The Yellow Handkerchief

Traditional songs & ballads from England’s greatest gypsy singer - Phoebe Smith

Phoebe Smith is thought by many to have been one of England's greatest traditional singers. She had a style and delivery that stunned an audience into silence, and to hear her in full flight at the end of this CD is a revelation. Phoebe spent much of her life on the road, Essex for sugar-beeting, Kent for cherries, plums and pears, then up to the Fens for the potatoes and it was there she would meet her own and other families and possibly swap a song or two. The CD contains a classic mixture of ballads like 'Green Bushes', A Blacksmith Courted Me' and 'Barbara Allen' as well as the traveller's anthem 'Romany Rye' and even a stepdance to the music of Irish fiddler Martin Byrnes.

CD Listing 

  1. Raking the Hay (4.59)
  2. Old Gypsy’s Waggon (Romany Rye) (2.08)
  3. Barbara Allan (11.03)
  4. Jolly Herring (3.06)
  5. Johnny Abourne (5.08)
  6. Wings of a Swallow (Old Rocky Road) (2.06)
  7. Green Brushes (4.59)
  8. Young Morgan – with Joe Smith (1.24)
  9. Lavender – Joe Smith (0.42)
10. The Sheepfold (7.37)
11. A Blacksmith Courted Me (7.50)
12. Stepdance – to Martin Byrnes, fiddle (1.05)
13. Game of All Fours (3.00)
14. The Yellow Handkerchief (4.16)