Peter Bellamy on The Coppers
"The course of the English folksong revival has been influenced by the Copper family of Rottingdean, Sussex, not once but three times. It was the singing of James 'Brasser' Copper (below) and his brother Tom to Mrs Kate Lee in 1898 that inspired her to go back to London and found the Folk Song Society. The two old boys were made honorary members.
 "Then, in 1949, Brasser's son Jim Copper (below, with his son, Bob), heard one of 'his' songs being sung on the radio and he wrote and told the BBC that he could do better. It was that letter, and his subsequent appearance on Country Magazine, that convinced someone in the BBC or the English Folk Dance & Song Society that the traditions of these islands were still living, and a joint recording project, resulting in a very popular Sunday morning programme, As I Roved Out, was set up in the early Fifties. 
". . . the unusual churchy harmonies of the Coppers . . . inspired people like Louis Killen and Frankie Armstrong, the Young Tradition and the Watersons, to try harmony singing, more in emulation than straight imitation." (From the notes to The Electric Muse compilation, Island/Transatlantic, 1975.)
One thing about the Coppers that should be welcomed by those who have problems remembering lyrics: they have always sung from a leather-bound volume of their repertoire, which dates back to Brasser's day.
Here we have a little book
If through its pages you will look
You'll find the songs you ought to know
So have some beer and let her go
Of our old songs these are a few
And none of them are really new
But if you only know the tune
They'll beat the rhythm or the croon
Songs of our army or the sea
Are songs which most appeal to me
Although I think I must avow
I like a song about the plough |
Old choruses we know galore
A hundred, yes, and hundreds more
And if we fall into a lapse
They just come in to fill the gaps
There's one thing of the songs today
They come but do not seem to stay
Like 'OK Toots' and 'Black-eyed Sue'
They vanish like the 'Century Blues'
But let the seasons come and go
And let it rain or let it snow
We'll shun all care and damn the weather
And we'll sing these songs when we're together. |
As Lloyd wrote of them in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society in 1954: "Though  none of the singers can read music, their style of harmonising is not haphazard; it has been arrived at quite consciously by trial and error and rehearsal, and it is characteristic that the Coppers pitch their songs with the help of a tuning-fork. In their very deliberateness, it may be felt, they are departing from folk practice. On the other hand, perhaps we over-estimate the extent to which the folk singer is 'natural', spontaneous and unselfconscious. Even in primitive societies, singers will often develop their style by practising hard and striving to perfect their particular technique. A travelling Irish singer remarked: 'I have to go over and over my songs till I've found the places in them'."
Though Bob Copper is now the sole surviving representative of the older generation, he has been joined in singing by his son and daughter, John (seen with Bob and Ron on left of picture, above) and Jill. The RealAudio clip features Bob and his brother Ron singing The Sweet Primeroses.
|