I think the Mudcatters are certain evidence that folk is still alive. I, for one, have played and sung little else in the past forty years and have never lacked for an attentive audience. PP&M's popularity with yet another generation of kids is further proof.

The local PBS radio station has an annual fundraiser during which they dredge up an incredible array of folk music. The local townspeople really get charged up by it and talk about it for days. The PBS station reports heavy donations when they are playing the folk music show.

As trite as such songs may be to some of us, I challenge you to sit anywhere near a campfire with any more than four other people without someone trying to start up "Michael rowed..." or "Cumbaya" or "Eddystone Light" or somesuch song.

Perhaps during the Writer's Work Project of the '30's and the big folk revival of the early '60's most of the really good stuff was uncovered. Maybe the romance is gone for some because they feel that there are no "new" folksongs. Truth is, though, that there are! Many of the less scholarly singers would name "Don't Fence Me In" and possibly, "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" as folk music. Maybe they are right in a way. Who's to say now how many times a song must be sung to be classified as "folk"? Yes, we tend to write them down these days; but do they really have to be unwritten to be officially folk? I am sure there are people who would argue that "California Dreaming" is a folksong. All I know is that it is no less a part of the music of my soul than any of the "Child's" collection. And to me that is all that matters.

One of the tips I've read about preserving your voice is: don't sing in a heavy metal band. :-)

Along the same lines though, here are a few that I'd say have already become folk, the criteria being that there are two or three "definitive" recordings out that what groups sing is usually something in between:

The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Me and Bobby McGee
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

But regular pub or family sing songs where there is no concentration of folkie types usually produces;
Shane McGowan stuff by the assload (great but overdone)
Christy Moore stuff by the assload (great but overdone)
Wonderwall
Beatles stuff by the assload (great but overdone)
Eagles stuff by the assload (great but overdone)

And I still think folk music is alive, well and growing.

Today, in the town of Haiffa in Israel, a man named Joseph (all they knew about him) ran looting through the streets and shot Mayor Newton dead before he, himself, was killed. Digging into his past they found that his mother had once lived in a convent in Barcelona, Spain. Also that Joseph had once worked on a farm! The caption under his photo read: "Haiffa lootin', Newton shootin', son of a nun from Barcelona, part-time plowboy, Joe !"

Art Thieme

No tune--but now a "folktale". The beat goes on...

(but i thought it was a gas)

Israeli police are looking for a man named Joseph, wanted for looting in the port city of Jaifa. The suspect is described as the son of a Barcelona ex-nun and a German father. He is a former flutist and has worked occasionally as a farmer.

In short, he is a Jaifa-lootin', flutin' Teuton, son-of-a-nun from Barcelona, part-time plowboy Joe.

Martin Carthy writes "... the musical instinct is far too inclusive to allow any notions of 'purity' to survive for long, and it is neither possible nor desirable to set up musical border checkpoints anywhere. However, there is that elusive and ever changing thing called identity."

The notes arise in the context of devoting the CD to English music, as opposed to Irish and Scots. The point, in the context of the CD, is that identifying "English music" is as ambiguous as any other identification, but that there is some elusive form of English "identity".

In the discussion in this thread, of course, the point is that "folk music" is undefinable as a distinct notion, but that there is some thing that one might call the folk "identity".

At the same time, presenting the modernized version of the old recipe in a manner which produces an atmosphere of almost certain enjoyment. The checkered tablecloth does make a difference.

Yes, there are venues for singing "museum pieces". And the seeking out of the supposedly "original" version of a song is both challenging and intriguing. But most of the folk music we play, even the real oldies, are the results of evolution of some degree of evolution. I think the hard part, as Joe points out, is deciding for yourself where to place the balance between modernization and historical accuracy.

After all, you want it to taste like granny's apple pie; but your current thinking about chlorestoral makes you want to adjust the recipe a little. Who is to say if it tastes just as good as you remember it? Your granny's granny probably made it a little differently too. But they weren't into writing down recipes in those days.

These wonderful groups that you have, where you sing and play together, there was never anything more authentic or traditional than that--just people who liked each other getting together--it doesn't really matter what you sing and play--it never did, what matters is that you do sing and play together.

The real demise is in the disappearance of singing-- Once, and not that long ago, people sang together as they worked, as they played, and even just as they walked together in in the evening. Now people only sing in church, and most people don't go to church-- Our voices have been drowned out--and most of us are usually reduced to singing along with the radio or stereo.

maybe it's because there's some sort of good-enough complex (just pulling this out of my arse now...we'll see where this goes). with so many recorded people everywhere whom record companies have deemed good, perhaps that's shattered the confidence of voices in the common people. when people were singing as they worked, walked, played, whatever, everybody would sing regardless of how "good" they were. the people all sang together. whenever that stopped, and left remaining just the performance singers, suddenly the voice was exposed and its quality was judged. less confident voices stopped singing.

i know a whole bunch of people who swear that they can't sing. after pushing and prodding and finally persuading them to open their mouths, they do just fine! they may not be the sweetest songbird in the forest, but damnit, they can sing! and i think what has happened is that people think singing is that solo thing, that my-voice-all-by-itself scary thing, when in actuality, some of the most fulfilling times are when your voice contributes into the group.

i get this image of 200+ people singing shape note music in an aluminum sided sheep barn, the sheer power of sound vibrating the corrugated metal. not everyone there is an incredible singer, but they are a person, with a voice, using it. and every time, it brings me to tears. powerful stuff, that singing.

okay, wow, went a wee bit crazy on that one. wonder if it made any sense?

I had a music teacher once who did his doctoral thesis on the subject of those who thought they could not sing. He posted a note on a bulletin board addressed to people who thought they belonged to that group. He inveigled them in some manner to form a choir. After considerable practice, the choir performed for the entire campus community. They were applauded enthusiastically. He got an "A" on his thesis.

Like so many other human foibles (both imaginary and real) which need to be overcome, the first step is deciding that you want to do it.

I have another thought about what discourages people, and that is the "ethnic police" mentality--"only blacks are entitled to sing spirituals", "you can't sing that song, your ornamentation isn't Bulgarian enough" you can't play "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on an "A" mandolin-- you need an "F" mandolin!

and ted, as to your comments about the ethnicity-thang, i recently went to hear maya angelou speak and she said some things that fit right in with that. she bade the audience to go read the work of african-american poets, saying that you don't have to be black to read them, you don't have to be black to love them, they weren't written for black people alone. their poetry is inherently human, that's what makes it good--how it touches those emotions that are the same in everybody. i think that goes for singing folk songs, too. for all forms of art, to be sure, for the essence of humanity is the same.

Richland Woman Blues/Lovin' Spoonful(Essentially the same song) The Battle Hymn of the Republic (as a Bluegrass Instrumental) The Worst That Could Happen Somewhere Over the Rainbow

And am trying to work up "Whispering Hope"

I'd love to know what others are doing--

as for what i'm singing lately, aie, it's all over the place. gigs are solo and mostly just traditional-type irish songs, but lately my pal and i have been fooling around with her originals and also a bunch o joni mitchell. kind of whatever strikes the ear well and that i have enough patience (and time) to sit and learn...

There really are people who are "monotones." My older son is one. He inherited this from his father (different father from younger son who is a musical prodigy). I sang to him from the minute he was born, and he grew up around just as much music as the other child. Loves music, but can't reproduce the sound, no matter what. I don't know if monotones hear the sound right but can't reproduce it, or hear it wrong.

Cheers, BK

ps; when we go back east in the fall, I'll try to get time to go to Cafe Lena, Erica.

Frank i.t.s.

Howdy! I'm pretty sure that "Sing For The Song" was written by Bob Gibson, a friend o' this old folkie, who passed away fairly recently after hosting his own farewell party a week earlier. Amazing gathering.

But Bob LIVED the sad life as depicted in "Sing For The Song"!! All those "bright painted ladies & cocaine & heroin too" did get ahold of his soul. But he died in his sleep of natural (?) causes. (Supra-nuclear Palsey) He was a mentor to me like he was to many in Chicago in the late 50s.

The song "Farewell Party" was written by Bob Gibson AND Phil Ochs! Is a possibility they collaborated on "Sing For The Song" also. Bob & Hamilton Camp recorded a great version of "Sing For The Song".

And Northfolk, thanks for the play-on-words on my name! It was so quiet I could hear a pun drop until Joe Offer pointed it out to me. Glad I saw it.

Take it easy, but take it!

Art Thieme