The Young’Uns bring a lost folk hero’s story back to life
THE YOUNG’UNS Alexandra Theatre, Bognor Regis Thursday, September 19 southdownsfolkfest.co.uk
In a righteous world, Johnny Longstaff would be held high as a 20th century folk hero.
But until recently his name was largely unknown beyond his family.
Mutli-award winning folk trio The Young’Uns wrote an album and created a show about Johnny’s early years after being approached by his son at a show. Johnny’s story took him through key moments in the early 20th century Labour movement – from standing against Oswald Mosley’s black shirts at the battle of Cable Street, to hunger marches and The Spanish Civil War.
The group included two songs about him on their acclaimed 2017 album Strangers, but they couldn’t put the story down.
As Sean Cooney explains: ‘The way it was presented to us was so beautiful – we did a show in Clevedon in
Somerset in 2015 and Johnny’s son, Duncan Longstaff came up to us with a picture of his dad in one hand and a piece of paper in the other with a full list of information about what his dad had done in his life. He’d come along hoping we might be interested in doing a song about Johnny.’
His family pointed the group towards the Imperial War Museum’s archives – they’d recorded Johnny in 1986, shortly before his death.
‘Once we’d heard the story and heard Johnny’s own voice – six hours of reel-to-reel recordings – oh, it was just magical.
‘From there we realised it couldn’t just be one song. Three years later we had 16 songs and a whole touring show, and a special album as well.’
The album, The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff was released at the start of the year, and has also been turned into a full show which elaborates on the record.
‘It’s important to say here is that Johnny’s not a famous person. We share a hometown – Stockton-on-Tees in the north east – but no-one’s heard of him on Teeside.
‘Hopefully if we spread the word, he might be better known, but there’s no streets named after him and you don’t learn about him in school.
‘But I guess that’s the case of so many of that generation. So many stories just went unheard and have been lost completely, but we were so lucky that Duncan presented it to us, and having those recordings as well was so special. Duncan had come to us because he knew that we wrote songs about inspiring people and that we shared a hometown.’
And Johnny’s family have been involved every step of the way. ‘It’s been a really special project, and to have their involvement from the beginning, has been incredible.’
The show is part of the Southdowns Folk Festival, which runs from September 19-22, and also includes sets by Blair Dunlop, Oysterband and Lindisfarne.
So many stories just went unheard and have been lost completely