pianola karaoke
John Cavanagh sings She Was Poor But She Was
Honest after a version by Billy Bennett.
side used to come here for a
night out and he would hear all
the music hall songs of the day [...]
He would then go home and do all
the numbers for his family [...]
Billy Bennett is someone I’ve
always been fond of [...] Although
he didn’t actually write She Was
Poor But She Was Honest it’s a
song that was very much part of
his repertoire. [It’s] one of the
songs that is a bit against the
tide of escapism of music hall [...]
To deal with unplanned pregnancy
and suicide in a song in the 1920s
must have appeared pretty gritty.'
(John Cavanagh, October 2007)