Peter Franklyn Bellamy was an English folk singer, a founding member of The Young Tradition, but he also had a long solo career, recording numerous albums and touring folk clubs and concert halls. Perhaps his best-known work is The Transports, a ballad opera that tells the story of two convicts transported to Australia and features many artists, including Mike Waterson, Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, June Tabor, A L Lloyd, Cyril Tawney, Martin Winsor, Vic Legg, and The Watersons with Anthea Bellamy. Peter Bellamy, who wrote all the lyrics and music, serves as singer and narrator. It was 1977. It took four years to find a company willing to produce it. But in the end, it was a success. It told the true story of the first transport ship to land in Australia and the first couple to marry on Australian soil. It was a story Peter had found in the local Norfolk newspaper and then explored in detail at the city's museum and library. Descendants of that family, surnamed Kabel, still live in Sydney and later became friends with Peter. In 2004, the album was re-released, a new production featuring Simon Nicol and Fairport Convention. There was also a 1986 ballad opera called Crab Wars, which was clearly a partial parody of The Transports; but Peter took it well and even sang the narrator. He was a generous, humble person, always helpful to others and never selfish. He studied at Norwich School of Art and later at Maidstone College of Art, always retaining something of the image of an art student even into his later years, with blond hair often pulled back in a ponytail and tied with a ribbon, a scarlet jacket, and floral-patterned trousers he made himself from upholstery fabrics. He was certainly eccentric, but never snobbish; he possessed such humility that he was embarrassed to personally apply for a concert and always waited for someone to call him. Witness to this reticence was folk singer and guitarist Nick Dow, whom Bellamy, in a moment of crisis, turned to and asked, "Nick, how do you get so much work?" He replied that he was a "persuasive bastard" and that he had no qualms. Bellamy told him that he couldn't easily call and ask for a concert because he found it embarrassing. He was a singer and an artist, not a businessman; he needed everyone's help, and the appreciation of his art was lifeblood for him. But by the early 1990s, the great folk era had ended, and an artist like Peter was inevitably doomed to unemployment. The emerging "roots music" of the Pogues, an easy, fun, and cheerful folk style, was taking precedence over research and tradition, a style favored by club owners over the slow, evocative atmospheres of traditional singing. Shortly before his death in 1991, his widow Jenny recounted that Peter had spent an entire day carefully and self-critically listening to his entire recording career, finally saying, "But I'm good. What the hell went wrong?" She couldn't understand the lack of interest in his art. From a financial standpoint, folk singing meant for Peter the opportunity to sell his limited-edition cassettes in folk clubs; Many performances exist only as bootleg tapes because they rarely appeared on his albums; he preferred to record in the studio. But live performances were his life and his wealth; not that he earned much, but certainly enough to live decently. Celtic Records is said to have a large stock of quality recordings, but it's doubtful they'll ever be released. It was as if Bellamy wanted to separate his live activity from his studio recordings, in fact their repertoires were also very different: in folk clubs and in private, he often played the blues accompanying himself on the bottleneck guitar. The only exception to this trend was a version of Robert Johnson's "Stones in My Passway," which appears on the Young Tradition album Galleries. But a curious thing happened: Bellamy decided to add a background noise to the track reminiscent of an old 78 rpm record. It was an idea that didn't work: a Transatlantic Records press officer later revealed that several copies were returned as "defective"! Bellamy committed suicide on September 24, 1991, a fact that shocked the folk music community. At the time, he was working with Fellside Records, but on the online folk music forum Mudcat Cafe, many of his friends had found him depressed because requests from folk clubs had inexplicably decreased, despite the success of The Transports. Folk music critic Michael Grosvenor Myer, who had named The Transports the album of the year in The Guardian, the newspaper where he would later write his obituary, recounts how Bellamy showed him an empty appointment book, explaining in sad and perplexed tones how after The Transports, his career had hit a slump. The story of the empty diary was confirmed by fellow folksinger Brian Peters, in front of whom Bellamy took his diary and, holding it high so it was clearly visible, leafed through page after page, without saying a word. American folk singer Lisa Null, a longtime friend, wrote: "He was broke, unable to get gigs, unable to fit in. He complained about it so much, that many of us got used to it—a bad mistake. He was sending out warning signals." Psychological fragility is typical of many artists who see art as their sole reason for living. What Richard Thompson wrote in his autobiography about Sandy Denny comes to mind, her difficulty with being a mother ("one child was too much for her") and the warnings of crisis she sent through her phone calls. Peter Bellamy's career was certainly influenced by his friend and singer Anne Briggs, who suggested he leave boarding school in 1965 to join the group The Young Tradition with Royston Wood and Heather Wood, who, mind you, were not even related despite their identical last names. A trio that began recording traditional songs for voices alone and with virtually no accompaniment, powerful voices undoubtedly inspired by artists such as The Watersons, The Copper Family, and Ewan MacColl. They recorded three albums together, plus a collaboration with Shirley Collins called The Holly Bears The Crown, which, recorded in 1969, was not released until the 1990s. The Young Tradition's last concert was at Cecil Sharp House in October 1969, after which they disbanded: Bellamy wanted to focus on English traditional music, while the other members had developed an interest in medieval music. These three albums remain indelible in the memory. The first (1966), the eponymous album, launched the career of this trio, which reinterpreted traditional compositions from southern England with great expressiveness. Here, Royston Wood's low voice harmonizes well with those of Peter and Heather Wood. No less captivating was So Cheerfully Round (1967), recorded by Bill Leader at the renowned Livingstone Studios, with artwork and cover photography by Brian Shuel. The trilogy concludes with Galleries (1968), another memorable album featuring a splendid cover artwork by William Watters. Peter Bellamy's first solo album, Mainly Norfolk (1968), clearly demonstrated his desire to promote the folk music of his home region, Norfolk. He drew heavily on the repertoire of Harry Cox, then alive, the region's most famous traditional singer. On the album, Bellamy sang all the songs unaccompanied. Only starting with his second album, Fair England's Shore (1968), did he begin to accompany himself with the concertina. Even later, he occasionally recorded with the guitar. In 1971, Bellamy recorded Won't You Go My Way?, a rare live album with Louis Killen, which was recorded at the Folk Studio in Norwich on 22 July 1971. 1975 was an important year for him, both for the release of his eighth album and because he had begun recording a collection of Rudyard Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads. In fact, Bellamy had begun his exploration of Kipling as a source of songs not with the Barrack Room Ballads but with songs from Kipling's children's books (Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies), from which he produced two albums, Oak Ash and Thorn and Merlyn's Isle of Gramarye. Among the compositions on the latter album is the beautiful "The Queen's Men," arranged by Dolly Collins. Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads were published in 1892, and Bellamy began setting them to music in 1973. But at the time, there were many preconceptions about Kipling, who was perceived as an old reactionary and therefore obviously a writer without any merit. In fact, Kipling had a true insight into the civilian contempt for soldiers in peacetime, the same civilians who encouraged and cheered them when they went off to battle. A keen observer of society, Kipling had been able to grasp the hypocrisies of the world. When composing music for Kipling's poetry, Bellamy had a theory that poets who wrote in meter used song melodies to make their poems flow properly. Peter did the exact opposite: he started from the lyrics and had a habit of humming and whistling while composing. Bellamy was moved when the line in Dutch in the Medway, "Our ships in every port...", reminded him of the line from the song "Cupid's Garden," "Twas down in Portsmouth Harbour..." The melody for Kipling's poem thus naturally occurred to him, leading him to wonder whether Kipling had composed the tune, which was a common 19th-century folk song and certainly part of the repertoire of the remarkable Copper family from Sussex. There were too many coincidences: the Coppers had lived in Rottingdean when Kipling did, and a local man named Copper appears briefly in Rewards and Fairies. It has also been said that Kipling's lyrics, "My name is O'Kelly, I've heard the reveille," were based on the Irish song and army march, Lillibullero. Bellamy found a different melody, but was certain that Lillibullero was in Kipling's mind at the time of composition. Initially, Bellamy's proposal to record the Ballads was rejected by Kipling's daughter, and it took until his death in 1976 for permission to finally be granted by the Kipling Society. Thus, the album Barrack Room Ballads was recorded by Bill Leader, with Chris Birch (Bellamy's first wife's brother) on fiddle and Tony Hall on accordion. Chris also contributed to numerous other Bellamy albums, playing fiddle and guitar, singing, and providing vocal arrangements. The Kipling Society continued to appreciate Bellamy's contribution to the Kipling legacy, so much so that he was elected a Fellow of the Kipling Society, becoming its Vice President in 1981. His life and work were fondly celebrated during a day of performances, including The Transports at London's Conway Hall on October 2, 1992, thirteen months after his death. Heather Wood, his former Young Tradition colleague now living in New York, traveled especially to be present for the occasion.Bellamy had a distinctive singing style: in a cartoon published in Southern Rag magazine, he was given the anagrammatic name "Elmer P. Bleaty," a humorous commentary on the slightly nasal vibrato of his voice. Peter, a self-deprecating person, appreciated, framed, and hung the original cartoon in his home. Folk singer Jon Boden is a fan of Peter's "bleating" style, and he himself was fond of it: it was an evocative, certainly nostalgic, singing style that reached back through time, almost as if anchoring himself to his homeland. An unbreakable bond with the land and its traditions. His voice represented the essence of this bond, a voice that seemed to come from the past to become present, not shrill or theatrical, but seemingly simple. There was never a solo instrument to accompany her, and if the performance wasn't "for solo voice," there was sometimes a concertina or guitar, but always following the vocals: almost timid instruments, respectful of the most natural instrument nature has offered to man. It is through this way of expressing himself in art that Peter Bellamy gave meaning to his life, and when recognition for his work faded, his reasons for living also collapsed: how could he support himself and a family? One might also wonder what happened to fans of "trad" music in the 1990s. It might be said that tastes always evolve: but do the wild, easy, and lively rhythms of music designed for a paying, moshing audience really represent an evolution? Peter's music is "essential," while that of new folk is dazzling and abundant. Posterity, as they say, will judge. We limit ourselves here to recommending a look at Peter's vinyl discography: https://www.vinilifolk.it/bellamy.htm