The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #138735 Message #3176691
Posted By: GUEST,Shimrod
26-Jun-11 - 09:38 AM
Thread Name: Do purists really exist?
Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
"[The term purist is] ALWAYS derogatory, and gets used by embittered failures who want to look for a conspiracy to explain why nobody's interested in their music."
I suspect there's some truth in this. I've lost count of the number of times that a lad with a guitar, or group of lads with guitars, have turned up at my local folk club or singaround and sung a floor spot, or taken a turn, and then disappear, never to be seen again (often directly after they've done their bit). They are usually treated politely and their performances met with the usual ripple of applause (I've never known any fiendish purists to be mean to them). Usually they sing self-penned compositions that have little to do with Folk Music ("We do acoustic stuff - that's folk music, innit?"). I think that we never see them again because they're not greeted with the wild adulation that they think that they deserve and no-one rushes to offer them lucrative gigs.
Then again perhaps we don't see them again because Bert has chosen that night to mumble, moan and groan his way through a 20 verse ballad that he 'learned' (i.e. copied down the words in an exercise book) from a June Tabor CD.