Heel & Toe

Songs, tunes and stepdances from the Sam Steele collection

Percy Brown, Reg Bacon, Charlie Giddings, Billy Cooper, Walter & Daisy Bulwer, Hockey Feltwell, George Green, Billy Rash, Alan Pate

East Anglia has been a hunting ground for folk music collectors for many years and Sam Steele, a Fenland school teacher, had a nose for the real thing. Between 1959 and 1962 he recorded traditional singers, musicians, stepdancers and storytellers in remote villages and towns in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex. These are not professional performers but farmers, horsemen, cowmen, grave diggers, a bird catcher, a chimney sweep, a lorry driver and even a tailor, who have had their own local culture handed down to them, over the years, from their families and communities. These recordings give a remarkable snap-shot of times gone by.

CD Listing

  1. Heel & Toe Polka - Percy Brown melodeon (1.20)
  2. Banks of the Sweet Dundee - Reg Bacon song (5.40)
  3. So Was I - Charlie Giddings song (2.24)
  4. Yarmouth / Sailor’s /Yarmouth Hornpipes - Billy Cooper dulcimer, Walter Bulwer fiddle, Daisy Bulwer piano, Edna Wortley banjo (2.32)
  5. The Outlandish Knight - Hockey Feltwell song (3.12)
  6. College Hornpipe - George Green melodeon (0.38)
  7. Banks of the Clyde - Billy Rash song (3.53)
  8. Unidentified Jig - Walter Bulwer fiddle, Daisy Bulwer piano (2.00)
  9. John Barleycorn - Reg Bacon song (2.33)
10. Remember me to ...... - Alan Pate song with piano acc. (2.44)
11. Bluebell Polka - Percy Brown melodeon with unknown stepdancer (1.45)
12. The Bank of England - Charlie Giddings song (4.38)
13. Whistling Rufus - Billy Cooper dulcimer, Walter Bulwer fiddle, Daisy Bulwer piano, Edna Wortley banjo (2.44)
14. Nothing to Do With Me - Reg Bacon song (3.12)
15. Four Hand Reel - George Green melodeon (0.37)
16. Dulcie Bell - Billy Cooper dulcimer (2.19)
17. Lamkin - Hockey Feltwell song (3.26)
18. Unidentified Polka - Billy Cooper dulcimer, Walter Bulwer fiddle, Daisy Bulwer piano, Edna Wortley banjo (1.42)
19. The Barley Mow - Reg Bacon song (5.18)
20. Step Dance Medley - Percy Brown melodeon, Dick Hewitt stepdancing 1.30