You Make Me Dizzy Miss Lizzie’

Naturally, any folklorist goes into the field with a notion of what he or she wants to find and therefore neglects a good deal of what else is there and sometimes we even miss what is most important to the contributors themselves. The contributors are often just as predisposed to a certain kind of material as the fieldworker, especially in a patch as well worked over as the North East of Scotland where they know what is wanted. Folklorists have been coming to this area for centuries, nearly always in search of the 'big ballads'. With the collections of North East material made by the Christies and Child, and the field collection work of Greig and Duncan, J. M. Carpenter, Alan Lomax, Hamish Henderson, Peter Kennedy, Arthur Argo, Kenneth S. Goldstein, et. al.,2 it is little wonder that many North East tradition bearers are fully aware of the value of their song tradition to outsiders. 3 After a few interviews, one soon learns that the predominant form of traditional song in much of Scotland is Country and Western.4 This is equally true for the Highlands and Lowland areas; traditional culture is a sponge for both ideas and styles; this music is just the latest influence on a tradition which has drawn on classic ballads, broadsides. Music Hall, Country and Western and Rock and Roll. In fact, emotionally frank Country and Western music perhaps comes closest to approximating the functional, expressive local song-making tradition that, until recently, could be found in many Scottish communities, particularly in Gaelic Scotland.5 It is no surprise, then, that Country and Western is a universal choice, from Shetland to Shettleston, and rural Aberdeenshire in the 1950s was no exception. This article deals with the effects of mid-twentieth century musical styles on the North East ballad tradition of the Stewarts of Fetterangus, in particular on the songs of Elizabeth Stewart

Art · Art history · Ballad · Literature · Poetry · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Philippine History and Culture · Scottish History and National Identity