Elphinstone Sessions: The Spiers Family Sings Barbara Allen

In this session, the Spiers family share their version of the traditional ballad ‘Barbara Allen’. Singer Tom Spiers says of the ballad, Barbara Allan Child 84, Greig~Duncan 6/11

‘Since early childhood I’d often heard this ballad sung, but was never motivated to learn it until I heard a recording made by Peter Hall in the early 1960s, of John Stewart, a settled traveller in Aberdeen. I loved the tune and the feeling he put into it. Over the years I’ve changed a few lines and added a couple of verses, but don’t ask me which ones - it’s just part of the normal process of personalising songs, and why there are so many different versions. Bronson published 198 tunes for this Ballad and tune no. 127 is very close to the tune John Stewart sang, and I now sing. It was collected by Gavin Greig from a lady called Mrs Cruickshank, and is also the tune used in Last Leaves, and much later, The Scottish Folksinger.’

For more information on the Spiers family visit:
  / the-spiers-family-658504417563740  
http://www.spiersfamilygroup.co.uk/

This video is part of the Elphinstone Sessions, a series of videos by the University of Aberdeen's Elphinstone Institute highlighting the culture and living traditions of the North-East of Scotland. For more information about the work of the Institute and our programmes of study, please visit https://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/.