The Folk Songs of Britain

The Folk Songs of Britain

A Ten Volume Series of sound recordings, compiled by Peter Kennedy and Alan Lomax, assisted by Shirley Collins.

Originally published in America on Caedmon Records, 1961 onwards, and later in the UK on Topic in 1968.

The songs were collected from traditional singers all over the British Isles by the editors mainly in England, and by Hamish Henderson in Scotland, and Seamus Ennis and Sean O'Boyle in Ireland. The series helped provide the repertoire and singing styles not only of luminaries like Ewan MacColl and Bert Lloyd, but those hundreds who came to the revival from the late 1950s onwards. Unfortunately it is now difficult to obtain - although expanded versions of some of the original LPs were released on CD by Rounder in 2000 - and the series has been somewhat overshadowed by the later collection The Voice of the People.

The 10 LPs in the series are:

• Volume 1 Songs of Courtship
• Volume 2 Songs of Seduction
• Volume 3 Jack of all trades
• Volume 4 The Child Ballads 1
• Volume 5 The Child Ballads 2
• Volume 6 Sailormen and Serving Maids
• Volume 7 Fair Game and Foul
• Volume 8 A Soldier's Life for me
• Volume 9 Songs of Ceremony
• Volume 10 Animal Songs