The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #127151 Message #2833038
Posted By: Jim Carroll
08-Feb-10 - 01:02 PM
Thread Name: Should folk songs be sung in folk clubs?
Subject: RE: Should folk songs be sung in folk clubs?
A thumbnail psychoanalysis by somebody who calls themself punkfolkrocker is unhelpful and more than a little arrogant. I know what folk is from the point of view of a performer, a club organiser, audience, researcher, collector, writer, reader, archivist.... all stretched over coming up to half a century. Back at the beginning "we knew what folk was when we heard it" - since then we have had thirty years in the field talking to source singers who obligingly filled in many of the gaps in our knowledge. We really don't need to be told by people who have used the term 'folk' as a cultural dustbin to dump any old rubbish they can't be arsed to find a definition for themselves, that what we do and have done is "petty personality power politics above and beyond any genuine interest in 'folk' music." "Because they are being sung in a folk club" Quite right - just as songs you sing in the bath are bath songs - just as you thought it couldn't get any crasser!!!! Jim Carroll