Gold-Medal Balladeer

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 935, 12 July 1957, Page 7

Gold-Medal Balladeer

A FORETASTE of pleasures to come will be offered to Theatre of Music listeners (YA stations, 3YZ, 4YZ) on Saturday, July 20, with a programme of songs by the American balladeer William Clauson. Clauson-who is to tour New Zealand for the NZBS in August-has built an impressive reputation as an entertainer on film, radio, TV and disc, and his "Folk Songs and Ballads" recording won the London News Chronicle gold medal as the finest light recording of 1956. Next week’s Theatre of Music programme will feature the songs which won that award. They range in style from "The Frog and the Mouse," catchy as a nursery-rhyme, to the religious "Sinner Man." The well-known ballads include "All Through the Night": and "Cockles and Mussels," while the classic folk songs are represented by such songs as "Black, Black is the Colour." One song in this recital, "Sippin’ Cider," has become familiar in a popular version as "Sippin’ Soda," but Clauson sings the attractive earlier version. ‘Most of these songs tell stories, some old as that of John Grumblie, who stayed home while his wife went to the fields, but others will be new pleasures to most listeners. The accompaniments vary from the singer’s own guitar to a band arrangement and vocal assistance from John Gregory and his group. Folk songs lend themselves to varied treatment and because of that flexibility they have travelled far since they began to be rediscovered at the beginning of the century. The dance world in America uses folk melodies of all kinds, yet the old songs and ballads are taking on a new lease of life in their traditional forms, as a new generation of troubadours is on the move. They pick up the songs from another’s singing and take them to new places and people. Clauson himself has said that he learnt one of his English songs in Swedenfrom the singing of a Negro boy from Jamaica. Although the songs in this programme are all American or from the British Isles, William Clauson has picked up songs from all over the world, singing most of them in their original languages. He was born in Ashtabula, Ohio, some 27 years ago, of Swedish parents, and when he was two the family moved back to Sweden, where he spent his early childhood. He showed a great interest in all things musical, so much so that at the age of four his parents decided to enter him in the Boras Conservatory of Music. As the youngest student to enter the Conservatory he started studying violin, voice and composition. When he was seven his parents returned to the United States, where he finished his schooling in Cleveland and Los Angeles. At high school William Clauson became interested in the guitar, and soon gave up the violin in favour of this instrument. He continued his vocal studies with Victor Fuchs, and began studying the guitar with the virtuoso Jose Barroso, On graduation from high — school Clauson began a film career, appearing

in many films, among which were Stars in My Crown, Louisa, The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap, with Marjorie Main, Abbott and Costello, and You Gotta Stay Happy, with James Stewart. His movie career was interrupted by service in the U.S. Army, where Clauson spent much of his time entertaining fellow GIs with his guitar and songs. While in the army he decided that acting was not his forte, and that his career was to be that of a balladeer, Since then he has travelled far, singing and searching for new songs, and his travels have taken him through the Americas, the Latin and Scandinavian countries, and Great Britain, In England he has been featured on BBC television and in radio pro-

grammes, and has toured the country. After the last British concert tour he starred in the musical Wild Grows the Heather, and when this operetta ended he went on to Scandinavia, where he has a contract for five annual tours. There he shared billing on Sweden’s American Day (an annual holiday paying tribute to Sweden’s emigres to America) with Prince Bertil. Since then he has been in the United States, and Europe, and on his way to New Zealand he is spending some time in Malaya, Indonesia; Hong Kong and Manila. From New Zealand he will go on to Australia. Clauson’s interpretations show that he has been influenced by such other singers in this field as Dyer-Bennet and Burl Ives, but he possesses qualities all

his own. According to Douglas Kennedy, of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, he "combines the Northerner’s natural taste for poetry with a tremendous zest for the rhythm and vitality of Central and Latin American folk music." Today he has the reputation of being one of the more authentic balladeers before the public. Carl Sandburg, the great American authority on folk song, has described him as "A Viking of song, to me irresistible; one of the most colourful singers and accomplished guitarists that I have ever heard."