FTX-384 - CONSTANT
BILLY
BILLY WELLS - Morris Dancing
At Bampton "Jinkey", or Billy Wells (1868-1953), fool,
dancer & fiddler recounts his life-story to Peter Kennedy in 1952 & talks
about the dances together with pre-war recordings of him playing in the
street. Other musicians & dancers were recorded in the streets on Whitmonday
in 1955, playing and talking, including Bertie Clark, Jim Buckingham, Arnold
Woodley, Jimmy and Albert Townsend, Michael Bowden, Billy Flux & William
Brooks (known locally as "Brannen") |
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CONSTANT BILLY - Talk about family & nickname -
Birthplace & education - His first job & start in the Morris -
other jobs - Family involvement, first costume, odd stockings & Enoch
Tanner - The Fool (his own poem) - Explanation of Sword in the
cake & diddles (mouth music) - HIGHLAND MARY (played on fiddle with
humming) - Talk about finding dances and playing at Leafield (Field
Town) - tune and & description of THE FORESTER (or FORESTRY-KEEPER'S JIG) -
OLD TOM OF OXFORD - Words of OLD TOM OF OXFORD & talk about
hawkers, two men & 1 woman living in a caravan and "they never quarrelled" -
THE QUAKER -LUMPS OF PLUM PUDDING - THE PIPE DANCE ('Bacca Pipes)
- THE WEBBLEY (named after a man called Webb to the tune of "Banks and
braes" disapproved of by Cecil Sharp House) - CONSTANT BILLY - the longest
dance & done in three different ways - MAID OF THE MILL -
Names of other dances, words of BONNY GREEN GARTERS - PRINCESS ROYAL - explains
the various capers - BOBBING AROUND - achievements as
fool, fiddler, dancer & trainer, and performed in front of two princesses and
had three generations in one set - Playing the tunes on six different
instruments: penny-tin-whistle, mandoleon, concertina, melodeon, violin, swiss
pipe but "you can't beat the fiddle - THE DUMB MAID - recites
words, a fragment of his own song composition: "Being a gentleman's son" -
FLOWERS OF EDINBURGH - Talk about tent covering a dancing booth, twopence
a dance paid by men & boys - STEP AND FETCH HER ("Pretty little dear")
- HANDKERCHIEF DANCE with description - TOMMY, MAKE ROOM FOR
YOUR UNCLE - words of song - "Every dog has his day"
Other performers at Bampton - BOBBING AROUND - Jim Buckingham
(melodeon) playing for team in 1955 - FLOWERS OF EDINBURGH - Arnold
Woodley (fiddle) - Interviews in street with Jim Buckingham, young Jimmy
Townsend, young Michael Bowden and Billy Flux - MAID OF THE MILL - Bertie
Clark (fiddle) - SHEPHERDS HEY - CONSTANT BILLY - BONNY
GREEN GARTERS
