It is welcome news that, thanks to the 100 Ballads project’s research and the Carnival Band’s recordings of English broadside ballads, there should be a renewal of interest in the riches of our common folk culture (Chart toppers of 17th century revived by historians and musicians, 28 January).
For many songs and ballads of the 16th and 17th centuries though, it is hardly a “comeback”. John Barleycorn, for example, was published in the Bannatyne Manuscript of 1568, becoming a London broadside in 1642. It went on to be incorporated in Vaughan Williams’ 1923 English Folk Song Suite before being recorded by the likes of Traffic, Steeleye Span and Martin Carthy.
