Phoebe Smith

Phoebe Smith 1913-2001 Is Thought By Many To Have Been One Of England's Greatest Traditional Singers. She Had A Style And Delivery That Stunned An Audience Into Silence And To Hear Her In Full Flight At The End Of Her CD "The Yellow Handkerchief" Is A Revelation. She Was Born In 1913 In Faversham Kent And Was One Of The Daughters Of Bill Scamp And His Wife Ann Jones. She Was Raised In A Large Gypsy Family And Spent Much Of Her Early Life Picking Fruit In Kent. Having Married Joe Smith A Scrap Dealer She Moved Around Kent And Essex Before Setting In Woodbridge Suffolk. Phoebe Learnt Many Of Her Songs As A Young Girl From Her Elder Sisters. Her Uncle Oliver Scamp A Kentish Horse-Dealer Was Also An Important Source Of Songs. Joe Smith Played The Fiddle And Phoebe Loved To Step-Dance To Her Husband's Music. Phoebe Spent Much Of Her Life On The Road - Essex For Sugar-Beeting Kent For Cherries Plums And Pears Then Up To The Fens For The Potatoes And It Was There She Would Meet Her Own And Other Families And Possibly Swap A Song Or Two. Her CD "The Yellow Handkerchief" Contains A Classic Mixture Of Ballads Like 'Green Bushes' A Blacksmith Courted Me' And 'Barbara Allen' As Well As The Traveller's Anthem 'Romany Rye' And Even A Stepdance To The Music Of Irish Fiddler Martin Byrnes. read less