The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #160091   Message #3796499
Posted By: GUEST,Anne Neilson
18-Jun-16 - 07:16 PM
Thread Name: Accents
Subject: RE: Accents
Eric -- if you have an audience that likes what you do, be grateful and carry on.

But do know that there is another audience out there which would nit-pick to - probably - the nth degree about anything that is not "authentic".

There is a real argument to be had about the enjoyment of an audience which has possibly been introduced to new (and foreign) traditions, albeit in different forms: I'm thinking of my own introduction to American folk music, starting with Pete Seeger and the Weavers and progressing through Jean Ritchie, Doc Watson, Hedy West et al (with side journeys through Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston).
Should we assume that such an audience will only accept 'the authentic'? Or should we expect that the song content will be so compelling that an audience will accept what might be called translations?

I'm coming down on the side of presenting the texts in a comfortable local accent -- I think I could sing a Woody Guthrie song such as 'Tom Joad' in my own accent, though I'd have to acknowledge that that might be down to 50-odd years of exposure to the text…

But I'd probably have a difficulty with a very localised song (thinking of songs from areas with a very distinctive local pronunciation like NE England and Yorkshire -- Ilkley Moor, for example). Though I'd be very happy to be there when a chorus was required!