This is the music to the tune Farewell Farewell as played by the group Danu. The actual melody is the same as Willy O winsbury by Sweeny's Men. I learned this tune by ear and unfortunately have no tabs to share. Kyle
This is one of the more interesting examples of the folk process in action: this lovely tune is indeed the one used by Sweeney's Men in their (great!) 1968 recording of Willie O'Winsbury, sung by Andy Irvine. Sweeney's Men credited their track as "traditional", but that is at least somewhat disingeneous, as this particular tune was not previously associated with that particular folk ballad at all. Andy Irvine's story has always been that it was a fortunate accident coming out of his incompetence in reading the index of an academic ballad collection (Bronson's "The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads", supposedly) and cross-referencing the wrong tune with the words of WIllie O'Winsbury. However, to my knowledge nobody has been able to trace that particular tune in Bronson, so the suspicion is that Andy Irvine actually wrote it, or at least heavily adapted an unknown existing tune, to match the words of Willie O' Winsbury. Subsequently, most people who have recorded Willie O'Winsbury have used Andy's tune even though it is always credited to "traditional". Then, in another twist to the story, in 1969 Richard Thompson used this tune, which he had learned from the Sweeney's Men album (recorded only one year earlier) and wrote yet another set of new words for it, resulting in the song "Farewell Farewell" from Fairport's "Liege & Lief" album. "Farewell Farewell" is credited to Richard Thompson alone, no mention of either traditional or Andy Irvine, although Thompson has always been completely open about his source for the tune and indeed has played Willie O'Winsbury in concert several times. Danu (and Mary Black before them) have re-imported the tune to Ireland with their cover versions of Farewell Farewell, and from there it came to Kyle's lovely bouzouki rendition. I like it! Regarding a printed source for the music, it is in one of the Fairport Convention songbooks and I play it every now and then. I'll dig it out and give it a go. Martin
Check out this link to a Wikipedia page on Willy o winsbury. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_o_Winsbury I realize Wikipedia is not always an accurate source, but it claims the melody comes from an old tune called Fause Foodrage. I haven't been able to track down a midi of the tune, but if anyone finds it, we could verify that it is in fact a traditional tune. Although, after any tune has been past Andy Irvine, it is never as it was originally! haha Thanks for the kind words Kyle
Thanks for that, Kyle. I hadn't heard of the suggestion that the tune was originally associated with Fause Foodrage (which is another Child ballad), and I don't have a copy of Bronson to check what form that tune might have had when Andy stumbled on it. I have, however, found the following tune for Fause Foodrage, which has some similarity to the Andy Irvine/Willie O' Winsbury tune, but clearly there has been major overhauling work by Andy for this to have resulted in the tune we know and love. This tune is from an early 19th century ballad tune manuscript, transcribed to ABC by Jack Campin. It is of course common for one ballad to have several different tunes, and for there being wide variations in the tunes, so there may have been a tune that is closer to the one Andy settled on. X:84 T:Fause Foodrage T:mainly the same with ours Z:Jack Campin - http://www.campin.me.uk S:Blaikie MS (NLS MS.1578) p25, Blaikie #78 M:3/4 L:1/8 V:1 midi program 1 74 V:2 midi program 1 46 bass middle = d transpose -24 Q:1/4=80 K:G [V:1] DE |GE D2 E2|GE D2 e2|d2 B2 A/B/d|e4 [V:2] z2 |c2 B2 c2|c2 B2 c2|B2 G2 d2 |c2 c'2 % [V:1] e2 |dB A2 AB|GE D2 DE|G2 B2 A>G |G4 |] [V:2] c'2|g2 f2 d2|c2 B2 B2|B2 G2 d2 |G2 g2|] W:Transcription (c) Jack Campin 2009, no mirroring or republication without permission
As promised a few weeks ago, I've now got around to recording this tune. My recording is based on the transcription in the Fairport Convention Songbook Vol. 2. I can't post that here as it's copyrighted, but it's pretty close to this abc which I found online: X: 1 T:Willy O'Winsbury C:anon. O:England F:http://abc.musicaviva.com/tunes/engl...-owinsbury.abc M:3/4 L:1/8 K:Em D2|E2-E2 (FG)|G4(GA)|B4(B/A/B)|A4GF| w:The king_ has_ been a_ pri-son---er, and a E3EB2|(A3G)F2|E6-|E2z2D2| w:pris-on-er long_ in Spain._ And G4(GF)|E4D2|B,2D4|B,4B,B,| w:Will-y_ of the Wins-bur-y has lain A,2G,2G,2|B,D3(DE)|E6-|E2z2|] w:long with his daught-er at_ home. W: W:The king has been a prisoner, W:and a prisoner long in Spain. W:And Willy of the Winsbury W:has lain long with his daughter at home. While "Farewell Farewell" is the same tune, the phrasing is a bit different, and in fact is different in the first verse of the Fairport version from the second. I play the melody on the first and second verse and then comp rhythm for another two verses. Chords are: C/G/D/CD/C/GC/G/Em/CD/C/G Played on my Kentucky KM-300E 4-string electric mando. As previously with my electric recordings, there is some unwanted distortion which must have been added in the recording chain as it did not come out of the speaker of the amp. Martin
I think the bouzouki arrangement comes from Anne Briggs (based in turn on the Sweeney's Men version), and has also been used, recently, by Stephanie Hladowski (the whole track is up on myspace, but there is no way to link directly to it). Kyle's arrangement is different to both the above, having taken a different route to today.
On the 1970 Anne Briggs album which features Willie O'Winsbury, both Anne and Johnny Moynihan play bouzouki (they were a couple at the time), and as Johnny was of course a member of Sweeney's Men, the lineage from their 1968 version to the 1970 Anne Briggs version is straightforward. I don't remember if there is a track-by-track credit on the Briggs album, but I suspect that even if Anne is playing the zouk on Willie O'Winsbury, the arrangement is likely to be Moynihan's -- Anne Briggs is a serviceable instrumentalist, but clearly not in Moynihan's league as a player. Of course, as a singer she's in a league of her own! Martin
Ah yes, Anne Briggs. Sad she has not been heard in so many years. I've seen a picture of her playing bouzouki but never heard her play. I'm sure Johnny taught her.
