The Wild, Wild Berry- Ray Driscoll learned from Harry Civil, an itinerant Shropshire farmworker. CD date: 1989
Andy Turner (Liner notes) Ray Driscoll's CD Wild, Wild Berry:
I first encountered Ray Driscoll on the CD A Century of Song (EFDSS CD02, 1998), which features Ray singing Wild, Wild Berry, recorded by Mike Yates in 1989. Subsequently two further recordings of Ray, made by Gwilym Davies, have been made commercially available: the schoolboy ditty We are the Peckham Boys is on Voice of the People Volume 14 (Topic Records TSCD6641, 1998), and The Doughty Packman appears on The Birds Upon the Tree (Musical Traditions MTCD333, 2004). Now however Gwilym Davies has provided us with a 32 track CD (representing just under one hour of music) featuring recordings made between 1993 and 2002.
Ray Driscoll was born in 1922, in County Mayo, but moved to London when a boy (following his father, who was posted there with the Irish Lancers), and spent the rest of his life in England as a farmworker in Shropshire; in the Royal Navy during World War II; working as a printer in Fleet Street. He was living in Dulwich, London, when recorded by Mike Yates and, initially at any rate, by Gwilym Davies. He returned to Shropshire at some point prior to his death in 2005.
As Gwilym Davies notes: 'In the mid 1990s, it was rare to meet a singer of folk songs who had a large repertoire of songs and who had not been particularly influenced by the folk music revival'. In this context, Ray Driscoll was quite a find, and this is a very welcome CD release. On the evidence of these recordings, made when he was in his seventies, Ray was a strong singer with a clear, pleasant voice and an interesting repertoire. Here we have often-found traditional songs, such as Banks of Sweet Primroses and Jones's Ale, alongside songs of music hall origin, a selection of folk carols, some locally composed ditties, and a few very rare ballads and songs. Oh Mariners All, apparently not found in oral tradition since 1908, definitely falls in this latter category (sound clip, left). So do Sir Patrick Spens, Lovely Joan and The Death of Queen Jane (although I notice that Gwilym Davies also had the good fortune to record a version of this in Devon in 1985). The title track, Wild, Wild Berry, is also unusual; a reworking of Lord Randall which, like The Death of Queen Jane, Ray learned from Harry Civil, an itinerant Shropshire farmworker.
THE WILD, WILD BERRY From “Far From the Lowlands” Judy Cook c. 2000
Young man comes from hunting faint and weary
"What does ail my lord, my dearie?"
"O Mother dear, let my bed be made
For I feel the gripe of the woody nightshade."
Lie low sweet Randal
chorus:
Now you young men all who do eat full well
And they that sup right merry
'Tis far better, I entreat,
To have toads for your meat
Than to eat of the wild, wild berry
This young man he died eftsoon
By the light of a hunters' moon
'Twas not by bolt, nor yet by blade
But the deathly gripe of the woody nightshade
Lie low sweet Randal
(chorus)
This lord's false love, they hanged her high
For her deeds were the cause of her love to die
And in her hair they entwined a braid
Of the leaves and the berries of the woody nightshade
Lie low sweet Randal
(chorus)