Bruce Olson wrote:
>
> I can't help wondering if Motherwell actually collected any ballads
> himself. He got Andrew Blaikie to note some tunes for him, but at least
> some, and maybe all of his texts were brought to him by others (as per
> F. J. Child).
>
I think it's pretty clear that he did...Bill McCarthy could certainly talk
about this; his book on Agnes Lyle, _The Ballad Matrix_, includes a few
quotes from Motherwell's notebook about some of his face-to-face collecting
experience.
Lynn Wollstadt
> [Original Message]
> From: Bruce Olson <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 4/5/01 4:55:00 PM
> Subject: Re: book announcement
>
> Luisa Del Giudice wrote:
> >
> > The University Press of Kentucky has just released Mary Ellen Brown's
> > William Motherwell's Cultural Politics. See
> > http://www.uky.edu/UniversityPress/books/motherwell.html
> >
> > William Motherwell (l979-1835) journalist, poet, man-of-letters, wit,
civil
> > servant, and outspoken conservative participated in a loose-knit
movement
> > that might be designated cultural nationalism. Interested in preserving
> > relics of the past that suggested a distinctly Scottish culture and
> > nation, he was adamantly against changes he saw as eroding Scottish
> > identity.
> >
> > Motherwell worked out his ideological stance in a variety of contexts:
he
> > founded the Paisley Magazine, collaborated with James Hogg on a
collection
> > of the works of Burns, edited the Glasgow Couriera leading Tory
newspaper,
> > served as Sheriff Clerk Depute of Renfrewshire, wrote poetry and essays
> > for the expanding periodical press, and edited and collected vernacular
> > literature. His l827 edition of ballads, Minstrelsy: Ancient and
Modern,
> > offered views on authenticity, editorial practice, the nature of oral
> > transmission, and the importance of performance which anticipated much
> > later scholarly discourse.
> >
> > W.F.H. Nicolaisen says the study is "a must for all ballad scholars.
The
> > depth, height, and breadth of this study comes as a real eye-opener.
This
> > is ballad scholarship at its best."
> >
> > Price $39.95, plus postage.
> >
> > Luisa Del Giudice, Director
> > I.O.H.I.
> > Italian Oral History Institute
> > P.O. Box 241553
> > Los Angeles, CA 90024-1553
> >
> > Tel: (310) 474-1698
> > Fax: (310) 474-3188
> > E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> > www.iohi.org
>
>
> Presumeably his Burns scholarship was later, because his version of
> "Lang a growin" in 'Minstrelsy' is Burns revision and extention of a
> 2 verse fragment from David Herd (Hecht's 'Herd', XXXIX expanded to
> Burns' "Lady Mary Ann" in the Scots Musical Museum, #372, 1792)
>
> I can't help wondering if Motherwell actually collected any ballads
> himself. He got Andrew Blaikie to note some tunes for him, but at least
> some, and maybe all of his texts were brought to him by others (as per
> F. J. Child).
>
> PS: My copy of the Paisley Magazine, 1828, has MS attributions of all
> pieces in it. [Motherwell held 2 of the 21 shares of the joint stock
> company that issued the magazine.]
>
> Stan Hugill's 'Shanties from the Seven Seas', p. 7, quotes from
> 'Landsman Hay', The Memoirs of Robert Hay, 1953. Robert Hay also held 2
> shares, and his 'biography' was printed in the series entitled 'Sam
> Spritsail' in The Paisley Magazine, 125 years earlier.
>
> Bruce Olson
>
> Old English, Irish and, Scots: popular songs, tunes, broadside
> ballads at my website (no advs-spam, etc)- www.erols.com/olsonw
> or click below <A href="http://www.erols.com/olsonw"> Click </a>
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