Pub singing is still common in some establishments in England, especially in the Southern Pennines around Sheffield. At Christmastime, rather than the familiar Christmas carols they keep locally-popular old church hymns and glees alive in pub singing, although their survival in oral tradition was nearly lost.
During the English Reformation hymn-singing had been banned in English churches. After the defeat of Cromwell, the Church of England only very slowly began to permit hymn singing, largely because the Methodists and other denominations were attracting members by including hymn-singing as a prominent part of their services. The old Latin plainchant singing was still not allowed, and a new repertoire of church music was needed.
But after several decades of music-less worship there was a shortage of trained composers, choir-masters and singers familiar with harmony-singing. Dance musicians and others who were not trained in the classical rules of harmony filled the vacuum, and they began writing a very robust style of new hymns that we now call West-Gallery singing. Tensions developed between vicars and choir-masters, and over time the West Gallery choirs and bands were squeezed out by organ and a new generation of classically-trained organ-master / choir leaders. The old West Gallery songs either became forgotten or they continued to be sung in pubs (which were the musicians’ more natural habitat anyway.)
Around Sheffield, singing West Gallery hymns in pubs was still common in the late 20th century but the custom seemed to be fading. In the 1980s, folklorist Ian Russell set out to record this style of singing in various parts of rural England. But instead of just preserving the last vestiges of a dying tradition, his recordings which he self-published on cassette tapes led to a revival of the genre. Folk singers in England loved these musical gems. And many of them came to agree with Ian Russell that religious harmony singing from that era is, in itself, a kind of folk music. (In North America there was a parallel revival in shape-note singing, but I’ll save examples of that for another day.)
This first song, Hail Smiling Morn, was one of the most popular of the old-style songs that was kept alive through oral transmission in pubs, with many versions of it widespread throughout South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire, and as far afield as Cornwall. Actually, it is a secular song, not a church hymn. It comes from 19th century glee singing that stems from the same roots. Archival research shows that it had been written in 1810 by Reginald Spofforth of Southwell, Nottinghamshire.
This version of Hail Smiling Morn is from one of Ian Russell’s field recordings, made in 1992, but I ripped it from a Smithsonian Folkways CD called English Village Carols that includes highlights from several of Ian’s field recordings. It is sung here by the Little John Singers (named after the pub in the Little John Hotel) who formed in 1969 to preserve the old village carols that were being displaced in pub-singing by the standard repertoire of Christmas carols. Around Christmas the group would go to each of the four local village pubs in Hathersage, about 12 miles from Sheffield, selling sheet music for charity that had the village carols’ lyrics and leading the patrons in singing them. You will notice in this recording that the voices get louder as the pub patrons get used to the melody that they learn by ear, the same way that their mentors learned the songs.
Diadem was preserved in the same Sheffield area pub-singing tradition, but in its case it was recorded in 1993 by John Leonard for a BBC radio broadcast from the singing of patrons at the Black Bull pub in Ecclesfield. At that pub there was no core group to lead the singing – just the patrons drinking and singing their traditional village carols that everyone had either learned or were learning by ear. This however is a recent recording of the song made by the fabulous Melrose Quartet, from their recently-released CD The Rudolph Variations. For another version, here is a YouTube rendition of it recorded by Waterson:Carthy on their Festive Folk album.
In the case of Diadem, its retention in oral tradition was nowhere near as widespread as that of Hail Smiling Morn – apparently just this one isolated village. But again, archival research has been able to reveal its origins. The words for Diadem (Roud 17726 ; Ballad Index Rd017726) were written by Rev. Edward Perronet in 1779 and it was given this harmony setting (or something similar to it since it probably evolved in local usage) by James Ellor in 1838. The lyrics are available here.
The continued survival of British village carols now seems much more secure. A group has formed in Britain called Village Carols that lists 38 pubs and other venues where the tradition continues today. You can learn more about them here.
