We’re always delighted to host a video premier here at Tradfolk, so it’s with great excitement we bring you this lovely new nugget from Granny’s Attic to celebrate their 15th anniversary.
Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne tells us more…
Jack the Sailor [Roud 1454] comes from a book called Southern Songster which was published in 2020, and which I had a small hand in putting together, acting as musical editor, transcribing the notation for the 100 or so traditional songs featured in the book.
When I was putting the finishing touches to the book there were a handful of songs that kept catching my eye, and Jack the Sailor was one of these. It has the most wonderful melody in 5/4 which bounces along at a lovely pace. While I’m a big fan of long ballads, I do also think there is something great about songs like this which keep the action brief – this song says everything it needs to say in the course of just three verses, and to convey this we’ve very much gone for a no-nonsense arrangement of this song with Granny’s Attic.
Southern Songster focuses on songs collected by George Gardiner, who mostly collected folksongs in Hampshire, and the Hammond brothers, who mostly collected folksongs in Dorset. Jack the Sailor as it appears in Southern Songster is a bit of a hybrid song; it has a text taken down by George Gardiner from Daniel Wigg of Preston Candover in Hampshire, paired with a tune that was taken down by the Hammonds from Marina Russell of Upwey in Dorset – Marina Russell gave the Hammonds a huge number of songs, and her singing and incredible repertoire has been championed recently by her descendant the late Paul Sartin, along with his sons Will and Joe.
We filmed this performance in a slightly chilly Victorian mill building in Leeds while on tour last year. It was lovely to work with Will Killen, a brilliant videographer, again – he has a real knack for capturing the energy of a live performance in one shot, with one camera. What you see is what you hear!
You can hear us play Jack The Sailor, along with other new songs and music drawn from our entire back catalogue, on our 15th Anniversary Tour this autumn.
