A.L. LLOYD EXPERT ON THE FOLK SINGING OF MANY COUNTRIES
New York Times Obituary Published October 1 1982.
LONDON, Sept. 3o— A.L Lloyd, the English folk singer and musicologist who collected songs from the Australian bush to Transylvania, died Wednesday at his London home, his family said today. He was 74 years old.
Albert Lloyd, who throughout his career preferred to be known as "A.L.," became interested in folk music when he worked on sheepshearing stations in Australia and on board a whaling ship in the Antarctic in the 1930s. Both his parents were folk singers.
His broadcasts and recordings featured hundreds of ballads, laments, street songs and ethnic music from the bush, the Balkans and many other countries he roamed
His Book Is a Standard
His book "Folk Song in England" is standard reading. He co-edited the "Penguin Book of English Folk Songs" and contributed many encyclopedia entries, magazine articles and record liner notes on the subject that engaged him throughout his career.
A small, scholarly man surrounded by books, records and tapes from his travels, Mr. Lloyd was a kind of modern-day Bela Bartok taping folk songs, funeral dirges and alphorn blasts as he traveled among the peasants of central Europe.
He had hard opinions about musical purity and dismissed much commercial folk music as vaudeville-inspired. "I wouldn't quarrel with the word folk song that any nonfolklorist chooses to apply. It's just that the donkey and the zebra are not quite the same animal, although their outlines might he similar," he said.
Mr. Lloyd is survived by his wife and one daughter.
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