Disservice to Folk Awards

Subject: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: greg stephens
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 07:52 AM

Nominations are invited, with reasons. I haven't got names for my three, I haven't done the research, but you get the idea.
1) Whoever had the idea of teaching children to sing "Strawberry Fair"(singing, singing, buttercups and daisies rifolrifol tolderiddleido etc)
2) Whover had the idea of teaching children to sing "Kumbayah"
3) Whoever wrote those words to "English Country Gardens"

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 08:08 AM

The advertising and media mogus get my vote! How long do they think that taking the piss out of folk music and morris dancing can be a valid cheap laugh?

As to number 3 on your list, Greg - depends which words.

How many crows can you pick from your nose...

Can't see anything wrong with it myself;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 08:15 AM

In the UK we have a pretend butter spread called 'Clover'. The advertising campaign shows happy families eating this stuff (churned for extra taste - churned with what?!) to the tune of 'The Wild Rover' (For we all love Clover, all over this land).

The person who chose that particular song for that particular spread should be put up against a wall and shot!

LTS

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:00 AM

Mulligan and O'hare.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:01 AM

Yes.

Sabine Baring-Gould was responsible for the rewrite of Strawberry Fair. It was not his most glorious moment.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Jeri
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:32 AM

2) The award could also fall into 'promoting the bland' category and Kumbaya might fall into the 'wanton excuses for harmony' genre. I sometimes joke about the song, but it still sounds great with a lot of voices. There are a lot of songs a lot of adults sing, wherever you may go that fit the bill. 'Wild Mountain Thyme' for one, but I still love singing that one too.

I was once waiting for a prescription in a pharmacy, and there was this little kid with a little fake record player toy. Every time he pushed a big plastic button, a wee traditional fiddle tune came out - mostly bouncy English ones. You have to wonder who designed it and give them credit for trying to slip a bit of trad music into the lives of toddlers. Somebody else might very well complain about it, but not me.

However...if I had a rifle and was a lot more vengeful (and slightly more insane) than I really am, that ice cream truck that plays 'Arkansas Traveller' over and over again would be lying in a ditch someplace, leaking melted treats out of every newly-created orifice.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: el_punkoid_nouveau
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:33 AM

Strangely enough, one C Sharpe comes to mind - he might have done much to save English Traditions (many of which have gone by the board since his day), but - did he have to clean them up? Was Cotswold morris quite so pretty - or should it be closer to Border?

Who can tell?

Who knows where the time goes?

epn

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:47 AM

Mulligan and O'Hare - ROTFLMAO! I'd forgotten about them, and Vic Reeve's Terry Wogan wig and protruding nipples.
"My roOOOooose has left me..."

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:49 AM

Jeri:


I LOVE your Revenge on the Ice Cream Truck!! Suits me !! LOL


A

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: M'Grath of Altcar
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:52 AM

Terry Wogan - Floral Dance - dreadful

Sorry to mention it.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:55 AM

EPN will be thinking of C[ecil J] Sharp, presumably; C [K] Sharpe was an earlier collector (of Scottish song). A century on, we may regret the fact that many of the songs Sharp published were modified; but it was the only way he could get them printed for the general public, and the whole point was to get people singing them again. The texts as originally collected survive. He was a minor offender compared to many, and without his work and the influence it had on others many of us wouldn't even have heard of folk music; and those of us who had would have very little to talk about.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Shimbo Darktree
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 11:05 AM

I have found it interesting to note over the years that what one listener (or fellow performer) will shoot you for, another will give you a medal for. The offence appears to be in the ear of the beholder.

And the icecream vans in Australia used to (haven't heard it for a long time) play "Greensleeves". Might almost be an improvement ... depends on your point of view!

Thoughtfully (for once),
Shimbo

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Nerd
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 03:49 PM

In my neighborhood the ice-cream van plays "Pop goes the weasel." Same idea, though. I often wonder how long I could last as an Ice-Cream Man before I would go insane.

I agree that Cecil Sharp was far more of a force for good than for bad. Other collectors have had far more negative effects.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Nerd
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 03:58 PM

greg,

I think these should be called the "Folk Dis!" awards. But that's just me...

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: SINSULL
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 04:31 PM

Ice cream trucks here play "Turkey In The Straw" suitable punishment I guess for the dancing turkey I sent to Spaw's kids which howled the same tune.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Bert
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 07:53 PM

It's gotta go to "Martin Guitars". How many folkies have bought one and been morphed from a good old folkie into a big headed guitar prima donna? *GRIN*

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Splott Man
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 08:23 AM

And what about "I can sing a rainbow" ?

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Scooby Doo
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 08:29 AM

Where???????

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 09:48 AM

How about anyone who sets themselves up as a critic, I am quite capable (as everyone else is)of forming my own opinion on a CD or performance without having someone else do it for me. On numerous occasions a CD I've bought I've later found to be slated by a critic, so much for their insight. They do a huge dis-service to performers (no... I have not myself produced a CD)
They are a collective plague upon the house of art in general and in this instance folk music in particular. They should be dealt with like any other pest and eradicated

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 10:47 AM

Ooops Naughty ........ the above Guest was me, don't hide behind Guest labels me !

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 05:20 PM

Chris Wood and Andy Cutting have done a great rescue job on their version of "An English Country Garden" - done as a tune on their Knock John album.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 09:01 AM

I think the above version is more likely the original 'Country Gardens' morris tune than a rescue job though:-) Wonder why they didn't call the album Wood Cutting...

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 09:11 AM

It's the person who changed the morris tune "Country Gardens" into the song "English Country Garden" that we need to search out. Percy Grainger used the original Bampton title for his orchestral arrangement, but I fear that it was from there that the song is derived.

Back to main topic: the inventor of the kazoo.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 09:23 AM

Nothing at all wrong with kazoos, as far as I am concerned.I think bodhran-playing might be overdue for a nomination thtough.Perhaps not any old bodhran, but just bodhrans with Celtic knotwork painted on them might be singled out for the inferno.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: GUEST,GROK
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 09:30 AM

Like, why even CALL them brodr boud bohda bored--why not just call them drums? Like, what's that about, hey? (With thanks to Mark Cohen.)

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: VIN
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 09:46 AM

One of the greatest disservice to us folk i can think of must be, i hasten to add in my very 'umble opinion, that most boring, tedious, un-inspiring, insipid piece of dirge muzak - our national anthem!!

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 10:43 AM

I heard a tale that we share our National Anthem with Lithuania, when The Repblic of Ireland played Lithuania at Croake Park in an International football match the band struck up the anthem of the visiting team........... to the synchronised accompanying sound of 35,00 jaws dropping !

Terrible dirge ......... but folk music ........ I think not

At least I wouldn't claim for it for my own

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 03:52 AM

We do indeed share the tune with Lithuania. It's also been used by several other countries including the USA (although I've momentarily forgotten which words they use).

And although it pains me to do this, I must support Terry Wogan - it started off that the tune was released by a brass band (Brighouse and Rastrick? It's been a long time) and played on the radio. Mr Wogan started to join in with it and some wag technician thought it would be fun to open his mike whilst he was singing. The GBP (Great British Public) being what it is, they innundated the station with requests for him to do it again and demand was such that he recorded it. Again, the GBP (fools to a man) went out and bought the record in such numbers that it became a hit.

I suspect the demand was so great because it was a folk song that was regularly taught in schools, when those things were still taught. My mother in law remembers being taught 'Blow away the morning dew' and I recently heard a woman of bus pass age comment that she learned 'Linden Lea' at school.

I have a book called 'The Community Song Book' that I "acquired" from my last school, which contains many traditional songs with the dots, which we used in Music lessons. I think that's where I first sang a recognisable folk song, although it was with 30 other girls and a mad Dutchman.

Further back than that, was 'Singing Together' - a radio for schools programme that we subscribed to. It produced song booklets (and yes, I still have one or two) and you sang along to the radio at a certain time (ours was 10.30 on Wednesday mornings), in the knowledge that children up and down the country were doing the same.

The Folk Diss award should go to the person who decided that traditional songs should not be available to schools either by changing the curricculum or by stopping the radio programmes.

LTS

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: fiddler
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 04:06 AM

British Folk is now, albeit vaguely, included in the primary curriculum - Just as it was wehen I were a lad - we had to hold hands with GIRLS - otherwise we got our legs slapped - we preferred the slap - and how many half remember Gay gordons from those days and i'm not talking sexual proclivities in the Boys loos here!

LTS Scan those song books in - I'd love to see one again - they were a good idea - these days it would be spice and sound - Posh and Poems - any other suggestions.

Diss - hmmm.... even if it is a bit trite and banal if the GBP recognise it and enjoy it we should not go all elitist about it we need it out there and currently bless them Auntie Beeb is doing a not too bad (but not essentially good) Job of it.

I can't think who to dis - it's against my nature - ever so sweet gentle and affable I am too even if I (and only I will) say it myself!

Andy

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 04:46 AM

'Puff the Magic Dragon'

Over here thought to be a fine folk song by many Chinese. Where the hell have they heard it as during the time of its release the country was in the throws of the cultural revolution.

When requested Big Paul Curran (our singer) just replies "I dont do Puffs"

'Morningtown Ride' by the Seekers should also be there. Sorry Oz'.

I too remember dance and song classes at primary school. Loved 'Hearts of Oak' and 'Donkey Riding', but being kids we all used to try and thing of alternative words which in Scotland meant a crack across the hands with the tawse.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Michael
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 04:50 AM

LTS, Wow' we sang in the same 'choir'- Singing Together at 10.30 Wednesday mornings, It was the highlight of our week.Remember the vote for your class favourite to be sung in the last programme of term? And Mr Appleby? Lovely deep voice.

My Diss award too is for the BBC for the same reason, and their continued repression of OUR Tradition! (rant over, sorry)
Mike

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 05:02 AM

Mind you, what has a village in Norfolk got to do with showing displeasure?

LTS

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 05:19 AM

The establishment of a Folk Music Department(or whatever it's called) at Newcastle University is an interesting one. Is this a wonderful thing, recognition of our glorious heritage, or is the kiss of death to what must, by its very nature, be the a grassroots common people's culture? I'm very ambivalent about this.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 05:23 AM

It feels very strange to be recommending them, but Tony Newley's Strawberry Fair and Rolf Harris's English Country Gardens should make excellent antidotes for anyone suffering from "serious" versions of those songs. Sadly, Kumbaya is untreatable AFAIK.

Liz, as a lass of merely thirty-odd summers (as I have it on good authority), you may not know that we who grew up in the fifties (a) had regular musc lessons and (b) sang a good many of Sharp's collected songs. (Ironically, some of them would be most un-pc today: I wouldn't dream of calling anyone a "mulatta", for instance.) That, along with the folk-revivalists on the wireless, sparked off my life-long love of the tradition and singing generally.

It's worth adding that during a brief (two terms) spell at another school when I was seven or eight, we did English country dancing, and it put me off for life!

Steve

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Hrothgar
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 05:30 AM

Do I interpret this as a criticism of that great Australian, Percy Grainger?

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: pavane
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 05:31 AM

Rolf Harris? It predates him!

In partial defence, it is perhaps the only way to get a Morris Dance to number 1 in the charts (1960, Jimmie Rogers, I believe - was he the same one that got a name check in Black Velvet?)

And it is only the TUNE which is traditional.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 06:53 AM

No disrespect to dear old Perce, H! As I discovered only recently, he took down all the words to the songs he collected, unlike some other collectors, who were more interested in the tunes.

Pavane, I won't argue! But it's Rolf's recording I recall (I really don't know English Country Gardens at all ... ha-ha!)

Steve

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Snuffy
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 09:00 AM

Have a look at Jon Freeman's Folkinfo site, where several mid-60s editions of Singing Together are being posted a song at a time

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 09:31 AM

Smooth Operations for the totally shite Mike Harding show.

eric

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 10:05 AM

Oi!! MikeHarding is a lovely little fellow, and his programme is lovely. I would willing sell my house and all it's contents to pay for the BBC.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 10:10 AM

Ted he never returned your calls, you live in a Fiat Scud and still love him, thats dedication

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 11:53 AM

I sang many folk songs at school - usually out of "The National Song Book" - Twankydillo, Just as the Tide was flowing, The Mermaid, Sweep away the morning Dew, etc.

I wonder though, if my spinster teacher had any idea that "Morning Dew" referred to female virginity and that the verse:
My father bought a likely mare on last St Swithin's day,
But when he put her to the fence, she backed and backed away.
didn't actually refer to equine persuits !

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Willie-O
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 06:15 PM

what the hell is this thread about agin?

"our national anthem"...ummm, I'm takin it you mean God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols?

keerist, Brits are worse than Mericans for thinking themselves the center of the universe...them days are gone, lads & lasses.

Disservice to folk??? how bout them that think that it should be kept as museum-quality artifacts untouched by the 20th or 21st centuries?

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Leadfingers
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 07:38 PM

Why Oh Why do I keep having this urge to nominate James Miller (In his alter ego of Ewan MacColl) if only for his hypocrisy regarding what people could sing in his Singers Club .If it did not pertain (in HIS) opinion to the singers background and up bringing then NO song spot . He would then proceed to sing whatever took his fancy , with NO regard to wether it had any relation to his Lancashire upbringing .

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 09:37 PM

As has been mentioned in another recent discussion, it's only quite recently that Americans have been outnumbered here; the default assumption used to be that everybody must be from the US unless they specifically stated otherwise. It may be disconcerting to find folk from a (geographically) small place like the UK posting to a thread started by somebody from the UK and neglecting to mention that they aren't American; this isn't, I think, an example of their imagining themselves "the centre of the universe", but of their forgetting that America has long since arrogated to itself that assumption.

"Leadfingers", meanwhile, seems to be making the same assumption that I used to make about MacColl's "policy", until I had the opportunity of learning more about it from people who were there at the time. It was not at all so dogmatic as is now often supposed, being more to do with trying to get people to sing songs that they actually understood or had some sort of connection with, instead of whatever was currently fashionable. An equivalent now would be all those folk who insist on singing Gaelic songs learned parrot-fashion, in spite of the fact that they don't understand a word of the language. Now that is disrespect.

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: GUEST,The Stage Manager
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 03:46 PM

I think in a way Greg you've answered your own question. In referring to the 'Folk Department' at Newcastle you imply folk music is " a grassroots common people's culture."   I agree. Anything that takes the music out of this setting is doing it a disservice, and drains it of its relevance.

The best Folk Music I always think comes from the very essence of the person singing or playing it.   In this situation even an over popularised or corny song can suddenly sound new and hit you like a brick when you hear it.    This implies some visceral connection to the song.

The logical extension of this is that the one ends up wondering whether the "The Folk Club" itself isn't now itself doing a disservice to the music, by ghettoising it and perhaps constraining its forms. Folk music by definition must belong to, and perhaps even identify a wider community.   The folk club is a recent invention and personally, I anticipate the music will long out live the clubs.


So in answer to your question Greg, and perhaps a little controversially, I'd like to nominate the folk club as doing a disservice to Folk Music.

SM

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: BeekeeperFran
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 04:41 PM

If Folk Clubs are a disservice to folk music what does that make singarounds in pubs?

I was at school and took part in the Singing Together sessions on Wednesday mornings. I hold these responsible for my interest in folk music and led to my involvement with a morris side.One song which used to be sung in my last year of juniors was not folk based at all. It was called Calling all Zartians and was about man invading outer space. I never understood how this perversion fitted in with Twankydillo,Ash Grove and Sally Brown and should be rated as a disservice to folk.
Yours still confused
Fran

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Chris Green
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 04:54 PM

1) The Spinners
2) Foster and Allen
3) The audience of a club which shall remain nameless who shushed two of my mates for clapping along to a tune set. To make matters worse we were playing acoustically and the organiser asked us to turn down!

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 06:38 PM

Kim Howells

Subject: RE: Disservice to Folk Awards
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 07:10 PM

duellingbouzoukis - If by The Spinners you mean the Detroit band ,fair enough , but if you mean those lovely lads from Liverpool I would argue with you . They introduced SO MANY people to Folk Music who moved on to greater things that saying what they did was a disservice to Folk is innaccurate to say the least .