Help to fund a songbook of Brenda's recordings performed in the Cornish language, + 33 songs on 2 CDs, multi-lingual lyrics & musical scores. At long last - a songbook of all the available recordings of 'Cornwall's First Lady of Song', Brenda Wootton, singing the Cornish language songs of Richard Gendall - 33 songs on 2 CDs, each with musical scores and 3 sets of lyrics, as well as an insightful study of the serendipitous partnership of Brenda and song-writer Richard.
Nearly 50 years ago, Cornish singer Brenda Wootton was introduced to the Cornish language by Cornish Bard, Richard Gendall. This was exciting news to her, and she encouraged Richard to write more of his wonderful songs for her to sing – not that he needed much encouragement. She and Richard were both as eager to spread the word – Richard, knowing that he was not a natural performer, was delighted at last to have found someone who could do justice to his compositions, and spread them far and wide; Brenda was thrilled to have discovered a wellspring of material she could promote as being truly Cornish, to her fast-growing audience around the world. They needed each other, and for some 18 years, continued to enjoy the unique opportunities their musical partnership afforded them.
Despite her interest and enthusiasm, Brenda never did manage to become fluent in Kernewek, but pledged to sing at least one song in Cornish at every performance – which she did. They made one Cornish language album together, 'Crowdy Crawn' in 1973, but the natural outcome of their informal partnership should have been songbooks and CDs, and it never happened. From Richard and Brenda's correspondence, it seems that was one of Richard's dearest wishes - but the amount of work involved to achieve that proved too much.
Given the number of songs that Richard created for Brenda - over 460, about a third of which were in Cornish - it is not surprising that she was only ever actually able to learn and perform about a third of them. We are delighted to be able to offer two of the ‘unsung’ numbers on these CDs, performed by guest artists, Cornwall virtuoso Hilary Coleman with Neil Davey, and the multi-lingual Celtic performer, Gwenno.
The Need to Read!
The aim of the project is to make these songs more widely available to the Cornish, and indeed anyone else who is interested - music lovers, Celts of all nations, cultural and linguistic historians... There was a danger that those songs not already recorded on Brenda's albums might have sunk without trace, so it became my mission to save whatever recordings I could find of Brenda singing Richard's Cornish songs - and to present them with a songbook. The musical scores are printed with Richard's original Cornish words, alongside the newly-translated Standard Written Form of Cornish, and also in English, so enabling both accomplished Cornish speakers and learners to make use of the tunes.
There are 31 r
ecordings
of songs in Cornish performed by Brenda - some are taken from her LPs,
but there are several that are unpublished: concert recordings, practice
tapes etc. In addition, we have the 2 unused songs of Richard's
recorded by our Guest Artists, Hilary Coleman and Neil Davey, and
Gwenno, bringing the total to 33. There is an extensive introduction
with biographical information about Brenda and Richard, with the focus
on the reclusive Richard Gendall, about whom much less is known, and
insights into his motivations. I have added a table in the Appendix with
the complete list of Richard's Cornish songs of which I have some
evidence - lyrics, music and/or recordings, if there should be further
interest.
We estimate that the BYK project will cost in the region of £3000. It has already attracted grant offers from Mark Trevethan, Cornwall Language Lead at Cornwall Council, and from the Cornwall Heritage Trust, so a third of this cost has now been covered - and this Crowdfunding campaign hopes to raise the remaining £2000 - and more if possible!
The Launch 
We plan to launch the songbook and CDs at a celebration at the Count House, Botallack, near St Just, hopefully sometime in July - date to be confirmed. The event will mark the unveiling of the Blue Plaque awarded to Brenda four years ago by BBC Radio Cornwall listeners, in honour of National Music Day - every local radio station was asked to submit their listeners' most popular choice, and Brenda was Cornwall's favourite. As it was not possible to mount the plaque on the walls of Radio Cornwall, it had not found a permanent home until now - and the location of Brenda's Piper's Folk Club at the Count House, from where her musical career was launched, is the perfect spot. The National Trust, owners of Botallack now, have given permission to also hold a concert of old friends and performers from the Club, probably outside. (Subscribers and Crowdfunder supporters will receive their copies and rewards as soon as possible after the launch - we'll keep you informed!)
