Peter Douglas Kennedy, 1922–2006
Peter Kennedy’s parents were both at the heart of the folk music establishment. His father, Douglas Kennedy, was part of the English Folk Dance Society demonstration team before the First World War, and succeeded Cecil Sharp as Director of the EFDS – and subsequently the merged EFDSS. Peter’s mother Helen was the sister of Maud Karpeles and, like her sister, had been closely involved with Sharp’s folk dance revival, and a founder member of the EFDS.
Peter joined the staff of the EFDSS aged 26, in 1948, working first in the North East, and then in the West Country. In 1950-51 he worked with the American collector Alan Lomax to record material for the England LP in Lomax’s World Library of Folk and Primitive Music series on Columbia Records. Then in 1952 the BBC appointed him one of two principal fieldworkers on its newly established Folk Music and Dialect Recording Scheme. In this capacity he made hundreds of recordings of traditional singers and musicians all over the British Isles. These included recordings of Albert Beale and Charlie Scamp, made in 1954 in the company of his aunt Maud Karpeles.
Kennedy sent a detailed report of his Kent trip to Miss Marie Slocombe at the BBC. She had founded the BBC Sound Archive in 1936, had been appointed Sound Recordings Librarian in 1941 and, as a member of the EFDSS, was a keen supporter of the BBC’s Folk Music and Dialect Recording Scheme in the 1950s.
Kennedy’s report is available to view via the Peter Kennedy Archive, at https://www.peterkennedyarchive.org/1954-2/kent-1954/. It commences
Tuesday 14th January
Picked up Miss M. Karpeles and drove to B.H. [Broadcasting House] to collect Midget Tapes. Thence to Greenwich Pier to enquire after Mr. Richards, shanty-singer. Had left and was last heard of in Cutty Sark exhibition. To Cranbrook and then to see Mr. and Mrs. Henry Scamp at Goldwell Farm, near Biddenham. Recorded from Albert Beale at Kenardington, Near Ashford:-
FMK 321 (15″) The Bailiff’s Daughter (some mistakes) – 1’40”
In London’s Fair City (Villikens and his Dinah) – 1’50”
The Limerick Ditty – 1’30”
The Frog and the Mouse – Intro 0’15” (Edit out talk in between) 1’35”
(…”You see you’ve got to get it in” quick out)
FMK 322 (7½”) The Moon Shines Bright (Carol) – 1’35”
Where are you Going to My Pretty Maid? – 1’15”
Toast: “Beef when you’re hungry.…” – 0’15”
The Dark-Eyed Sailor (1/2 way in) – 1’55”
Goldwell Farm is actually on the Tenterden Road, to the South East of Biddenden.
The comments such as “Edit out talk in between” are presumably notes to assist when using the recordings on Kennedy’s As I Roved Out radio programme. The report continued
Friday 15th January
To Mrs. Stanley (Bird) living in a caravan on Mrs. Stern’s farm, 3, Chimneys, Betenham, near Sissinghurst. She and her daughter Peg both had tonsilitis but we got names of large number of songs that she knew. Her life story would be well worth recording. She gave us address of her sister Mrs. Smith, Melton Meadows, Melton, Woodbridge, Suffolk. Her husband, Joe, plays fiddle and melodeon and names of other relations in Kent to whom we went the following day.
“Betenham” is in fact Bettenham, about half a mile from the Three Chimneys public house.
The Mrs Smith referred to is Phoebe Smith, née Scamp, whom Kennedy would record in July 1956.
Saturday 16th January to Sunday 17th January
To Mr and Mrs. Hilden, behind Denaway Cafe at bottom of hill down from Detling Aerodrome before Sittingbourne. Then to Scamps at Lower Halstow and then to Bill Scamp at Tonge, who also had a bad throat. Finally to the Scamps at Chartham Hatch.
Recorded Charlie Scamp at The Royal Oak [Chartham Hatch]
Kennedy recorded seven songs from Charlie Scamp: ‘Barbary Ellen’, ‘Young Leonard’, ‘Father come Father come build Me a Boat’, ‘A Blacksmith Courted Me’, ‘The Folkestone Murder’, ‘How Old Are you my Pretty Fair Maid?’ and ‘Romany Song’. He also recorded Charlie and Ted Scamp talking Romany, but the recording session in the pub was brought to an abrupt end:
This last recording was interrupted by a police raid! So returned to the encampment. Ted Scamp would be prepared to find people to record Circus, Fairground and Tramp Slang. Rose Matthews in adjoining caravan should also be recorded.
The trip concluded with Kennedy and his aunt making more contacts, but failing to make any further recordings:
Monday 18th January
To the “Sun-in-the-Wood” at Lower Halstow, where we recoded Oliver Scamp, but he had also had a bad cold and was not up to it, but we would like to return and record himself, his son, Oliver and his little daughter Sylvia.
Returned to London and delivered Miss Karpeles to her house.
Clearly it was not Kennedy’s fault that several of the singers he encountered were suffering from winter ailments. And given just how many recordings he did make across the length and breadth of the country, it would be churlish to complain that – so far as one can tell – he never returned to record Bill or Oliver Scamp, nor to record Mrs Stanley’s life story. It is nevertheless frustrating that these opportunities were lost.
Between 1953 and 1958 Kennedy presented the Sunday morning BBC radio series As I Roved Out. In contrast to the earlier Country Magazine, which had used trained singers to deliver songs collected by Francis Collinson, on As I Roved Out Kennedy played his own field recordings of country singers.
Many of Kennedy’s field recordings were issued commercially – for example on the 10 LPs in The Folk Songs Of Britain series issued on Caedmon in the USA, and subsequently by Topic in the UK, on his own Folktrax releases and, since his death, by Topic in their Voice of the People series. Some of Kennedy’s recordings of both Albert Beale and Charlie Scamp have featured on these releases. His archive is now held by the British Library, who were also responsible for the Peter Kennedy website at https://www.peterkennedyarchive.org/ which provides access to the reports he compiled on his collecting activities for the BBC.
Kennedy was a prolific and important collector of folk songs, tunes and dances, but his reputation was sullied somewhat by the rather proprietorial attitude he took towards the material he had collected (claiming copyright not just on the recordings, but on the songs themselves), the notoriously poor production values of his Folktrax cassettes and CDs, and the fact that he was not averse to doctoring field recordings before releasing them.
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