From Mummers to Madness

Professor David Taylor is a social historian who for many years taught at the polytechnics, later universities, of Teesside and Huddersfield and, more recently, at the Huddersfield & District University of the Third Age. He is best known for his publications on crime and policing, most recently Beerhouses, Brothels and Bobbies: Policing by Consent in Huddersfield and the Huddersfield District in the mid-nineteenth century but has a long-standing professional interest in popular leisure in general and popular music in particular, lecturing on the subject to a wide range of audiences.

• Chapter 1 Introduction: How can I keep from singing … and dancing?Part 1: popular music in england in the acoustic age, c.1770s to c.1900sSection 1: Nymphs and Shepherds?
Popular music c.1770s – c.1840sChapter 2‘Aive down your prong and stamp along’: Festivals, feasts, and fairsChapter 3‘Between the jigs and the reels’: Popular dance and dancingChapter 4‘I’ll sing you a song and a very pretty one’: Broadsides, ballads and moreChapter 5‘Come all you bold heroes, give ear to my Song’: Sport, drink and sexChapter 6‘In Maidstone gaol, I am lamenting’: Crime, punishment and socio-political commentSection 2: Music-hall and its rivals, c.1840s – c.1900sChapter 7‘Sing, sing! Why shouldn’t we sing?’ Popular music in the age of the music hallChapter 8‘Dancing to the organ (in the Mile End Road)’: Dance and Dancing SaloonsChapter 9‘Champagne Charlie is my name’: 
The swell, the Irish and the cockneyChapter 10‘A little of what you fancy’: Love, marriage
and other social problemsChapter 11‘The Boers have got my daddy’: Politics domestic and foreignChapter 12‘The Minstrels Parade’: Blackface minstrelsy and the music hallPart 2: english popular music in the age of technology, c.1900s to c.1970sSection 3: Variety and its rivals, c.1890s – c.1950sChapter 13‘Fings ain’t what they used to be’: The strange and lingering death of variety theatreChapter 14‘I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate’: Dance halls and dancing between the warsChapter 15‘Let’s have a song upon the gramophone’: Manufactured music - records, radio and the cinemaChapter 16‘I like bananas’: Popular songs of the 1920s
and 1930sChapter 17‘Music while you work’ ... and play:Popular music c.1940-1955Section 4: The empires strike back, c.1950s – c.1970sChapter 18‘Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O’: Skiffle and rock ‘n’ rollChapter 19‘Twist and shout’: Illusion and disillusion in the 1960s and 1970sChapter 20‘Woke Up This Morning:’ How we got the(rhythm and) blues – and found some soulChapter 21‘Islands in the Sun’: Calypso to reggaeChapter 22Conclusion: Mummers to Madness-
the broader pictureAppendix
Late-eighteenth/early-nineteenthcentury tunesGeneral IndexSong and Tune Index