Vic Gammon: The Tale of Ale CD Track Listing

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Vic Gammon The Tale of Ale (1976)
'''The Tale of Ale'''\n''A collection of songs and readings about drinking in England during the last five hundred years''\n'''Compiled, written and arranged by Vic Gammon.'''\nThe Tale Of Ale was originally released as a Double LP of the ''Songs and Stories of the Englishman and his Beer'' by: FREE REED in 1977 as Double 12-inch LP FRR(D) 023/024.\nProduced and engineered by Nic Kinsey\nRecorded at: Livingston Studios, London\nSongs:\n* Peter Bellamy, Robin Dransfield, John Foreman, Vic Gammon, Pam Gilder, Roy Harris, Oriana, Eddie Upton, Peter Wood.\nMusic:\n* Musica Inebriata, Barry Dransfield, The Pump and Pluck Band, and Geoff Hedger.\nReadings by:\n* Joby Blanshard, Willie Rushton, Michael Smee\nAlso featuring:\n* Oriana\n** Penny Maxwell\n** David Maxwell\n** John Mingay\n* The Pump and Pluck Band\n** Will Duke: Anglo concertina, bandoneon, & mouth organ\n** Ian Russell: Tenor Banjo & trombone\n** Vic Gammon: Melodeon, baritone English concertina, & banjo\n** Sheila Magill: Bass English concertina & percussion\n** Tony Pepler: percussion ''helped on some tracks''\n* Musica Inebriata\n** Keith Phillips: fiddle\n** Kathryn Cox: recorders\n** Vic Gammon: Cittern\n** Rory Forsyth: bassoon\n** Tony Pepler: percussion\nRe-released: by ''Free Reed Records and Music'' in CD and Cassette formats as FRCD 23 and FRMC 23 in November 1993.\n
This misc cd contains 45 tracks and runs 79min 19sec.
Freedb: b112952d
Buy: from Amazon.com

Category

: Music

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: music songs tracks misc Misc

1. Vic Gammon - Bring Us In Good Ale (02:04)
   A popular song dating from the fifteenth or early sixteenth century. It was reprinted by William Chappel in his ''Popular Music of the Olden Time''. I have somewhat adapted it from the way it was set there.\n''Eddie Upton, Pam Gilder and Musica Inebriata'
2. Vic Gammon - Andrew Boorde On Ale And Beer (00:46)
   Andrew Boorde, a Sussex-born physician of the sixteenth century, produced his ''Dietry of Health'' about 1542. In it he makes a distinction between ale and beer now lost to our language.\n''Joby Blanshard/Michael Stone''
3. Vic Gammon - Jolly Good Ale And Old (03:03)
   This song was included in the Play ''Gammer Gurton's Needle'' which was printed in 1575 but is probably older than the play. It is undoubtedly one of the great English drinking songs. The tune is a common-time version of ''John Dory''.\n''Robin Dransfield
4. Vic Gammon - He That Buys Land (00:20)
   A philosophical commentary on purchasing land verses ale.\n''William Rushton''
5. Vic Gammon - The Merry Fellows (03:03)
   A seventeenth century broadside ballad reprinted in part by William Chappell. The sombre tune and images of death in the words contrast strongly with the supposed purpose of the song.\n''Peter Wood and Musica Inebriata''
6. Vic Gammon - Soldiers Three (02:04)
   A song from Thomas Ravenscroft's collection ''Deuteromelia'', published in 1609. The original voice parts have been adapted to the instruments.\n''Peter Wood and Musica Inebriata''
7. Vic Gammon - Tapster, Drinker (00:46)
   A fifteenth century part song preserved in a manuscript in the Bodleian Library.\n''Oriana''
8. Vic Gammon - The Tunnyng Of Elynour Rummyng (02:27)
   An extract from a long poem by the early sixteenth century court poet John Skelton, ''helter skelter John''.\n''Joby Blanshard''
9. Vic Gammon - Andrew Boorde On Beer (00:32)
   A further observation by physician Andrew Boorde.
10. Vic Gammon - London's Ordinary (03:24)
    A magnificent seventeenth century listing of London alehouses that exists in a number of broadside versions. The melody is adapted from that given in Moffat and Kidson's ''English Songs from the Georgian Period'' it is said to be by Arthur Young, Dr. Arne
11. Vic Gammon - Epitaphs (00:22)
    Some Brewer's And Drinker's Epitaphs:\nJust as the theme of death crops up quite a lot in drinking songs, so some examples of grave humour make reference to drink; there are three such epitaphs throughout the record.\n''Joby Blanshard/Michael Smee/William
12. Vic Gammon - Of Honest Malt Liquor, R. Brown (00:50)
    Late seventeenth and early eighteenth century recreational music written by some of the most eminent composers of the day for a well-to-do public. Bourgeois and aristocratic music, but not without charm and vigour. Purcell edited collections of catches fo
13. Vic Gammon - The Malt's Come Down (00:50)
    A short dance tune with words dating form the sixteenth century. This song is alluded to in ''Excise Ballad''.\n''Peter Wood & Musica Inebriata''
14. Vic Gammon - Stubbes On Drunkenness (02:30)
    The Elizabethan puritan Phillip Stubbes produced his book ''The Anatomy of Abuses'' in 1583; the whole thing is a long, calvinistic denunciation of most of the good things in life. Its two saving graces are that it is written in a superb style that often
15. Vic Gammon - Good Ale For My Money (03:52)
    A seventeenth century broadside by the prolific London pot-poet Laurence Price; the ballad is preserved in the Roxburghe collection. The tune, a superb one for a drinking song, is often known as ''The Country Lass''. Robin Dransfield has slightly adapted
16. Vic Gammon - The Excise Ballad (02:50)
    A ballad from around 1643 when Parliament introduced the hated excise, a sort of purchase tax on a number of consumables including ale and beer. The tax was to become an extremely important source of government revenue. The tune to which the ballad was wr
17. Vic Gammon - The Porter Scene From Macbeth (01:43)
    Shakespeare contributed a number of excellent passages on drinking (one thinks of Falstaff on ''a good sherrys sack'' and many others), but I think none excel this dialogue between McDuff and the Porter on the effects of drinking.\n''William Rushton, Mich
18. Vic Gammon - Peas, Beans, Oats And The Barley (Sussex Healths) (00:48)
    A set of sung healths from one English county. Some healths have a specific use, such as the harvest home supper, others are of a more general kind. Despite their praise of the master one feels these are no sycophantic productions: the repeated healths to
19. Vic Gammon - Now Harvest Is Over (Three Mistress's Health) (00:50)
    Who is the mistress referred to in these healths? At times it is the farmer's wife, at other times it is none less than Queen Elizabeth the first. All three come from Sussex.\n''Pam Gilder, Eddie Upton, & Vic Gammon with Pump and Pluck Band''
20. Vic Gammon - The British Toper (01:16)
    A medley of Morris tunes...\n''Pump and Pluck Band''
21. Vic Gammon - Nottingham Ale (03:47)
    A broadside ballad in praise of a particular local brew that would appear to date from the eighteenth century. Personally I can't see that it is anything other than a superb send-up of neo-classicalism, complete as it is with ''Hudibrastic'' ryhmes. The m
22. Vic Gammon - Bickerdyke On Temperance (00:51)
    John Bickerdyke's thoughts on temperance, from ''The Curiosities of Ale and Beer'', 1989.\n''William Rushton''
23. Vic Gammon - O Ale Ab Alendo, J. Hilton (01:16)
    Late seventeenth and early eighteenth century recreational music written by some of the most eminent composers of the day for a well-to-do public. Bourgeois and aristocratic music, but not without charm and vigour. Purcell edited collections of catches fo
24. Vic Gammon - John Barleycorn (03:25)
    A traditional version of the classic English drinking song. I think I learnt the tune many years ago from Tony Eagle and Mel Dean; the text grew in my mind from hearing other versions.\n''Vic Gammon and the Pump and Pluck Band''
25. Vic Gammon - Ye Mar'ners All (01:16)
    A song collected by the Hammond brothers from Mrs Marina Russell of Upwey in Dorset, a singer who had an amazingly rich store of tunes. As in other drinking songs the themes of old age, death and drink intermingle. Surely this is one of the greatest drink
26. Vic Gammon - Epitaph (00:15)
    Ne'er quarral with your craft ...\n ... and the bucket kick-ed he.\n''Joby Blanshard/Michael Smee/William Rushton''
27. Vic Gammon - Poor Tom Is Dead And Gone (00:47)
    Rounds and Catches...\n''Oriana''
28. Vic Gammon - Don't Go Out Tonight Dear Father (03:21)
    A temperance song from the mid-nineteenth century. Peter Davison has commented that ''temperance songs offer a peverse delight very different from the sober instruction their authors intended''. Such songs were often taken up by the music halls and sung w
29. Vic Gammon - The Drunkard's Looking Glass (02:09)
    A recitation from a penny broadside reprinted in Charles Hindley's ''The Curiosities of Street Literature''. We include these temperance items to show we are not biased and to give the other side of the case.\n''William Rushton''
30. Vic Gammon - Ale, Ale, Glorious Ale (02:37)
    A music-hall song which has passed into oral currency.\n''Roy Harris accompanied by Goeff Hedger on piano''
31. Vic Gammon - I Likes A Drop Of Good Beer (02:16)
    A song celebrating a reduction in beer tax in the 1830s. The tune is from the Kidson collection and the song was published in this form in Roy Palmer's ''A Touch on the Times''\n''Eddie Upton & The Pump and Pluck Band''
32. Vic Gammon - The Carter's Health (00:43)
    Rounds and Catches...\n''Oriana''
33. Vic Gammon - Hey John Barleycorn (02:29)
    Another paean of praise to the English Dionysis. It is from the singing of George Attrill of Fittleworth, Sussex, but has been altered quite a lot before it got to this record.\n''Robin Dransfield & The Pump and Pluck Band''
34. Vic Gammon - Here's A Health To The Mistress (00:55)
    Rounds and Catches...\n''Oriana''
35. Vic Gammon - Meux's Porter Vat (01:03)
    This account of the bursting of Meux's porter vat is taken for John Bickerdyke's ''The Curiosities of Ale and Beer'' an entertaining and rambling book published in 1889.\n''Joby Blanshard''
36. Vic Gammon - A Pot Of Porter Oh (02:07)
    A stage song from about the year 1800 often reprinted in books on beer. The original source, a song-book called ''The Mirtyl and the Vine'' gave no tune, so I put together a few well-known strands of melody which seemed to fit the song.\n''John Foreman &
37. Vic Gammon - I've Been To France / Here's A Health Unto Our Master (01:00)
    Rounds and Catches...\n''Oriana''
38. Vic Gammon - The Man That Waters The Worker's Beer (02:29)
    A masterpiece of songmaking in the music hall idiom, it was written for Unity Theatre in the 1930s by Paddy Ryan.\n''Roy Harris & The Pump and Pluck Band''
39. Vic Gammon - October Brew (00:58)
    Peter Bellamy found this text in Punch for the 20th October 1877 and adapted the Morris Tune ''Bonny Green Garters''.\n''Peter Bellamy & The Pump and Pluck Band''
40. Vic Gammon - John Appleby (02:48)
    A curious song in which a domestic quarrel ends up in a drinking bout. As performed here the version is close to that which Sam Willet ''the singing baker of Cuckfield'' (Sussex) gave to Lucy Broadwood. The song usually has a 9/8 tune as here, which could
41. Vic Gammon - Epitaph (00:15)
    Poor John Scott lies here...\n''Joby Blanshard/Michael Smee/William Rushton''
42. Vic Gammon - Charley Mopps (02:12)
    A spurious history of the origin of beer which would seem to have come from the music hall.\n''John Foreman & The Pump and Pluck Band''
43. Vic Gammon - This, Is Our Mistress' Health (01:00)
    Rounds and Catches...\n''Oriana''
44. Vic Gammon - Michael Blann's Drinking Song (03:06)
    Michael Blann was a shepherd, singer and whistle player who lived near Shoreham in Sussex, until about 1930. He wrote out a book of his songs in the 1880s and the book, including this song, is preserved in Worthing Museum. But Blann did not write the song
45. Vic Gammon - The British Toper (01:28)
    A dance tune from the Playford collection. Its title sums up what this record is all about.\n''Musica Inebriata''