Obituary from "Mojo", June 2004

A Bold Briton

Bob Copper died on March 29, 2004 aged 89.  Colin Irwin salutes the last traditional singer.

He was a farm labourer, a policeman, a publican and a soldier, but Bob Copper's enduring legend is as the keeper of an extraordinary family singing tradition that still sustains modern English folk song.  When Bob was born in Rottingdean, Sussex in 1915, he inherited a huge repertoire of songs - and an unbridled love of singing them - he could trace back through seven generations of the family.

He quickly learned what was expected of him.  "When I was a boy," he said, "people would say, 'Young Copper in't it? Come up here and give us a song!'" His grandfather, "Brasser" Copper, first started writing the wonderful repertoire into a songbook, a process continued by his son Jim - Bob's dad.  It was this book that was lovingly opened as the family took their key from a tuning fork to launch into the trademark unaccompanied harmonies.  Various collectors, Alan Lomax and Seamus Ennis among them, headed their way in the 1950s and the burgeoning folk scene reverberated to the wonder sounds of Claudy Banks, Come Write Me Down, Thousands Or More and Spencer the Rover.

For 50 years, Bob was the rock on which the family singing - and indirectly English folk itself - was built.  Coming to national attention with his cousin Ron singing the bass lines that his son John subsequently undertook, he became a revered symbol linking the modern folk revival with a rural working-class culture dating back hundreds of years.  A 1971 four-LP box set, A Song For Every Season (Leader), remains a glorious insight into that history; shamefully it's never been issued on CD.  But Come Write Me Down, Topic's set of mainly '50s recordings, is, a fine representation of the Copper legacy.  Bob was also acclaimed for his autobiographical books on country life, including Songs & Southern Breezes and the award-winning A Song For Every Season.

Bob toured America well into his eighties and four days before his death received an MBE at Buckingham Palace.  He was 89 in January and celebrated as usual at Lewes Folk Club.  To the end his greatest pride was singing with his six grandchildren, knowing the tradition was ongoing.