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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Ron Olesko Date: 02 Dec 02 - 05:31 PM Guest, I realize that. You missed my point. I was trying to say that this "special" would not have been produced if it wasn't for the fact that back in the early 1960's there were large numbers of records sold for this type of "folk" music. Sure we can blame PBS for airing it, but I was trying to say that we should also fault those who bought it, if we are looking to blame. Personally I think everyone is entitled to get pleasure from whatever they want. Many people first discovered folk music through these artists and they should receive credit for that. However the special did not exactly give an accurate portrait of the time or the music. You are 100% correct in your opinion of PBS. I know a number of former PBS producers who can't find work because the network has become so insular and panders to a commercial audience. Ron |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: GUEST Date: 02 Dec 02 - 05:15 PM Ron, I think it's okay to blame PBS, and to do it where they can hear it. They, like the networks, have a small insular clutch of people selecting programs to produce, fund, or purchase. Sometimes I think their policy is to buy programming from close personal friends and/or Ken Burns, everyone else is outside the fence. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: SINSULL Date: 02 Dec 02 - 05:06 PM My TV didn't pick up the PBS station, so I missed it. But it sounds as if it was exactly what I expected. Haven't any of you seen the Doo Op Bands PBS shows? Painfully dated right down to the matching pink silk suits and performed - well, by a bunch of out of shape old fogies. But the audience who paid (I guess) to see it, loved it. I also expect I would have enjoyed seeing and hearing the Top Ten Commercial Folkies of the 60s. Before "Tom Dooley" by the Kingston Trio, my folk music was limited to family sings and some Burl Ives' recordings, and a pretty mediocre LP of Civil War songs. There was more out there. WOW! I, like a bunch of other 'Catters, am a product of the folk scare. I have come to terms with it and moved on. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Ron Olesko Date: 02 Dec 02 - 04:51 PM Someone has to write them! Yes, I know all about the folk process and the endless stream of changes that occur - I'm just teasing! You are right Euclid, however as we all know the term "folk music" has evolved to encompass the tradition of the songwriters. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: euclid Date: 02 Dec 02 - 04:20 PM How does one write folk music? It seems sort of like writing a tradition. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Ron Olesko Date: 02 Dec 02 - 04:11 PM Don't blame PBS - blame all those people who bought the albums way back when. If they didn't sell back then, there wouldn't have been a special today. Frankly I enjoy some of the music of that commercial style. While I enjoy a well cooked meal, a bag of cheese doodles sometimes is comfort food. This commercial pap is also comforting in its own way. I do fault the producers of PBS for making it appear that the groups they presented represented the pinnacle of the folk boom. Of course the Kingston Trio and Limeliters were influential in their way, but the rest of the performers seemed to be filler. I was shocked that Roger McGuinn participated. The special was crap and I don't recommend it to anyone who loves folk music, but it was still better than watching "Wild On" on the E! channel. Well, maybe not. Ron |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Francy Date: 02 Dec 02 - 03:41 PM I emailed PBS with my feeling...so I have to express them here also......It was absoluted ""awful". They should be indicted for their use of the words Folk Music.....Yukkkkkkkkkkkk Frank of Tolledo |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: artbrooks Date: 02 Dec 02 - 03:28 PM Regretably, the Albuquerque PBS station did not give me an opportunity to see the show and be able to express my opinion on it. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: wysiwyg Date: 02 Dec 02 - 03:14 PM No, I just think (because I am sick and crabby today) that pissing and moaning about it HERE is kinda silly.... write PBS! In other words, I am pissing and moaning about pissing and moaning! *G* I guess folkies are, by nature, alert to the negative so a protest can be written and/organized. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Ballyholme Date: 02 Dec 02 - 03:07 PM Genie, I imagine there'd still be a lot more life in Ochs, Van Ronk, etc (you do know who Proffit and Hurt are, don't you) than in some of the people I saw on Saturday's show. McGuinn, as ever, was excellent. But then again, that's just my opinion. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Genie Date: 02 Dec 02 - 02:54 PM Ballyholme, how could you tape a live show with Ochs and Van Ronk? beadie, yes, Judy Collins IS still a working artist, and so, I think, are the Smothers Brothers (occasionally). Tommy, Dicky, and Judy were, IMO, the headliners of the show. The Kingston Trio and The Limeliters, too, I think, are still touring (though each group has only one original member, and I'm not sure Bob Shane tours with the KT much any more). Just think: Around 2045, there'll be a nostalgia Rap Show featuring old fogies such as Eminem, P. Diddy, Culio, etc.! Or how about a "boy band" reunion, with special guest Britney Spears still showing her navel (above the hip-hugger Depends)! |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Bev and Jerry Date: 02 Dec 02 - 02:16 PM We didn't care for the program either. But, this was the music we liked in high school and college and it was the stuff that turned us on to folk music. How else would a couple of kids from Cleveland, Ohio, the rock and roll capital of the galaxy, ever get exposed to folk music? Bev and Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Ballyholme Date: 02 Dec 02 - 02:03 PM WYSIWYG: "Did you think they were going to resolve the "What is Folk" issue in one short show and give exhaustive examples going back to whenever YOU date its inception?" What makes you think I expected that? When these guys were in the charts, I was growing up in Ireland, so when I saw the show advertised, I was intrigued to see what 50s and 60s American "commercial" folk groups were like. A few of them did have hits in Europe (Kingston Trio, Highway Men)and probably did influence a number of musicians on our side of the pond. As Don Firth said, it was folk-lite. Pretty banal, inoffensive stuff that, as I said, didn't do anything for me. Simply my opinion. Give me Van Ron, Ochs, Seeger, Proffit, Watson, Hurt, any day of the week. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Dharmabum Date: 02 Dec 02 - 01:44 PM I too was not very impressed. I thought Glenn Yarborough was just plain sad. I'd hoped McGuinn would add some redemption to an otherwise wasted 2 hours,but his set mainly consisted of Byrds radio hits. Sorry PBS,You aint gettin' a nickel outta me for this one. Nostalgia aint what it used to be. DB. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: beadie Date: 02 Dec 02 - 01:41 PM For what its worth, Judy Collins IS still a working artist, playing dates refularly through the year. I saw her a year or so ago at the Lake Superior Bigtop Chautauqua. Great show, . . . just her, her guitar and a pianist. Of course, she retains her political activism, as well. After the show, she slipped downstate to visit her brother who was hosting a political fundraiser for some local liberal candidates for statewide office. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Don Firth Date: 02 Dec 02 - 01:00 PM Nostalgia trip for Sixties kids. Kinda fun to hear some of that stuff again, but let's face it. It was folk-lite. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Genie Date: 02 Dec 02 - 12:17 PM Ballyholme, Yeah, one criterion for inclusion was ...chart success in the 50s/60s. But, as Geordie said, most of them have not contributed anything since. (Are the Brothers Four and the Highwaymen still working as musicians?) Collins and the Smotherses were there as much as emcees as they were performers. Badly dated, poorly performed and offered nothing but the most cyncical aspects of nostalgia, yes. The emcees even admitted that they couldn't get some of the bigger names like Baez to appear on the show. (Where were PP&M, Dylan, Paxton, Ian & Sylvia [or just Ian Tyson], Joni Mitchell, etc? As Rick hinted, it almost seemed like most of the performers who can still draw an audience commercially declined to do the show. Many of them, we were told repeatedly, are on the CD set that you get for a big donation.) But if this kind of show what brings in pledges from the great masses who loved the KT and tuned out "folk music" as soon as the Beatles came on the scene, fine. PBS needs viewer support. It still beats what's on most network and cable shows. I enjoyed watching it, but the only thing I taped was that Limelighters song, and I'm saving my pledge for another show, another time. I already have pretty much all the music from this show in my collection of tapes and records. Genie |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: BuckMulligan Date: 02 Dec 02 - 12:07 PM Agree about the excessive focus on the audience, but then, that's the point of the shows PBS has been doing for years now at pledge time (PP&M, DooWop, etc.) - trying to get the old farts at home (me, e.g.) to identify with the old farts in the hall, and shell out so the network can keep bringing us our youth back, or at least reminding us of it. Y'know, I'm not altogether sure any of those groups were any better in 1962 than they are now. Maybe we were a lot less sophisticated and discerning then - I know I was certainly more forgiving and enthusiastic about music that wasn't "Doggie in the Window" and Perry Como. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Rick Fielding Date: 02 Dec 02 - 11:13 AM Thanks Dharmabum. Wheww, wish I could say otherwise, but I thought it was simply abysmal. I had a lot of reservations about PBS's bringing the "British Invasion" folks back, and did a Mudcat thread on it, but my gosh it was wonderful compared to this. At least the Smothers Brothers look like they've actually been WORKING over the last few years, and still have their old skills. Much of it felt really painful to watch. Like the others in the series (The Doo wap Black Bands seemed to have survived the ravages of time the best) the constant focusing on the audience fascinated me. All folks of a certain age happily singing along. Glad they were having fun, but I found it sad. Rick |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: BuckMulligan Date: 02 Dec 02 - 11:07 AM It would perhaps more properly have been called something like "A Survey of What the Big Name Record Labels Were Putting out as Folk Music During The Great Folk Scare." Of course it had little (but not nothing) to do with "folk" music of the "rit-ti-doodle-fol-de-ro" school of purism. I'm sure some of the stuff sung by the slick groups of the 50s and early 60s had Child numbers. But like it/them or not, these groups had enormous influence on the immediately-pre-Hippie generation, as well as on their kid siblings who turned into the Hippies. Judy Collins was there because she was a huge part of that whole thing. It was a little sad to see so many groups with only one (or even fewer) "original" name/voice left. Overall, the whole endeavor was a little seedy, except for The Limeliters' (only Hassilev left) very witty "Generic Uptempo Folk Song" which is worthy of Bob Gibson. I loved the show. Guilty pleasure, nostalgia, sure, whatever, but we do like things that at least remind us of happy times & places in our lives, don't we? It was folks music because we high school and college kids of the time were folk, and by damn, we sang it. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: GUEST,Geordie Date: 02 Dec 02 - 10:55 AM Saw that, thought it was dreadful and wondered what Judy Collins was doing there ? I do believe that the artists present did make a significant contributionto commercial folk during the sixties but they have not contributed anything since. The whole thing seemed badly dated, poorly performed and offered nothing but the most cyncical aspects of nostalgia. Sorry folks, I hated it. In fact I think PBS is a mere shadow of it's former self..sort of like the CBC. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: wysiwyg Date: 02 Dec 02 - 09:56 AM Well, as was first posted, This special follows the evolution of modern folk music, from it's roots in bluegrass to San Francisco coffee houses to Greenwich village clubs.. Did you think they were going to resolve the "What is Folk" issue in one short show and give exhaustive examples going back to whenever YOU date its inception? DB posts what's coming on TV, from time to time, and it's up to y'all if you tune in or not. Thanks, DB. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: Ballyholme Date: 02 Dec 02 - 09:47 AM Saw the program several times over the weekend. Seems to me the criterion for inclusion was based upon artists who had chart success in the 50s/60s. I gotta say it didn't do a thing for me but it must have been a great help to the clothing industry - all those black shirts! |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: GUEST,Guest, ReformedRocker Date: 29 Nov 02 - 03:27 PM Hey, maybe it's a fine program if your idea of entertainment extends somewhere past the ghetto/porn mix that's polluting the airwaves these days. I'd rather hear the Smothers Brothers than all this commercially-produced illiteracy set to a drum machine. deep breath... calming down now. RR |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: John Hardly Date: 29 Nov 02 - 02:32 PM Hey, maybe it's a fine program if your idea of folk music extends TO, The Kingston Trio to The Smothers Brothers. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: johnross Date: 29 Nov 02 - 01:51 PM It's a fine program if your idea of folk music extends from The Kingston Trio to The Smothers Brothers. Feh. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS From: katlaughing Date: 29 Nov 02 - 12:39 PM Thanks, we'll watch for it. |
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Subject: RE: Folk Music On PBS / American Sountrack From: Genie Date: 29 Nov 02 - 11:41 AM I caught a bit of this in Seattle last Saturday night (Nov. 23). Heard Glenn Yarborough and The Brothers Four, saw the Smothers Bros. and Judy Collins hosting. Would love to hear the whole thing. Have to watch for it on other PBS stations over the next few weeks. Genie |
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Subject: Folk Music On PBS From: Dharmabum Date: 28 Nov 02 - 08:48 PM American Soundtrack;This land is your land. This special follows the evolution of modern folk music,from it's roots in bluegrass to San Francisco coffee houses to Greenwich village clubs. Hosted by the Smothers Brothers & Judy Collins,it features performances by Glenn Yarborough,The Highwaymen,Roger McGuinn,John Sebastian & others. This two hour show will air at various times & nights starting this Saturday night 11/30 here in the northeast (NJ). Check pbs.org for other areas. DB. |
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