social History of the Gramophone in Britain (Fonthill Media, 2020), Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival: The Lives, Song Traditions and Legacies of Sam Larner and Harry Cox (Equinox Publishing, 2020) and Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Sitting Room (Equinox, 2023).

Nominated for the 2021 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research

Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival is the first book to explore in depth the lives and song traditions of two of the most influential English traditional singers: Sam Larner and Harry Cox.

Larner and Cox were born in late nineteenth-century Norfolk, within six years and fifteen miles of each other. Both men grew up in large working-class families, started work before their teens, spent their working lives in hard manual labour — Larner as a trawlerman, Cox as a farm labourer — and lived into their eighties. Both men were singers from an early age, amassed large repertoires of songs that are now established in the traditional canon, and became key figures in the “folk revival” of the 1950s and 1960s. They directly influenced performers such as Martin Carthy, Shirley Collins, Peggy Seeger, Young Tradition, and Steeleye Span, while indirectly influencing Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. Their impact extends to the current generation of performers and composers in the folk, Americana, and singer/songwriter fields, as well as to Hollywood.

Using extensive primary evidence – including recorded interviews with both men – this book provides the first detailed biographies of these great singers, placing their singing and repertoires within the social and cultural contexts in which they lived. It will appeal equally to lovers of traditional song, to social history enthusiasts, and to any reader keen to know more of the fascinating lives of two outstanding singers whose influence continues to this day.

Series: Popular Music History

Prelims

Acknowledgements [+–] vii-viii

Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival explores the lives and song traditions of two of the most influential English traditional singers: Sam Larner and Harry Cox. Using extensive primary evidence, including recorded interviews with both men, the book provides the first detailed biographies of these great singers, placing their singing and repertoires within the social and cultural contexts in which they lived. Larner and Cox were born within six years and 15 miles of each other, in late-nineteenth century Norfolk. Both men grew up in large, working-class, families, started work before their teens, spent their working lives in hard manual labour – Sam as a trawlerman, Harry as a farm labourer – married late and lived into their 80s. Crucially, both men were singers from an early age, amassed large repertoires of songs that are now established in the traditional canon and became key figures in the ‘folk revival’ of the 1950s and 60s. They directly influenced performers such as Martin Carthy, Shirley Collins, Peggy Seeger, Young Tradition and Steeleye Span, and indirectly influenced Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. Their impact extends to the current generation of performers and composers in the folk, Americana and singer/songwriter fields and even to Hollywood.

Introduction

Introduction [+–] 1-2

A brief opening chapter which will outline the book’s structure and establish the evidence for Harry Cox and Sam Larner’s importance to English song.

Chapter 1

Fields and Fishing [+–] 3-12

This chapter sets the scene of Harry and Sam’s early years by exploring life in rural and coastal Norfolk in the 1870s and 80s. It describes the county’s geography, social life, working life and culture, with a focus on the musical culture of the area. This culture encompassed singing, instruments (especially fiddle and ‘music’, the local name for a melodeon), step-dancing and jig dolls and has been described as one of the richest in England.

Chapter 2

Two Norfolk Families [+–] 13-20

The Cox and Larner families are the subjects of this chapter. Both Harry and Sam acknowledged the influence of their large extended families on their early exposure to songs and singing. Using census and parish records, three generations of Cox and Larner family members are discussed, illuminating the environments in which Harry and Sam spent their formative years.

Chapter 3

First Work, First Songs [+–] 21-37

This chapter discusses Harry and Sam’s adolescence and early adulthood, as they moved from school to work and began to extend their activities as singers (and, in Harry’s case, as a fiddler, melodeon player and jig-doll maker), from the home to public spaces including public houses. By the age of 12 both boys were employed. Harry remained in east Norfolk, Sam (nicknamed ‘Funky’ by this time) joined the Yarmouth fishing fleet and spent most of his time at sea.

Chapter 4

The First Folk Revival [+–] 38-43

The first folk revival took place around the turn of the twentieth century, when collectors such as Cecil Sharp, Percy Grainger and Lucy Broadwood took to their bicycles to travel around the English countryside gathering songs and tunes from what they perceived to be a dying culture. This chapter briefly discusses the revival in broad terms before concentrating on folk song collection in Norfolk – where Kate Lee and Ralph Vaughan Williams were collecting around 1900. Neither Harry or Sam came to the collectors’ attention in the revival’s first years, but other Norfolk singers proved to be a fruitful source of music and song.

Chapter 5

A World Turned Upside Down [+–] 44-51

This chapter discusses World War One’s impact on Norfolk, especially on Harry and Sam’s families and their communities (the death toll in Harry’s home village of Catfield was twice the national average). Harry joined the Royal Navy, Sam became a Royal Navy reservist and both saw active service – this book will be the first to consider the impact of this service on their post-war lives and approach to singing. Life returned to normal following the Armistice and by 1925 both Harry and Sam were married – Harry would become a father, Sam and his wife, Dorcas, remained childless. Radio brought new entertainment opportunities – and new threats to the popularity of singers like Harry and Sam.

Chapter 6

Mr Moeran Comes Collecting [+–] 52-61

In the early twentieth century, composer and collector Ernest Moeran travelled around Norfolk gathering songs from local singers. He collected songs from Sam Larner’s uncle, James Larpin, in Winterton during 1915 and collected two songs and one tune from Harry Cox at Potter Heigham in 1921. This was the first time Harry’s repertoire came to the attention of scholars and established him as a talented source of ‘traditional’ music. Sam did not come to Moeran’s notice, probably because he was at sea, but he continued to sing – “… in every port in the British Isles …” he claimed.

Chapter 7

Harry Finds Fame [+–] 62-73

Commercial folk music recordings began in 1908, when Lincolnshire farm steward Joseph Taylor recorded a dozen songs for the Gramophone Company at its London studio. They were a commercial failure and recording continued for research and study only. A decade after EJ Moeran published the songs he collected from Harry, the farm labourer made his first commercial recordings, travelling to London to record for the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) at the Decca studios. In the late 1940s Moeran again recorded him, this time for the BBC and in the company of some of his Norfolk friends and fellow singers. Harry achieved a small degree of fame, but remained in Norfolk, singing for pleasure.

Chapter 8

Building the Repertoire [+–] 74-89

Three questions have troubled students of English rural singing for decades: where did rural singers get their songs from, how did they choose which songs they kept in their repertoires and to what extent did they alter words or tunes to suit their own styles? This chapter considers these questions with regard to Harry and Sam. Harry’s repertoire extended to at least 125 songs, Sam’s repertoire was over 65. Both men acknowledged a variety of sources – family, friends, fellow workers, other singers and written material such as broadsides – and in this chapter the relative importance of each source is discussed.

Chapter 9

“All We Had for Entertainment” [+–] 90-102

This chapter’s title comes from Sam Larner, who talked of the limited chances for fun that were available in the villages of Norfolk while emphasising the key role of song in the local social life. What is unclear, however, is exactly how singing fitted into the leisure time of rural workers. Harry and Sam’s singing activity took place in four spheres of activity. In this chapter, three of them are discussed: private (when alone), personal (in the presence of family and close friends only) and public (informal gatherings at work, or in the pub or perhaps at a village fete or festival).

Chapter 10

Sam is “Discovered” [+–] 103-122

Harry was known to ‘outsiders’ – people who were not part of his local community – from the 1920s, despite continuing to live and work in rural Norfolk. Sam’s moment of fame came much later, when he was in his late 70s. Sam retired from fishing in his mid-50s, due to ill-health, lived quietly in Winterton working at odd jobs until he reached pension age and eventually came to the attention of a BBC producer in 1956. His voice was still strong and his personality and extrovert performing style quickly made him popular. This chapter explores Sam’s emergence as an important rural singer, through his meetings with Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger and Charles Parker, who recorded him over a three-year period. Sam was the key inspiration for “Singing the Fishing,” one of MacColl and Parker’s famous Radio Ballads which featured him as a singer and narrator. MacColl based one of his best-known songs, Shoals of Herring, on Sam’s stories.

Chapter 11

On the Road [+–] 123-140

The second folk revival brought belated but genuine popularity for Harry and Sam, enabling them to emerge in the ‘professional’ performance sphere created by the growth of folk clubs and other folk-friendly venues. The young folk fans who came to the genre through the political and social movements of the late 1950s welcomed the two Norfolk singers into the wider community and for a few brief years they performed in London and around the country. Ewan MacColl’s Ballads and Blues club, possibly the best known of the new folk clubs, booked Harry and Sam and a visit to the club when Larner was singing changed forever the life of a young Martin Carthy. When American singers came to London, they, too, experienced the unaccompanied singing styles epitomised by Harry and Sam. BBC television came to Norfolk in 1962 to interview both men, separately, for a special programme in which they sang and told tales of their younger lives.

Chapter 12

The Road Goes on Forever? [+–] 141-158

This chapter tells of Sam and Harry’s final years. Sam Larner remained popular with folk revivalists, but he spent the last few years quietly at home in Winterton before his death in 1965. Harry lived until 1971: often critical of ‘modern’ songs, he would nevertheless join in with one or two pop hits of the time and the advent of portable tape recorders meant that he was regularly visited by fans eager to make their own recordings of this influential singer. Both men are regularly cited as key influences on the second folk revival and on the singers and musicians who emerged in the 1960s and later: this closing chapter appraises the men’s lives and posthumous impact, which has extended as far as Hollywood.

End Matter

Notes [+–] 159-176

Selected Discography [+–] 177-179

Bibliography [+–] 180-183

Index [+–] 184-195

Reviews

As someone who learned to love British traditional songs and singers back in the sixties, this book detailing the lives of two of our most influential source singers is a must. It illustrates how two such different, fine, styles of singing developed through personal, familial, generational circumstances against the broader background of the social and cultural conditions of the time. I would recommend it to any one with an interest in social history as well as traditional song.
Frankie Armstrong, singer and voice coach

Books on folk music usually concentrate on the repertoire – the songs themselves, and where they came from and how they are constructed – but Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival breaks the mould and puts the singers centre stage. Harry Cox and Sam Larner, arguably the best of the singers recorded in the post-War period, led different but equally interesting lives, and both had important things to tell us about their songs and the way they sang. This book is not only a fascinating read, and a social history of ordinary Norfolk working people, but also a major contribution to folk song scholarship.
Steve Roud, author of Folk Song in England and compiler of the Roud Folk Song Index

As a folk singer working with songs and stories from East Anglia, I of course welcomed this celebration of Harry, Sam and our rich but often overlooked East Anglian tradition with open arms. It's more than just a window into the lives of two of the unsung heroes of the English folk Revival. Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival is the book I didn't realise I had been waiting for. A thoroughly important book, and an absolute joy.
Georgia Shackleton – ‘The Shackleton Trio’

A very readable and often fascinating source of both folk music lore and social history and while its subjects’ lives were largely based in a small part of East Anglia, its reach extends to some legendary London folk pubs and Shetland, where Sam won singing competitions while on shore leave from herring fishing. Recommended reading for anyone interested in folk song, folk singing and where folk singers got their songs from.
Rob Adams, music journalist

I enjoyed this book so much, that as soon as I finished it, I started again at the beginning: a very rare thing for me, as occasionally before now, I’ve found it hard to read a book I’m reviewing, even just the once!
The book’s blessed with footnotes that show Lindsay’s formidable research. He gets my total respect here: and for supplying a detailed index (amazing the number of biographies that skimp in this area). It’s a heady intellectual brew, but one that’s still easy reading: for he has a lovely lightness of touch, that makes the reader smile.
The Living Tradition

Author Bruce Lindsay’s extensive interviews and desk research are obvious, and the results are fascinating.
I’d say there’s much to gain from learning about the lives and the singing of both men and I’d encourage readers to turn to YouTube, search for their names and play a few tracks, order a couple of CDs and then read this book. Sam and Harry will come alive for you, and you’ll very likely think about their songs in completely new ways.
Folk London

Lindsay's book is a fascinating double biography of these singers.
Songlines

This thoughtful study of two of the finest English traditional singers ever recorded, Sam Larner (1878– 1965) and Harry Cox (1885–1971), is to be warmly welcomed. At first glance the execution of this task may seem like a straightforward matter – listen to the recordings, scan the sleeve notes, check out any filming, and see what others have written – but Bruce Lindsay has done so much more. In the tradition of the best investigative journalists, he has left no stone unturned. He has uncovered much primary source material and conducted extensive interviews, in so doing shedding new light on both men’s early years, their family backgrounds, their working lives (at sea and on the land), their singing milieux (at home, in local pubs, and at work), village life, regional and social history, their interactions with the folk revival, and more. It should be stressed that this is not just collectanea or a double mémoire, but a work of scholarship with meticulous referencing, relevant illustrative material, and full scholarly apparatus.
[Lindsay's] background in music journalism, social history, and as a former semi-professional guitarist has given him refreshingly new perspectives and a deep understanding of his subject. This is a significant contribution to our understanding of the intricate workings of vernacular singing traditions and the interaction between highly creative tradition bearers and the people who strove to pioneer the revitalization of such an art form.
Ian Russell, Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, Folk Music Journal

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Two Bold Singermen and the English Folk Revival

The Lives, Song Traditions and Legacies of Sam Larner and Harry Cox

Bruce Lindsay [+–]

Music Journalist and Social Historian

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