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6 unusual facts about Cecil Sharp


Bledington

Charles Benfield ensured a link which touched almost four generations of dancers and his enduring enthusiasm eventually enabled the dances to be recorded by Cecil Sharp and later demonstrated and refined by the Travelling Morrice.

Franjo Kuhač

Like Cecil Sharp, who did similar work in Britain and Appalachia, Kuhač published the folk songs with a piano accompaniment.

Mary Sands

When Cecil Sharp came to Madison County in 1916 as part of his project to collect old English ballads, Sands was 44 years old and was eight and a half months pregnant with her tenth child.

Olive Dame Campbell

These were published in the seminal work, English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians by Cecil Sharp and Olive Campbell (1917, New York).

Traditional Irish singing

In the past, many such 'source' singers were deemed so upon ‘discovery’ by field researches such as Cecil Sharp, Alan Lomax, Hamish Henderson, Pete Seeger, Ewan MacColl or other song collectors who were prominent in 1950s and 1960s.

Wallin Family

In the latter years of World War I, British folklorist Cecil Sharp and his assistant Maud Karpeles traveled extensively across Central and Southern Appalachia in hopes of finding British ballads that had been passed down to the inhabitants of the more remote parts of the region from their British and Scottish ancestors.


Culture of Somerset

Somerset songs were collected by Cecil Sharp and incorporated into a number of works including Holst's A Somerset Rhapsody.

English country dance

Social activist Mary Neal was one of the first to do so (she was principally known for her work in ritual dances), but folklorist Cecil Sharp was the best-known and most influential.

Frederick Keel

While in Munich that Keel became fascinated by folk music, an interest which blossomed on his return to England where he was able to meet fellow enthusiasts such as Lucy Broadwood, J A Fuller Maitland and, eventually, Cecil Sharp.

Vaughan Williams Memorial Library

Prior to that it was known as the Cecil Sharp Library, since his books constituted the bulk of the original holdings, but over the years the library has added literature, sound and manuscript collections of other eminent folklorists and collectors such as Lucy Broadwood, Janet Blunt, Anne Gilchrist, George Butterworth, the Hammond brothers and George Gardiner.


see also

The Watersons

These have included 'A Mighty River of Song' at the Royal Albert Hall on 12 May 2007, the BBC Electric Proms concert, 'Once in a Blue Moon: A Tribute to Lal Waterson', at Cecil Sharp House in London on 25 October 2007 and 'A Tribute to Bert,' a concert celebrating the life and work of Albert Lloyd, at Cecil Sharp House on 15 November 2008.