Traditional singer definition

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 05:12 AM

"After all, it doesn't make him any less human to be aware of such issues,does it? "
"reactionary condescension so obnoxious it beggars belief"
Statements like this underline the contempt you have consistently shown for the people whose work you, as a revival singer, have benefited from.
If you had provided rational arguments for your declarations of hate towards collectors and researchers, you might have made some headway, but you have consistently refused to do so:
"I don't have to prove anything, Jim "
Instead you make armchair pronounments, half the time wrapped in impenitrable verbiage.
So Sharp was obnoxiously condescending and a target of your contempt because he was a product of his time - do I have that right, and can I assumme Dickens and Hardy to also be recipients of that contempt - or is that another question for your shelf?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Musket
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 05:51 AM

Traditional - the passing of custom and belief down the generations.

Well, at least one dictionary says it in that way, (suspect an American one, I am using an iMac after all...)

An interesting question would be "Where does something begin in order to be passed down in the tradition?"

I gave my sons many of my old albums, so as my custom was to wear denim and go to Black Sabbath concerts, buying their albums, then when I took my eldest to watch Ozzie in concert then gave him my Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album, (signed by the band many years ago) then I was starting a tradition. Hence Black Sabbath performed traditional music?

I reckon we are yet again confusing style with process. There seems to be a consensus that to be a traditional singer as opposed to singer of traditional songs, you have to tell people your Grandfather learned this from a wandering gypsy in the bleak high fells. Whereas it was traditional for me that on Xmas Eve, my stepfather sat in his chair when we got home from the welfare, a glass of whisky in his hand and sat there crooning out "Old Shep." To which I used to cry out, taking the piss, "Oh no! Not the gun!"

Just as traditional for me.

But not for you.

Or indeed for Walter Pardon who wouldn't know about my Stepfather or indeed the local miners' welfare.

Methinks the thought police may think that it has to be in the folk "style" to be traditional, and that is one hell of a different discussion.... (And a moot one too. If I sing a song I wrote about my community and heritage, I am a traditional singer. If I sing a song about reed cutting in Norfolk, I am a singer of traditional song. QED.)

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 05:56 AM

Thing is, Jim - I came to the revival as a fresh-faced trusting youth and swallowed its myth wholesale as part of a general epiphany. I've always been aware of the dilemas and contradictions, but in the final analysis my love of the old songs is paramount in my relationship to this thing we call folk. That doesn't mean I should forget the deeper issues, even when I choose to sing one of Sharp's Bowlderised versions to a ruder variant; in fact, I might sing both versions as part of the same song. It's a complex beast, endlessly fascinating, but my deap seated awareness of social class and the inequalities, oppressions and privileges thereof do not prevent me from seeing just what the Folk Myth was predicated on. Similarly, my love of Kiping does not have me wishing to revise his more noxious sentiments. I will sing Peter Bellamy's setting of The Land, not as a revised paean to Socialism that many in the Folk Scene have chosen to see it as, but as the hommage to the continuity of faceless serviility under feudalism which Kipling (and Bellamy too in all probability) intended. I find it odd how you balk at Kipling in this respect, and yet embrace Sharp (et al) who were just as guilty after all. To me, it's all part of the thing - and to deny it would be as absurd as to reject it wholesale. Like any other aspect of History, its fascination lies in its contradictions.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 07:23 AM

Cecil Sharp had an asthmatic arse.

nuff said.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 07:56 AM

Sean - with your vague and verbose generalities, your message remains the same - collectors are an untrustworthy mob whose opinions and experiences are not even worthy of discussion - again you refuse to qualify your statements and avoid direct questions - do we despise Hardy and Dickens for their attempts to reproduce the verrnacular of the people they chose to depict, or is your venom just reserved for those who gave us access to our songs?
Not really interested in what who choose to reduce anybody who disagrees with him as "thought police" either - I really thought some of these discussions had attained adulthood - my mistake.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 24 Jul 11 - 04:31 AM

Jim - at least try and understand what I'm saying here before telling me how and feel petitioning to have me kicked out the fan club as an undesirable. Warts an all is an inclusive approach to life, the unverse and everything; it appreciateds the good and the bad and certainly doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater - much less promote the notion that so flawed a hobby as Folk Song Collection isn't without some very evident contradictions as regards the actual dymanics between subject and object. Especially across the gulf of the class / culture divide. This is life, and half the fun is being aware of it to make a more vivid picture of The Revival in its totality and its legacy today as part of Our social history.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 24 Jul 11 - 04:55 AM

(and again without the typos, and ever so slightly revised...)

Jim - at least try and understand what I'm saying here before telling me how I feel and petitioning to have me kicked out the fan club as an undesirable. Warts a' All is an inclusive approach to life, the universe and everything. It appreciates the Good and the Bad and certainly doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater - much less promote the notion that so flawed an upper-class hobby as Folk Song Collection isn't going to be without some very evident contradictions as regards the actual dymanics between subject and object. Especially across the gulf of the class / culture divide. This is life, Jim (very much as as we know it) and half the fun is being aware of such matters to thus make a more vivid picture of both The Revival in its totality and its enduring legacy today which is an essential part of Our social history.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 11 - 05:30 AM

Sean
If you put up an argument you might have a case.
You don't qualify your statements, you don't advance arguments, you don't respond to challenges, you don't answer direct questions - YOU JUST MOUNT SNIDE ATTACKS AND YOU MAKE UNQUALIFIED PRONOUNCEMENTS wrapped in pretentious and irrelevant verbiage.
Sharp's ideas and those of his contemporaries are very much in need of re-examination, but not by meaningless and often impenetrable unqualified statements such as yours.
The day of the 'gentleman' collector is long gone, but what the early researchers left behind is a huge body of material and a basis for undererstanding folksong - you, in contrast, offer nothing other than a bad taste in the mouth.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 24 Jul 11 - 09:29 AM

Jim - either this is going way over your head or you just refuse to see what I'm saying. Either I really can't be arsed.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,SA
Date: 24 Jul 11 - 09:31 AM

either way that is.