Life on air : memoirs of a broadcaster

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

27-28

text excerpt

The British public were hardly more prepared for the subject [folk music] than the American.  Victor Silvester and his Ballroom Orchestra and other bands led by such as Billy Cotton and Geraldo, with their ranks of saxophones and violins, were the dominant taste.  Singers with guitars, whether performing singly or in groups, were virtually unheard.  Nor did Alan [Lomax] feel that he should try to make any concessions to popular taste.  I went to see him to discuss who we might invite to the first programme to be told that he had already arranged for a group of old ladies from the Outer Hebrides to be flown down to London to perform one of the traditional songs they sang when ‘waulkin’ newly woven tweed.  ‘Waulkin’ consisted of sitting in a line with a dozen or so yards of tweed in front of them thumping it with their fists […] In due course, the ladies turned up, bringing a huge quantity of tweed with them and sang their songs in Gaelic to, I fear, a somewhat baffled audience in the first of the Song Hunter series. 

The British public were hardly more prepared for the subject [folk music] than the American.  Victor Silvester and his Ballroom Orchestra and other bands led by such as Billy Cotton and Geraldo, with their ranks of saxophones and violins, were the dominant taste.  Singers with guitars, whether performing singly or in groups, were virtually unheard.  Nor did Alan [Lomax] feel that he should try to make any concessions to popular taste.  I went to see him to discuss who we might invite to the first programme to be told that he had already arranged for a group of old ladies from the Outer Hebrides to be flown down to London to perform one of the traditional songs they sang when ‘waulkin’ newly woven tweed.  ‘Waulkin’ consisted of sitting in a line with a dozen or so yards of tweed in front of them thumping it with their fists […] In due course, the ladies turned up, bringing a huge quantity of tweed with them and sang their songs in Gaelic to, I fear, a somewhat baffled audience in the first of the Song Hunter series. 

excerpt from 'Life on air : memoirs of a broadcaster' pp. 27-28 (189 words)

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