Blackleg Miner

In a comment on my Steeleye Span cover of All Around My Hat, ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWAJMcPfh_k )I was asked by rightonpard ( http://www.youtube.com/user/rightonpard ) if I would do their version of The Blackleg Miner.

Steeleyes version of that song is an excellent one, but, as with most folk songs, there are more and sometimes better versions to be heard. I first heard this song in about 1979 on the radio. It was an evening of folk music and two songs stood out for me - this one and an a capella version of The Saucy Sailor - and to this day, I have no idea who the singers were, but I can hear their versions as clearly as if they were yesterday. I cant think of a better version Ive heard since. I dont remember when I first heard Steeleye Spans version, but it was probably mid-eighties.

The Blackleg Miner is a Northumbrian song from the early 20th century (if the language and construct are anything to go by) warning miners on strike, not to go back to work and undermine the mineworkers union position in their dispute with the mine owners. It is a song sung with menaces - theyve sent the boys round only they havent got baseball bats, theyve got ukuleles - and theyre not afraid to use them!

Although it is a very old song, it is still powerful and relevant today. The verse, it was in the year of 84... is a recent addition to the song. I first heard it sung in Durham in about 1985 or 86 when it was obvious that it referred to the miners strike of 1984-5. I asked the singer (a chap called Bob Knaggs) if it was his writing and he said not - he had just heard it sung that way so carried on. I remember being impressed that the oral tradition was still at work so late in to the 20th century. So, far be it from me to squash that tradition, I have sung it with that verse ever since.

I like this song for its power and menace and its heartfelt desperation. These were men who had put their lives and livelihoods on the line for a principle and they saw the scabs (blacklegs) as undermining that struggle and acting as traitors to the cause and collaborators with the enemy. Whatever our feelings are (with hindsight and a 21st century sensibility), one cannot deny the sincerity and determination of men who stood up to an authority that had the power to, quite literally, crush them, and to appreciate their feelings towards those of their own number who (in their eyes) represented cowardice and betrayal.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• the
• blackleg
• miner
• folk
• song
• strike
• scab
• northumberland
• ukulele
• uke
• ukelele
• casetone2514
• rightonpard

[Njurvar]

Sweet! Bass and ukulele, what a charming combination.

[casetone2514]

Thanks very much

[pivotJnC]

hii tony its connor billy and jos kid from durham i met yu at the wedding yur a gr8 singer :D

[casetone2514]

Hiya Connor. How you doing? Thanks for the comment.

Get some videos posted - I've subscribed so now you have to.

[waterdog226]

That was great! Ballads are powerful. I am a Canadian, and we have an 'inherited' set of ballads, from the Brittish Isles, courtesy of perfprmers from there, who come here, and the maritime balladeers and songsters. We also listen to stuff that comes up from the US. Our home grown faves are of course Cohen and Lightfoot. Have you ever listened to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

[casetone2514]

Thanks very much

I love The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald. I have a few Canadian tunes that I play so I may have to dig one or two of them out.

[casetone2514]

@Luke82F ~ Thanks very much

[barnbersonol]

We'll never know how many strikers secretly envied the scabs for having the guts to resist a strike that was pointless, doomed and undemocratic

[Music01230]

Wonderful, sweet soothing voice & nice instrumentation

[Gwynsek]

Beautiful!