I must give the album its full title -- John Langstaff Sings: The Lark in the Morn and other folk songs and ballads. Recorded at Abbey Road Studio between 1949 and 1956, the recording have been very cleverly re-mastered, cleaned up and digitalized by Simon Gibson from the original EMI 78's wax discs. In 1950, before the present era of digital CD's and tapes, before vinyl records, recordings were made of shellac. Revolving at 78 rpm, anyone who handled shellac recordings will know that they are very fragile and it is a wonder that they survived to this day. I got a strange feeling of "déjà vu" when I played this album, -- and I will explain why later.
I was surprised to learn that John Langstaff was born in 1920 in Brooklyn Heights, New York, only because he has a trained baritone voice and on these recording he sings with a very 'English BBC Radio' accent. As such his pronunciation is absolutely word perfect. Admittedly, this may not be the sort of thing we are accustomed to hearing these days from folk singers, as regional dialects have been revived to some extent by some performers to give the music and words more warmth. John sings the tunes as noted down by Cecil Sharp, so it is left to the beauty of the tune to carry the song with little improvisation. I have to admit I found the whole of the CD somewhat mesmerising as I listened to his words, even though most of the songs I have heard many times before.
Interestingly, in 1950 at Abbey Road Studios London, John's recording manager was the young George Martin, who, as you all know, is now more famous for his work with the Beatles. In 1950 George was primarily engaged by EMI to handle classical recordings for the Parlophone label, but he was also responsible for directing folk recordings on the HMV label, - thus he came to meet John Langstaff. The sleeve notes carry a nice forward written by Sir George Martin, outlining the etiquette and difficulties recording in those days. There is also a written dedication to the work done by Cecil Sharp House and the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
The album has thirty-seven tracks on it, although eleven of them only run for half a minute or even less, and are listed in the sleeve notes as 'Old Dutch Songs', forming a collection of children's songs he learned and sang as a small child -- rather like street songs. The album is set up as a reference point for the original tunes, as collected by Cecil Sharp and Maude Karpeles. For the most part, the accompaniment is played on a piano and kept very simple so as not to detract from the songs. Many will instantly recognise 'Black is the Colour of My True Love's Hair', 'Bingo', 'I Wish I was a Child Again', 'Hares on the Mountain', 'Two Magicians' and 'The Trees They do Grow High',-- plus many more. The title track 'Lark in the Morn' only has two verses but it is easy to see where the derivatives for this popular song have come from. One can only imagine, listening to these recordings in Cecil Sharp House, it must have seemed like a gold mine of material for the early revival singers and indeed Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention and other folk rock bands.
Strangely, on my copy of the album, the song 'The Frog and the Mouse' is at track 16 and the song 'The Frog in the Well' is at track 22, -- not the other way around as the play list and lyrics in the booklet suggest. I think this may be a small error on the part of the publishers!
About the "déjà vu": originally, I thought I had never heard of John Langstaff, but when I played the album and listen to the first couple of tracks, Suddenly I realised I had. It must have been when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My grandmother in Essex would play these old 78's on her wind up Gramophone in the evenings. I remember they hissed and crackled a bit,- but so did every other record in those days. Admittedly, I paid little attention at the time while I played with my Dinky cars on the parlour table, but the seed for folk music must have been planted in my subconscious. I mused if (perhaps) a similar thing may have happened to George Martin, -- who knows!
So if you are, like me, getting long in the tooth (!), you may enjoy a trip down memory lane listening to all these old recordings again. Conversely, you may be a folk purist collector, or a younger singer looking for some ideas or material. Either way I can certainly recommend you lend an ear to this album.
