Whenever Topic trawls its archive for new Voice Of The People compilations, the aural artifacts they dredge seem ever more distant, ever more valuable. Taped in the ‘50s and ‘60s, these unaccompanied gypsy singers, their distinctive sound the musical manifestation of a lifestyle that today appears unsustainable, are moving, vivid and often quietly disconcerting.
Seven year old Sheila Smith, singing Dear Father, Pray Build Me A Boat at a roadside encampment of barrel top wagons in Sussex in 1952, is the hallucinatory highlight of the folk singer Shirley Collins’ two disc selection.
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Pudabaya, Twitter
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BBC iPlayer edition of discussion of Stewart Lee on A Good Read
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