“Little Beggarman” (1965) – John Anderson * LP: Songs of Ireland * Label: Monitor
The late Londoner Steve Benbow recorded over 20 albums between 1957 and 2003, and his visibility as a fingerpicker during the early stages of the British folk revival inspired up and coming guitarists like Davy Graham. His 1965 Songs of Ireland album includes a version of “Little Beggar Man” that’s my favorite one on record. (My favorite overall performance, though, comes from the Clancy Brothers on the first episode of Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest TV show from 1966 – just three voices and a guitar.)
Benbow’s recording includes accompaniment by the Strawberry Hill Boys who would later shorten their name to the Strawbs and become a British folk rock institution. Their involvement, oddly enough, gives the English rendering of an Irish song an American bluegrass feel, which is the kind of band they were aiming to be back then.
In his liner notes, Benbow says the song uses the melody for a familiar Irish folk song called “Oul Lamas Fair in Ballycastle O,” which may be so, if you’re talking only about the melody line, which that song does use but over different chord changes. “Little Beggar Man” is more commonly understood as a relative of the fiddle tune “Red Haired Boy.”
I’ve puzzled a bit about the rest of Benbow’s eccentric liner notes for this song: “Nobody has much sympathy for a poor man if he be strapping and big. So if you want to steal, be a bit like Lautrec, for begging is stealing your own dignity from yourself.” I’ve got the Lautrec bit – a reference to the 4’8″ French painter – but his overall meaning, which has little to do with the lyrics, is still processing.