|
It is a sad
fact that if you mention the name of Norman Kennedy to the present
generation of Scottish folk enthusiasts, most of them will reply
"Norman who?" Yet in his adopted homeland of America, where he has
lived since 1966, he is rightly regarded as one of the finest exponents
of the traditional arts of ballad-singing and storytelling.
In the late
1950s / early 1960s, Norman was one of the shining lights of the
British folk revival. To say he was a regular visitor at the homes
of such great singers as Jeannie Robertson does him a disservice.
He was a friend of Jeannie, welcomed with open arms as someone she
could pass her songs to in the knowledge that they would be treated
with the respect, understanding and skill they deserved. Consequently,
his repertoire of Scottish songs and ballads was immense, at a time
when most of us depended on '101 Scottish Songs' as our source of
material.
But his interest
didn't stop there. His love of singing, folk lore and traditional
skills, frequently took him away from his native Aberdeen, to visit
family in the rural area of Methlic, where he helped on the farm,
and to the Hebrides where he absorbed as much as he could of the
Gaelic culture. Apart from learning the language, he taught himself
to card, spin and weave the wool, which he picked off barbed wire
fences. He even waulked the tweed in the traditional fashion (which
made visiting him quite awkward at times, stepping over buckets
of urine).
One result of
this eccentric behaviour was that he usually turned up at the Aberdeen
Folk Song Club immaculately dressed in a tweed suit, while the rest
of us wore the universally accepted uniform of jeans and sweater.
In the heady days of the Folk Revival, very firm distinctions were
drawn between 'Traditional' and 'Revival' singers. Norman refused
to fit into either box. He wasn't born on a farm, or in a travellers
tent, but he learned his songs orally from those who had been. He
was one of the few 'toonsers' to be afforded the reverence normally
reserved for Traditional Singers and fits more perfectly than anyone
else I can think of, the accolade of Tradition Bearer.
So why has he
been all but forgotten in Scotland? Simply because America swallowed
him up. Mike Seager heard him sing at the Aberdeen Folk Club in
1964 and immediately invited him to represent Scotland at the 1965
Newport Folk Festival. He went across with Bert Lloyd and Margaret
Barry who were representing England and Ireland, and loved it so
much he decided to make it his home. For the last 35 years, all
his energy has gone into spinning, weaving, singing and storytelling
for a huge audience of appreciative 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation
Scots who wanted to keep in touch with their roots.
In Norman Kennedy
we could not have had a better ambassador.
|
