young folkies?

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 07:58 PM

I am old enough to have gone to genuine 'hootenannies'..in the early 60's...and we did very little of the Joan Baez, Kingston Trio ,etc. stuff, mostly because of one or two people who knew some of the really 'trad' stuff and started me down the road to learning about it...I know maybe 3 or 4 people under 30 who are doing REALLY traditional music...out of 70 or 80 regulars in our group! My own son is 15, and he is into all the pop bands...he just looks at my autoharp with an air of amusement, and can barely tolerate an acapella ballad in his presence.

Those of the younger generation who DO get into bands like Tim Jaques mentions are often AWESOME musicians, but there are so few who do anything but Celtic and Bluegrass...or maybe Cajun...and they tend to do everything 40 or 50 decibels louder than is necessary. I went to see 'Silly Wizard' and 'The Tannahill Weavers' a few years back, and was barely able to sit thru it..!!!

(I did like the 'early' Battlefield Band ...and Ossian, because they came close to making a lot of the music sound like the way it was written, instead of just amplified variations on traditional melodies..)

hmmm...*smile*...do I sound like I have strong opinions??Naahhh.....!! Age? well I am almost 59, and have come by my opinions honestly..(I wrestled 2 banjo players and an acedemic folklorist for 'em..)

interesting discussion...I'm glad Petra started it, although I'm not sure how much all this is contributing to her original question...

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Dale Rose
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 07:33 PM

Kirkmount was on the PHC of March 15, 1997, featuring musicians from towns of under 2,000. Check here for the rundown of the show, including RealAudio of their performance.

http://phc.mpr.org/performances/19970315/

While you are there, go check out some of the other performers. Some of my favorites over the last year or so were Natalie MacMaster, The Forbes Family, Iris DeMent, The Rankin Family, Leo Kottke . . . but hey, look for yourself! No doubt you will find things you like, including things you didn't know you liked, because you had never heard them before.

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From:
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 06:58 PM

There is a band from Cape Breton Island called Slainte Mhath. I don't think any of them are twenty yet and the majority are still in high school. Two are little brothers of members of the Barra MacNeils. They have a web site, the URL of which I can't recall, but if you search under their name they should show up. They have a CD of traditional music out.

Fiddler Richard Wood from PEI isn't twenty years old yet, and he has four CD's out and has toured North American and the UK and Ireland. He recently played Letterman and GMA with Shania Twain, although he is mostly a traditional Celtic style fiddler and step-dancer and not a C & W performer. (Oh well, we all have to eat.)

Locally, there is a bluegrass band that has a 13 year old banjo picker, although he usually has to give their bar gigs a miss.

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Jon W.
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 06:04 PM

Well, by Bill D's definition, I'm young because my introduction to folk music was through commercial sources - first the Joan Baez/Kingston Trio/Harry Belafonte my mother listened to, then trad and blues songs by rock groups, then blues records, then Celtic music records by Planxty, Bothy Band, etc. 15 years after the albums were first released, and finally once in a while I get to see live performances. I have yet to participate in a sing-along or hootnanny or whatever the "old" folkies are supposed to do.

But by Petra's definition I'm old because I'm nearly 42. Petra, you'll be surprised how young you still are when you're my age. Bless you, I wish there were more like you.

BTW, I was cleaning out my wallet since last message and found a business card from that trio. Their name is Kirkmount. I have information on how to contact them if anyone wants to book them or buy their recordings. They have appeared on Prarie Home Companion, or so the MC said as she introduced them at the concert. Send me a personal message if interested.

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Petra A. Cosgrove
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 05:35 PM

Hmm.. how young is young... I guess I think of young as being under 30... I just sometimes feel quite alone in a world where people my age tend to be so caught up in "alternative" "metal" and "rap" that.. the older (more beautiful I think) songs and music are lost to them.. And it's strange on the DT sometimes, I listen to everyone and how long they've been playing/singing/listening and I just was curious if there were others besides myself and Til that were on here that were of the younger generation (like the kids that Jon W. was talking about...) who somehow got dropped off in a generation where they make no sense..

No offense to anyone who feels that I'm slighting the older generation, it was my father who first introduced me to the 'Rovers and Steeleye when I was still in the womb, it's just strange sometimes when you feel like you just sort of got dropped off in the wrong generation somehow.

Not meaning any offense..

just curious..

petra

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 05:20 PM

well....I 'think' I am seeing a pattern here...those who identify themselves as younger seem to be listing "groups" as their introduction to the music...and often celtic groups...the kind with an active, driving rhythm as a major aspect of the music...(yes, I know..there were groups in the 30's, 40's etc..and there are some solo performers listed..but there is a modern trend for music of various types to be done 'at' you BY groups rather than 'by' you IN groups:witness the number of requests we see for 'X's version of some song, rather that just the song.
.....sure...a lot of the younger folkies HAD to start with what they saw and heard most easily...which was commercial adaptations of traditional songs, for the most part. And there was no place for most of them to really hear some of the older 'source' material and singers.

I am not suggesting that this is good or bad...just that we must be aware that, in traditional music, it really takes a lot of time and effort to find and hear the full range of music....and this forum is doing a LOT to give some perspective to the whole thing. Now if we can just get more of the younger set to really read it!!

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Alice
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 03:08 PM

Confession. My birthday is Saturday, Dec. 20. I will be 46. My theory about the baby boomers like me is that we STILL think we are the "young generation". We are locked into our college age years or there abouts in our self identity. I guess because they were such intensely formative years for our American culture, and because of the impact of our numbers. We did alot in big groups... group demonstrations, group singing, group living, group .... anyway, I was always hesitant to join groups, but even the rugged individualists conformed in some way. Having a grandfather from Leitrim, another who played fiddle, and being in a Montana-blue-collar-railroad-Irish-Catholic type of community, the Clancy Bros. and Tommy Makem were kings, at the top of the list... with all other folk type performers coming after. The ones most admired by my brothers and me were the folks who gathered up the music of the common people... Alan Lomax, etc, and people like Theodore Bickel, who would sing things in other languages. But, I digress. Back to the question, where do we draw the age line between old folkies and young folkies? Alice in Montana

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Nonie Rider
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 02:40 PM

I'm 40. I think Joan Baez was my first introduction to professionally sung folk (blush), but I grew up on the written stuff. Two of my childhood browsing books were re Scottish Border Ballads and English & Scottish Ballads.

So, long before I heard them sung, I was reading about loathely brides, forlorn maidens, Jock o'the Side, Robin Hood, roses and briars twining over graves, go saddle me the fastest horse, and when he came to the green grass growing, and binding the mermaid's sark around an aching head that ached e'er the more.

I later had the delight of taking a ballads class and hunting down the English, Scottish, American, and Norwegian(?) versions of Fair Annie--the unwed mother of seven sons, cast aside for a new bride, who turns out to be her sister. When you look at all the versions, they really do come across as an ethnic joke: the English version is concerned about the woman's family line, the Scottish about the money for her dowry, and the American about punishing the man for his crime in kidnapping, raping, and then abandoning the woman. I've forgotten the details of the Norwegian (or was it Danish) version, but it might have been concerned with sin and confession. I'd have to check.

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From:
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 12:17 PM

I got emersed in the world of folk music playing for Scottish Gas pipe band in Edinburgh while I was at university. That was some fourteen years ago. Seems like yesterday. Does early thirties still count as young? I guess it's all relative.

Oh, and favourites include Ossian (they are the very best), Ceolbeg, Capercaillie (early stuff), Battlefield Band (early stuff) and the many sessions enjoyed from Edinburgh to Dingwall in the company of some of these guys.

Cheers,

Sandy

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Jen
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 10:38 AM

Younger, yes. I love Silly Wizard, Chieftans, Loreena McKennit, Enya(she's the one who started me on Celtic music, which is what I listen to and play)

I have a cat on my lap, so if this post ends up looking strange, it is his fault. he likes to lay on my keyboard.

Anyway, love anything to do with celtic music! Even though I got off to a late start.

Jen

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Jon W.
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 10:11 AM

Well, if it's any consolation, last summer I saw a great trio - three brothers playing Scottish/Newfoundland music on harp, fiddle, and cello, bones and bodran. A lot of traditional stuff and some original, but I couldn't tell the difference (that's meant as a compliment). Their ages? seventeen, fifteen, and thirteen.

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Jack mostly folk
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 03:01 AM

Admission of age and stupidity, My stupidity was to think Kingston Trio and Limeliters were the inventors of Folk, They certainly put it in the top forty charts and I'm forever grateful for their introduction to folk music. I am truly a folkie and not a spring chicken but Alan might have a few springs on me, as a youngster about eight or ten I recall Irene as a pop tune done by The Weavers.Now I can say the music makes me feel young. "Was'nt That A Time"? Today's folkies might want to lend an ear to some old folkies like "U"Utah Phillips, Rosalie Sorrels,Ramblin Jack Elliott, Spider John Koerner, Taj Mahal, Peggy, Mike and Pete Seeger. They are old folkies still doing the concert tours." Utah" on rare occassion. These folks are still performing as folk artist. I attend a lot of concerts and have noticed the new interest in folkie music.There are new and young artist on the rise and thank goodness for those who will keep the traditions alive. yours in music........Jack mostly folk....

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 18 Dec 97 - 01:20 AM

Petra,
Well I'm young for a folkie & I have recordings of all the groups you mentioned so we have something in common, unfortunately not age. I also remember when the Weavers' recording of "Goonight Irene" was in the charts.........

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: young folkies?
From: Will
Date: 17 Dec 97 - 11:37 PM

Petra, I suppose the obvious question is "How young is younger?"

Subject: young folkies?
From: Petra A. Cosgrove
Date: 17 Dec 97 - 10:15 PM

I'm just curious how many of us lurking about here on the DT are younger... It seems sometimes that we're stuck in a world where folk music is only for "old people" (no offense to anyone- the coolest people I've ever met in my life have ALL been folkies! And older folkies know all the good really obscure bands!) and so i was curious if in this place of large numbers of folkies, how many of us were of the younger generations. I've been listening to Steeleye Span, Silly Wizard, Wolfe Tones, Chieftains, The Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, Irish Rovers, Capercaille, Pentangle, and oiks.. who knows who else on the various compilation albums from Green Linnet, Shanachie, etc since I was... Born.. I think that the first song I ever knew the lyrics to by heart was "all around my hat" by steeleye.. Nope.. actually it was ::rolls her eyes:: this is embarassing, but it was "Maids When You're Young Never Wed an Old Man..." By I don't remember who!

i know that there is at least one more out here in the world of the DT (course, he's the man I'm in love with... so.. I know him real well.. ) And I'm just curious if there are others besides us.. ?

Petra A.C.