Cecil Sharp’s People is a website dedicated to all the singers, musicians and dancers who gave their songs, tunes and dances to Cecil Sharp as he travelled around England between 1903-1923.
With the aid of a Maltwood Fund grant from the Somerset Archaeological & Natural History Society, David Sutcliffe has compiled biographical sketches of over 700 individuals, including 342 Somerset folk singers. Unfortunately, Sharp did not collect any folk songs in Dorset, which was the preserve of Henry and Robert Hammond.
The folk singers from whom Cecil Sharp collected the material were working people – agricultural labourers, glovers, laundresses, sailors, shoemakers etc., and it is their stories that David reveals on this new website.
David Sutcliffe is a freelance researcher with a particular interest in Somerset folk songs. He is a Morris dancer, an occasional singer, and the author of a biography of the Rev. Charles Marson, The Keys of Heaven (Cockasnook Books, 2010).