John Roberts & Tony Barrand is the pairing of English folk singers John Rob… Read Full Bio ↴John Roberts & Tony Barrand is the pairing of English folk singers John Roberts and Tony Barrand, both resident in America. The duo are also members of the four-man act Nowell Sing We Clear.
Widely acclaimed for their lively and entertaining presentations of English folk songs, Roberts and Barrand have performed at major festivals, colleges, clubs and coffeehouses throughout the United States, Canada, and their native Britain. They sing the ballads and songs of the sea, of rural pursuits, of social and sociable situations, of industrial toil and strife, and much more, typically arranging their material thematically to better illustrate the lives and the social history of the people who made and sang the songs. Their songs are punctuated with tales, monologues, dances and tunes, giving a more complete appreciation of the wealth, diversity, and vitality of the English folk tradition.
Roberts and Barrand met at Cornell University in 1968, as fellow graduate students in psychology. They discovered that they shared a common interest in folk song, and started performing together the following year. Unaccompanied two-part singing was always a primary staple of their repertoire, and the stark harmonies of their well-balanced voices soon brought them to the attention of the folk music community. They also draw upon a variety of instrumentation: Roberts is a leading exponent of both Anglo and English concertina, as well as being a fine banjo and guitar player; Tony Barrand is a skilled percussionist, on drums, bones and spoons.
Both are active in the folk dance arena as well as in song. Barrand is a well-known Morris and clog dancer, and his teaching is in demand across the United States. His book, Six Fools and a Dancer, was as the definitive work on Morris Dance in the United States. Roberts, an able dancer himself, is more often found providing the music on concertina. When not singing or dancing (and often when he is), Tony Barrand teaches folklore and aesthetics via the University Professors Program at Boston University; Roberts is a freelance music engraver and desktop publisher.
In their many years together as a professional team, Roberts and Barrand have recorded with a number of companies including Swallowtail, Front Hall, Folk Legacy, National Geographic, and, most recently, Golden Hind. These recordings include a critically-acclaimed album of authentic sea shanties, an album of drinking songs recorded live in a Chicago tavern, An Evening at the English Music Hall, and four albums of songs from their celebrated Christmas pageant, Nowell Sing We Clear. Their release in August '92 was a program of English folk songs entitled A Present from the Gentlemen. They have also recorded a selection of the songs that the composer Percy Grainger collected in Lincolnshire during the early years of this century, to be released as "Heartoutbursts" in 1998.
Other releases include Naulakha Redux (1997), Twiddlum Twaddlum (2003).
Widely acclaimed for their lively and entertaining presentations of English folk songs, Roberts and Barrand have performed at major festivals, colleges, clubs and coffeehouses throughout the United States, Canada, and their native Britain. They sing the ballads and songs of the sea, of rural pursuits, of social and sociable situations, of industrial toil and strife, and much more, typically arranging their material thematically to better illustrate the lives and the social history of the people who made and sang the songs. Their songs are punctuated with tales, monologues, dances and tunes, giving a more complete appreciation of the wealth, diversity, and vitality of the English folk tradition.
Roberts and Barrand met at Cornell University in 1968, as fellow graduate students in psychology. They discovered that they shared a common interest in folk song, and started performing together the following year. Unaccompanied two-part singing was always a primary staple of their repertoire, and the stark harmonies of their well-balanced voices soon brought them to the attention of the folk music community. They also draw upon a variety of instrumentation: Roberts is a leading exponent of both Anglo and English concertina, as well as being a fine banjo and guitar player; Tony Barrand is a skilled percussionist, on drums, bones and spoons.
Both are active in the folk dance arena as well as in song. Barrand is a well-known Morris and clog dancer, and his teaching is in demand across the United States. His book, Six Fools and a Dancer, was as the definitive work on Morris Dance in the United States. Roberts, an able dancer himself, is more often found providing the music on concertina. When not singing or dancing (and often when he is), Tony Barrand teaches folklore and aesthetics via the University Professors Program at Boston University; Roberts is a freelance music engraver and desktop publisher.
In their many years together as a professional team, Roberts and Barrand have recorded with a number of companies including Swallowtail, Front Hall, Folk Legacy, National Geographic, and, most recently, Golden Hind. These recordings include a critically-acclaimed album of authentic sea shanties, an album of drinking songs recorded live in a Chicago tavern, An Evening at the English Music Hall, and four albums of songs from their celebrated Christmas pageant, Nowell Sing We Clear. Their release in August '92 was a program of English folk songs entitled A Present from the Gentlemen. They have also recorded a selection of the songs that the composer Percy Grainger collected in Lincolnshire during the early years of this century, to be released as "Heartoutbursts" in 1998.
Other releases include Naulakha Redux (1997), Twiddlum Twaddlum (2003).
Divers and Lazarus
John Roberts & Tony Barrand Lyrics
We have lyrics for these tracks by John Roberts & Tony Barrand:
The Land The world it sits and watch them die What is the…
We have lyrics for these tracks by John Roberts:
I Every time I think of you It always turns out good Every…
Six In the middle of the night Six strings down On…
This Is Goodbye This is the moment This is the day When I send all…
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
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@martinhealy2902
For to see my Tom of Bedlam, 10,000 miles I'd travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes, to save her shoes from gravel.
Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys,
Bedlam boys are bonnie
For they all go bare and they live by the air,
And they want no drink nor money.
I went down to Satin's kitchen, for to beg me food one morning
There I got souls piping hot, all on the spit a turning.
There I picked up a cauldron, Where boiled 10,000 harlots
Though full of flame I drank the same, to the health of all such varlets.
My staff has murdered giants, my bag a long knife carries
For to cut mince pies from children's thighs, with which to feed the fairies.
Spirits white as lightning, shall on my travels guide me
The moon would quake and the stars would shake, when' ere they espied me.
No gypsy slut nor doxy, shall win my Mad Tom from me
I'll weep all night, the stars I'll fight, the fray will well become me.
It's when next I have murdered, the Man-In-The-Moon to powder
His staff I'll break, his dog I'll bake, they'll howl no demon louder.
So drink to Tom of Bedlam, he'll fill the seas in barrels
I'll drink it all, all brewed with gall, with Mad Maudlin I will travel.
@sandramorey2529
Best version of this around. I also love the Twa Magicians on the same album (Dark Ships in the forest) I teach this because of the easy harmony which makes the hair stand up on folks arms.
@theodoremcgrath6404
This is great! I remember listening to the Steeleye Span rendition and wishing they had kept going with the slower, more instrumentally sparse arrangement they did for the first two verses instead of speeding it up and electrifying it. This comes pretty close, and the fiddle is nice as well!
@sandramorey2529
I learned this song from you maybe 30 years ago. I particularly like your harmony. I have been teaching it in my adult singing group with the harmony. I thank you so much for recording "Dark Ships In The Forest" which I own. I also thank you so very much for your public radio show Folk Music USA that I was smart enough to tape onto cassette. We sing Green Grow the Rushes with your harmonies from that recording. It has vanished into the ether & nobody ever heard of it. It was a Christms concert and is much better than the ones available on CD. Noel Sing We Clear
@oakroom48
Thanks for posting! More Roberts & Barrand pls :-)
@redwolf7929
Seems to bring some ancestral memory feeling of old England
@nbenefiel
They were wonderful
@PlagueS36
Im an American but this is just so awesome
@elliottfunkhouser4486
omg English colony likes English music? you don't say.
@cycloptical26
Old Blind Dogs also have a very nice cover of this, sometimes called Bedlam Boys.
@theleastcreative
Does anyone know where I can find sheet music for this?