Jon Hancock<p>I bought this ukulele songbook a few years ago, partly because finding collections that aren't American folk songs is surprisingly tricky. Nothing against those, mind you, and there's a huge degree of crossover between the European and American traditions, entirely unsurprising when you consider where so many immigrants to America were from. There's a song in it I didn't know, which was noted as being performed by Bellowhead (on the album of theirs I don't have, of course!) and arranged by their frontman Jon Boden, "Fakenham Fair". Looked it up, and it's a lovely, really playable tune.</p><p>What fascinates me is that despite the book labelling it as traditional, *nobody actually knows how old the song is or where it originated*… Most likely, it's a twentieth century composition, possibly even post WWII and as late as the 1960s; and there have been numerous arguments as to whether it should be considered part of the folk canon, which then leads to arguments over what a folk song even is. </p><p>There's a brief history on this Mainly Norfolk page, which also includes a couple of videos of performances. If you search for Peter Bellamy's album Mainly Norfolk on YouTube you can also hear his 1968 version.</p><p><a href="https://mainlynorfolk.info/peter.bellamy/songs/fakenhamfair.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">mainlynorfolk.info/peter.bella</span><span class="invisible">my/songs/fakenhamfair.html</span></a></p><p><a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/Ukulele" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Ukulele</span></a> <a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/Music" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Music</span></a> <a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/Folk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Folk</span></a> <a href="https://social.vivaldi.net/tags/FolkMusic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FolkMusic</span></a></p>