New Music Collection Captures The Voice of the People

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In need of a rhythm injection? Feeling jaded with the posing peacock that is pop? Dr Reg Hall, a research fellow in CCS, could have you boogying in the corridors - at the same time as he is reclaiming a forgotten slice of British culture.

In what is surely the most ambitious compilation of traditional music ever, Reg has gathered together 511 recordings and created 20 CD s which record the finest moments of British and Irish 'folk' music.

In fact, Reg is uncomfortable with the tag 'folk', preferring to call the music 'traditional'. As he points out, the idea of 'folk' was imposed on the working classes by the late-Victorian middle classes in a bid to purify and nationalise British culture. "Suddenly the middle classes felt a bit disenchanted with the world, and they said - "look at the people down there. I don't want to eat with them, I don't want to marry their daughters, but my God, don't they have marvellous songs!" With his CD collection, entitled The Voice of the People, Reg is reclaiming this heritage back.

A keen musician himself, Reg plays the melodeon, an accordion-like instrument with a rhythmic sound. In fact he was inspired to become a historian through his love of playing and listening to traditional music, "Studying history made me see the music I was surrounded by as history. I certainly see this collection as a historical record." Indeed, the collection gives a fantastic insight into the everyday lives of "people with dirt under their fingernails," as one musician puts it. For any student of early-to mid-twentieth century working class culture, it provides a particularly valuable perspective on something which emerged directly from that culture rather than being imposed upon it.

Reg feels that now is the perfect time to create history from traditional music, since "the world's changing. All these people, and all these cultures, and that sort of life - it's all dying out. The sort of music that's on these CDs can't ever be made again. I think that's it."

Reg was driven to record Voice of the People by a fear that the tradition would die out both musically and historically. Nonetheless, he points out that it is still "great art and great entertainment."

This is music that kept people dancing until 6.00 am in rural communities all over the country, music that people walked fifteen miles to hear.

"Traditional music is real, it's the way people are. It has all the classic things that every art form has. What it doesn't have is sophistication or pretension. And every one of these songs is as funny as Ben Elton, or as tragic as Shakespeare."

Reg's main objective is to say, "look, there's this body of cultural material, and you should enjoy it for itself, but it should also make you think about your roots, the way your grandparents lived, where your language comes from." His favourite song is Margaret Barry's recording of She Moved Through the Fair "which was done in a pub, with the cash register going in the background." Maybe you could find a favourite too...the collection is available in the library, so there's no excuse for not getting on down to that ranting and reeling beat.