Cyril Tawney (12 October 1930 – 21 April 2005) was an English singer-songwriter and a proponent of the traditional songs of the West of England, as well as traditional and modern maritime songs.
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Tawney was born in Gosport, Hampshire, England.Perhaps because of the family tradition of maritime service, Tawney joined the Royal Navy at the age of sixteen, serving for thirteen years, several of which were spent in submarines. During this period he developed his lifelong interest in English traditional music.
Inspired by the radio series As I Roved Out, Cyril visited the English Folk Dance and Song Society's London headquarters at Cecil Sharp House, Camden Town, in 1957, where he met the radio producer Charles Parker. He made his radio debut on Christmas Day 1957, in the Alan Lomax programme Sing Christmas, and his television debut the following Easter. Before long, he had a weekly television spot, as well as his own networked programme Watch Aboard, while still serving in the navy. Encouraged by these successes, Tawney left the Navy early in 1959 to become a full-time professional musician and broadcaster.
Leaving the services gave Cyril the freedom to extend his repertoire and develop his broadcasting career to include radio plays, children's programmes and documentaries, and later a weekly folk record request programme, Folkspin. Meanwhile, he researched the songs of Devon and Cornwall collected by the vicar of Lew Trenchard, the Rev Sabine Baring-Gould. He also researched 20th Century Royal Navy songs, which resulted in his book Grey Funnel Lines (1987).
His song "The Oggie Man" written in 1959, appeared on the album A Cold Wind Blows on the Elektra ’66 label. It reappeared in 1971 on the Decca Record Company Ltd album, The World of Folk. The song tells the story of the demise of the 'Oggie Man' from the Devonport Naval Dockyard, at a time when old-fashioned "fast food" was being replaced by the more modern purveyors of hot dogs (and all) (the "big boys" of the song). The Oggie Man had until that time offered his oggies (pasties) to sailors returning from sea, or from shore leave, from a box at the Albert Gate of the dock. It has been suggested that the sale of oggies here dated back to the 1700s.
In 1961, Cyril was one of the folk singers who took part in Arnold Wesker's Centre 42 project, aimed at taking the arts to a wider audience. Folk club engagements followed, and Cyril established his own folk club in Plymouth, where he met his future wife, Rosemary. He is often referred to as the founding father of the West Country folk revival.
Cyril's naval experiences also inspired his songwriting. Chicken On A Raft (navy slang for fried egg on fried bread) was written in the shanty call and response style, while The Oggie Man contrasted the disappearance of the oggie, or Cornish pasty, seller at Devonport docks with a sailor's lost love. Like many of Cyril's songs, the best known, Sally Free And Easy, was written in the late 1950s. Walking through a deserted dockyard one morning, Cyril was reminded of the opening sequence of the film On The Town, and also of WH Auden's Roman Wall Blues. By the time he reached his ship, he had composed the song in his head. Starting with Carolyn Hester in 1963, Dorris Henderson and John Renbourn, Davy Graham, Pentangle, Marianne Faithful and Dylan all recorded the song.
Cyril's repertoire may have come largely from the English tradition, but a major stylistic influence was the American Burl Ives, whose gentle, deceptively simple style he emulated, including his soft, strumming guitar accompaniment. Cyril's recording career started with Rocket Along (1960) and continued with The Outlandish Knight, a selection of west country versions of folk ballads, for Polydor. Surprisingly, his only recording for the prestigious Topic label was on the compilation album of sea songs and shanties, Farewell Nancy (1964), but from 1969 several albums were released on the Argo label. Much later, he established his own recording label, Neptune.
Beginning in 1972, Tawney studied English and History at Lancaster University.After he graduated, he admitted to a master's degree from the Leeds University Institute of Dialect and Folklife Studies. Tawney's last public performance was at Easter 2004, at the Lancaster Maritime Festival. He died of a bacterial infection at Exeter in 2005 after a long illness.
(Edited from article by Derek Schofield @ The Guardian & Wikipedia)