Andrew Ford, who recently hosted Ellen and her producer Ross on Australian public radio’s The Music Show, has written a terrific article for the independent magazine Inside Story about “Scarborough Fair,” the folk song most famous for its interpretation by Simon & Garfunkel. He discusses many versions of the song, including the one sung by Ellen on Go Round Songs.
As Ford mentions, the song has a long, long history going back to the 17th century or even earlier. It is one of the 305 collected in Francis James Child’s groundbreaking work of folklore scholarship English and Scottish Popular Ballads, better known as The Child Ballads, where it is called “The Cambric Shirt.” Ellen also recorded a version of “Cambric Shirt” with Milt Okun in the 1950s on the album Traditional American Love Songs.
(Incidentally, while researching this post, I found two separate reviews of the album that suggest that Simon’s arrangement might have been influenced not just by Martin Carthy, which is well known, but Milt and Ellen’s version of the song as well. I don’t know how true that really is, but I’d like to think so—it’s certainly likely that he heard both of the previous versions before recording his.)
Here’s audio of both of Ellen’s versions of the song:
