Sydney Carter

Unlike most song makers he composed on the voice, the body and the tape recorder rather than on the piano or guitar. Often unaccompanied, or backed by guitar, flute or drum, he sang, recited or performed to almost any kind of audience, the unlikelier the better—prisons, churches, or the Albert Hall. He was seen on British television in a series of programmes called Hallelujah, where the aim was to bring Christian and non-Christian face to face. The songs raise questions about love, time, politics and religion.

Carter wrote revue material for Donald Swann (of Flanders and Swann) in the 1950s. Later in the 1960s Swann introduced some of Carter’s songs on two records, Songs of Faith and Doubt and Sing Round the Year (MD 3002). Many folk and protest singers took up his songs.

He started working life as a schoolmaster, served with the Friends Ambulance Unit in Greece, and later wrote as a music critic for Gramophone magazine. His poems and songs are published by Stainer and Bell in a variety of publications. http://www.stainer.co.uk/carter.html

He was born 6 May 1915 in Camden, London, and died 13 March 2004 in London. Oxford-educated, and hoping for work in the BBC or films, he became history master at Frensham Heights School in Farnham, Surrey. He was already writing poetry, but it was after the Second World War—during which he served in the Middle East and Greece with the Friends Ambulance Unit—that he began composing songs. Inspired by music heard in Greece, he frequented London folk clubs, heard Ewan MacColl, joined the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), and started singing his own material.

In the 1960s he wrote songs for Christian Aid, having earlier contributed religious and protest songs for the Aldermaston march. His first album, 1962’s Putting Out the Dustbin, was recorded with Sheila Hancock; Hallelujah featured Martin Carthy and Isla Cameron. The former included the minor hit My Last Cigarette. His best-known and most widely covered song is the children’s favourite Lord of the Dance, an adaptation of the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts, included on the 1965 EP of the same name. Its ambiguous lyrics drew on both Christianity and paganism, and appealed to believers and atheists alike.

Many of his compositions carried a religious theme; in 1995 his eightieth birthday was celebrated at Westminster Abbey. Judas and Mary was sung by Nadia Cattouse at the First International Festival of Music in Seville (Unda Sevilla) in 1967, winning the Gold Medal Award (Premio Unda Sevilla) among more than twenty countries. One More Step is widely requested for collective worship. The lyrics of Friday Morning prompted Enoch Powell to call for a ban over the lines ‘It’s God they ought to crucify / Instead of you and me’.

Carter always claimed a style based on rhythm and feel rather than technical display. His songs have been covered by many artists, among them Rolf Harris, Jackson Browne, Julie Felix, the Spinners, Judy Collins and Pete Seeger. The anti-war lullaby Crow on the Cradle was revived at the 1979 No Nukes concert and brought unexpected royalties. Despite final years blighted by Alzheimer’s disease, his songs endure.