Music of Sussex
The Basques and the red men, like our Sussexians, are fond of shrillness and acute sounds, but do not, like the East Indians, cultivate falsetto.In the Sussex tradition there is a strong vein of lyrical songs reflecting the life of the countryside and romance.
[10] Ralph Vaughan Williams' use of the tune of Our Captain Calls All Hands as sung by Harriett Verrall of Monks Gate, near Horsham, as a setting for John Bunyan’s To be a Pilgrim[5] and George Butterworth’s arrangement of Folk Songs from Sussex.
Using early sound-recording equipment, Vaughan Williams was able to make actual recordings of some songs, including a 1907 version of The Trees They Do Grow High as sung by David Penfold, the landlord of the Plough Inn at Rusper.
[11] Kate Lee, one of the founders of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, found James 'Brasser' Copper and his brother Thomas, the landlord of the Black Horse public house in Rottingdean.
In the 1950s Brasser's son Jim, grandson, Bob and others were featured by the BBC and broadcast The Life of James Copper, honouring him with a front cover photo on the Radio Times and asked to sing in London's Royal Albert Hall.
[7] In 1861 Mark Antony Lower wrote that "The effect, when continued by strong whistles of a group of lusty countrymen, is very striking, and cannot be adequately conveyed by description.
Turn the Cup Over was a one-verse song which would be sung after completion of the summer's harvest and would be held in the open air or in a large hall.
[7] Other singers included Michael Blann, a shepherd from Upper Beeding, George Attrill from Stopham, Hastings fisherman Noah Gillette.
According to some commentators, many people believe that the folk-rock revolution of 1969 would not have happened without the album that Shirley Collins recorded with guitarist Davey Graham, released in 1964 as Folk Roots, New Routes".
[25] They were also part of the original line-up of The Imagined Village, a project formed to represent the multicultural folk music traditions of the United Kingdom.
[36] In 2012, Sussex's traditional folk songs were being taught to new generations as part of a project by the South Downs Society,[37] with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
[49] The words to And did those feet in ancient time had also been written in Sussex over a hundred years earlier by William Blake whilst living in Felpham.
[49] Sir Edward Elgar lived near Fittleworth from 1917 and while there wrote some of his finest chamber music including the A minor Piano Quintet[2] and Cello Concerto before moving to Kempsey in Worcestershire.
[2] Probably Sussex's best-known native female composer, Ruth Gipps produced several orchestral works, including five symphonies and two piano concertos.
[50] The Chichester Psalms is a choral work by Leonard Bernstein for boy treble or countertenor, solo quartet, choir and orchestra.
[2] As a child, the composer John Tavener spent his summer holidays at Lady Birley's Sussex house, Charleston Manor where the grand piano was at his disposal and from where he visited Glyndebourne.
Major performers include violinist and violist Nigel Kennedy and the tenor Jonathan Ansell whose pop-opera boyband G4 were discovered in 2004 on the talent show The X Factor before embarking on a solo career in 2007.
[61] Former vicar of Crawley and warden of Sackville College in East Grinstead, John Mason Neale is best known for writing the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas".
[62] The words to the hymn "Morning Has Broken", later a hit for Cat Stevens, were written by Eleanor Farjeon from her Alfriston home, inspired by the Sussex countryside.
[66] Inspired by the view across the English Channel from Selsey towards Bognor Regis, "By the Sleepy Lagoon" by Eric Coates has been used by BBC Radio 4 as the opening theme music for Desert Island Discs since 1942.
[67][68] Best known for his theme tunes for Doctor Who,[69] Steptoe and Son,[69] Tales of the Unexpected[69] and The Prisoner,[69] Australian-born composer Ron Grainer moved to Brighton in the 1970s[69] and later died in Cuckfield.
[69] The winner of a BAFTA Award and Oscar nomination for "Walking in the Air",[70] Howard Blake grew up in Sussex[71] and continues to live in the county.
[2] Singer of traditional pop music, Alma Cogan's career began with singing with a band at tea dances on Worthing Pier[76] while at art college in the town.
Other hits from this period include "I Can't Tell a Waltz from a Tango", "Why Do Fools Fall in Love", "Sugartime" and "The Story of My Life".
Sayer's first UK number one followed in 1977 for his version of "When I Need You"[84] 1979 saw the release of One Step Beyond..., the debut album of Madness, a band formed in London by the Hastings-born singer-songwriter Suggs (real name Graham McPherson).
Punk band The Piranhas had a top 10 hit single in 1980 with their cover version of the South African kwela song "Tom Hark".
Bob Stanley helped form London-based indie dance-pop band Saint Etienne, which had some success in the 1990s including a Mercury award nomination for their 1991 album Foxbase Alpha.
[94] 2004 also saw Haywards Heath-born singer-songwriter, Natasha Bedingfield's debut album Unwritten as well as the single "These Words" both reach number one in the UK charts.
[101] Passenger (real name Michael Rosenberg) was nominated for British Single of the Year at the 2014 BRIT Awards for "Let Her Go" which topped the charts in several countries.
[105] She was included in lists of artists to watch by publications such as The Guardian, Vogue, NME, GQ, MTV, Vevo and Amazon Music.
