Searching for the Folk Songs of the Channel Islands

Caught between the worlds of medieval Europe, feudal France and modern England, and swept by the currents and winds of the English Channel, the Channel Islands are home to rich heritages of music and song, as well as dialects of Norman French, that still persist to the present day. Perhaps only a few Channel Islanders continue to sing their old folk songs. Still, a group of musicians, scholars and song collectors from England and France, under the band name Lihou, have taken it upon themselves to resurrect these rich traditions with their new album, Réveillez-vous car Il est Jour. Lihou’s Roland Scales, a British folk singer and concertina player with a dapper handlebar moustache, sings in the Jèrriais dialect of French with a rollicking accent and a ribald sense of humour. He’s studied this language and also sings the English-language folk songs of the Islands, though they’re far fewer. In Lihou, he’s joined by UK folk singer and fiddler James Dumbelton from Devon, and, representing France, Normandy fiddler Étienne Lagrange and fiddler and singer Emmanuelle Bouthillier, a specialist in the music of Upper Brittany and the daughter of famed Québécois field recordist Robert Bouthillier. None of these artists are from the Islands, but they’ve come together from both sides of the Channel to pay homage to a truly unheralded, yet uniquely beautiful, tradition of folk song and music.

The Channel Islands lie in the ocean just off the coast of Normandy and are generally split into three major islands: Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney. They’ve always been a crossroads of trade and fishing, battled over between the English and French. The ruins of castles and fortifications on the cliffs of the islands point to this long history of trading and conflict, first with the Romans, then the Christians, then the Vikings, then the Normans. Culturally, the islanders today speak primarily English, and the old languages, Jèrriais (Jersey French), Guernésiais (Guernsey French) and Sercquiais (Sarkese, an old offshoot of Jèrriais), are severely endangered. Likewise, the folk music of the Channel Islands today has mostly disappeared from the Islands themselves, a sad fact because the folk songs and tunes from the Islands represent a marvellous mixing of English, French and Norman French traditions. Following each of these musical pathways can be dizzying work, though both Étienne Lagrange and Emmanuelle Bouthillier are remarkably adept at it.

Tracing the origins of the songs of the Channel Islands has also been an occupation of folk song collectors up to the present day. The old folk songs and tunes of the Islands that are featured on Lihou’s album come largely from the collecting trips of 20th-century song collectors, with one of the recordings that has reignited interest in these traditions coming from BBC broadcaster Peter Kennedy who took a trip to the Islands in 1957 and recorded some of the best folk singers and musicians there. One singer, John ‘Jack’ Le Feuvre of tiny Sark Island was particularly prolific. The island’s butcher (and barber), Le Feuvre recorded 13 songs for Kennedy in 1957 and 33 songs, in French and English, over two days in 1970 for ethnomusicologists Claudie Marcel-Dubois and Marguerite Pichonnet-Andral from Paris’ Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires. The songs recorded were mostly in French and many could be traced to Normandy and elsewhere in the country, though there were also a smaller portion of songs in the languages of the Islands. Instrumentally, the dance tunes on the Islands that were recorded seem to be tied to English sources more than French, with polkas popular. Following his recordings, Kennedy included a chapter on the islands in his seminal book Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland. This is where Roland Scales of Lihou first happened upon the music. The later collecting trips by Marcel-Dubois and Pichonnet-Andral expanded the recorded repertoire. Scales points out the irony that such a small geographic area and so few field recording trips could still yield such a musical richness.

Scales came to the music through his own family’s heritage. His mother’s side of the family were French from near Angoulême and he went looking for French folk music, starting with Alan Stivell before coming across Kennedy’s book, where he discovered the music of the Channel Islands. Later, after studying Kennedy’s recordings, he ended up meeting him in a pub, remembering him as a “friendly, cheerful man.” “It was Roland who showed us the music of the Channel Islands,” says Lagrange. Lagrange was working with the organisation La Loure which focused on the folk music of Normandy (a ‘loure’ is an extinct form of Norman bagpipe). “[Roland] sang ‘J’ai Perdu Ma Femme en Plantant des Choux’ when we first met,” Lagrange remembers, “then afterwards I collected that same song from right next to where I live. So, I said to myself, ‘We really do have things in common!’” After this connection, La Loure decided to produce a book and CD bringing together archival collections of traditional music from the Channel Islands. In 2017, along with this ambitious project, La Loure wanted to form a band “to show,” says Lagrange, “that it wasn’t just these old archives, that this music can live on today.” They looked to Scales first, who recommended Dumbelton since Dumbelton was living on the islands. Dumbelton had been looking for traditional music since he’d moved to Guernsey but hadn’t found anything and was discouraged. “Roland was instrumental in really making everybody and anybody aware of the fact that the [archival] material was out there,” says Dumbelton, “and it wasn’t really being used, but it could have been and should be.”

Dumbelton spent 14 years on Guernsey before moving back to Devon looking for better opportunities. Still, he has fond memories of the Islands. “It’s a great life,” he says, “very self-contained. You can be working one minute and then go straight to the beach the next. I barely needed to drive. I could just cycle to work and back.” He points out that the Islands are rich in identity. “The Guernsey people are very proud. They don’t call themselves UK citizens because they’ve never been part of Europe. They’re highly independent and friendly.” Still, despite this pride, the language and songs of Jersey and Guernsey proved hard to find. Dumbelton began working with the local museum, which led him to the world of the last Guernsey French speakers. He recorded native speakers for YouTube so people could hear the language. Jèrriais is taught in schools now and the language, though still severely endangered, is making a comeback. Dumbelton and Scales wish the songs would come back too. “We live in hope!” exclaims Scales.

Having band members spread across two countries seemed like a good idea at first, but it has proved complicated, especially after Brexit. Still, the group was able to travel in 2023 to record their debut album together on Guernsey, joined by guest French chifournie (hurdy-gurdy player) Aline Pilon. Bouthillier chuckles, remembering that they recorded the album in a “personal pub” on the island, a kind of mobile home or cabin in a Guernsey man’s back garden. On breaks from recording, they’d walk around, discovering the countryside. Brought together around these old, nearly lost traditions, the members of Lihou delight in searching the many pathways the music took before it arrived on the Islands, but they all agree the music belongs in its island home now. As Scales says, “I think folk songs are a lot like birds. They roost wherever they find a suitable spot.”

This article originally appeared in the August/September 2024 issue of Songlines. Never miss an issue – subscribe today