Cecilia Costello (née Kelly, 24 October 1884 – 20 April 1976) was an English

traditional singer A traditional singer, also known as a source singer, is someone who has learned folk songs in the oral tradition, usually from older people within their community. From around the beginning of the twentieth century, song collectors such as Cecil ...

whose repertoire of

folk songs Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...

was recorded by folk music scholars in the 1950s and 1960s. Born near the Bull Ring in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, she was the youngest of 10 children of parents who left

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

to escape

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

. She is first recorded making

screws A screw is an externally helical threaded fastener capable of being tightened or released by a twisting force (torque) to the screw head, head. The most common uses of screws are to hold objects together and there are many forms for a variety ...

Digbeth Digbeth is an area of central Birmingham, England. Following the remodelling of the Birmingham Inner Ring Road, Inner Ring Road, Digbeth is now considered a district within Birmingham City Centre. As part of the Big City Plan, Digbeth is under ...

, and later as a brass polisher in the Birmingham Workhouse Infirmary in

Winson Green Winson Green is a loosely defined inner-city area in the west of the city of Birmingham, England. It is part of the ward of Soho. It is the location of HM Prison Birmingham (known locally as Winson Green Prison or "the Green") and of City H ...

in 1901. She married Thomas Costello in 1904 and they had 8 children. Costello was visited twice – in 1951 and 1954 – by folk music researcher

Marie Slocombe Marie Tapscott Slocombe (1912–1995) founded the BBC Sound Archive in 1936. Her keen interest in audio recordings and folk music have made her legacy important in the history of recorded sound. Early life and career Born in 1912, Slocombe studie ...

of the

BBC Sound Archive The BBC Sound Archive is a collection of audio recordings maintained by the BBC and founded in 1936. Its recordings date back to the late 19th century and include many rare items, including contemporary speeches by public and political figures, fol ...

, who recorded 13 songs of hers. Charles Parker visited her in 1967 and recorded a series of interviews. These were combined on a record released in 1975. The recorded songs of Cecilia Costello largely reflect urban life. She is notable for performing songs from the Irish tradition in a musical and linguistic dialect that identifiably belongs in the English West Midlands, illustrating how immigrant cultures were quickly assimilated within the local musical tradition. A later commentator analysed her work: "To listen to that warm Brummie voice in the excerpts from Charles Parker's interviews ... you wouldn't dream that this old lady was only a generation away from rural Ireland."

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Costello, Cecilia English folk singers Singers from Birmingham, West Midlands 1884 births 1976 deaths 20th-century English singers 20th-century English women singers