Investing in Traditional Music. Why?

Subject: RE: Investing in Traditional Music. Why?
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 02:04 AM

I don't think you can look at traditional music or for that matter music in general as a point but as a line or a field. To understand where it's going one should have at least a cursory understanding of where it's been. What some might look at as a quaint little prelude to the real thing IS the real thing. Theirs is the foundation on which the flash is built. If you don't want to play that way, fine, but there lies the roadmap to where the music is now. There is a whole lot of technique to be found there and a wealth of good material. Woody Guthrie is a good example of a musician who certainly was not a "hot picker" but had a lot more integrity and emotional value than a lot of what's going around today. I heard an old tape in a concert archive of Jean Ritchie and her husband, George (Picken?). It was a very warming experience to say the least. I saw Utah Phillips and Rosalie Sorrels (separately) and they both put a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. As death by whisky brought up, In Irish Music, one must look at the solo works of Joe Burke, Paddy Glackin et. al. to first get the tune. I'd say take it on step further, and listen to all the great recorded music of the '20s. Coleman, McKenna, Morrison and so on. That's the music in a nutshell and what's more, they were good players. To just listen to what's going on today and claim to know the music is like coming into a movie in the middle without seeing the setup, and then trying to explain the story. What's more, the stuff that sounds antiquated when you first here it will come to sound better and better as you get to understand the music.



Or to sum it up, Only those who know their history will be lucky enough to repeat it.

Rich

Subject: RE: Investing in Traditional Music. Why?
From: Marion
Date: 05 Jun 01 - 02:16 AM

Some reflections... comments welcomed. Apologies in advance for the length.

Both this thread and Marty's "Could I play like Doc Watson?" have being nagging at the back of my mind since they came out. The Doc Watson thread disturbed me because I realized that I don't have a guitar hero I hope to be able to play like - just a desire to get better without any solid idea of what I mean by better. And this thread makes me feel guilty, because I never listen to any of these old pioneers, and don't have a clue what they're about.

So anyway, one day last week something suddenly clicked and it was time to do something about this. So I went and bought two CDs - "Foundation: the Doc Watson Guitar Instrumental Collection" and "Can the Circle be Unbroken: The Original Carter Family".

(And it was touching just how excited the record store guy was that I was buying them - he went on and on about the Carter Family and was pointing me out to the other staff, saying "Somebody's buying real music!")

I've never listened to Doc Watson or the Carters before. I was amazed by the Watson CD; how can one guitar do all that? I'm not planning to adopt him as a guitar hero, right away, but I can certainly see why Marty would.

But as for the Carter Family CD... I want to like the Carter Family, really, I do. But I don't like this CD, except for one song (Little Black Train). I found the guitar playing boring, and the singing mildly irritating (though I'm starting to get used to it). I was interested that the CD liner said "Echoes of the Carter Family are still heard, for example, in the original music and vocal style of Indigo Girls." I love the Indigo Girls! But my initial reaction to Maybelle Carter is definitely the same as Big Mick's - I'd rather just listen to the Indigo Girls.

But at the same time I don't want to accept Mark Clark's diagnosis that "if the Carter Family etc.... don't just reach out and grab you, then I'd say your interest in folk music is more as an alternative pop music and has very little to do with honest expression in a folk idiom."

So what I'm trying to figure out is where to go from here... what exactly it means to "invest" in this old music. Make myself keep listening to it in the hopes that I'll start liking it? Put the CD in a drawer for a few years in the hope that I'll appreciate it when I'm older (I'm 28, FWIW) or can "bring more to the table musically"? Try to find those echoes of the Carter Family in the Indigo Girls? Try to copy the one song that does appeal to me? Or buy other people's CDs until I find one that does appeal to me right away?

The Carter Family CD does have one big advantage over the Watson CD - when I hear Maybelle playing I think, "I could do that". This may be untrue, but at least it's a sentiment that gets me spending more time with my guitar. But Doc Watson's playing is just plain intimidating. Actually the CD liner notes put it very tactfully: "The more you think you know about playing the guitar, the more you know you couldn't do that if your whole sorry life depended on it."

Marion

PS Marty, it's been nine months - have you developed an appreciation for the Carter Family yet?

Subject: RE: Investing in Traditional Music. Why?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 05 Jun 01 - 11:56 AM

Marion, Perhaps my phrase "reach out and grab you" was something of an overstatement. I first became aware of the Carter Family when I began to realize that many folk revival performers I admired were singing songs attributed to them. Eventually my curosity led me to seek out the original. Having been raised in a midwestern city surrounded by agricultural communities, I had worked hard to expunge anything remotely rural from my conciousness. My first exposure to folk music was as hip urban music and I had a strong cultural suspicion of any one singing in a southern accent. I confess I found the Carter's music strange at first. I regarded the old Carter Family recordings as being primarily of academic interest.

As I continued to listen, it didn't take long for me to become more accepting and eventually I learned to love their their performances and those of other southern Applalachian performers including old-timey and bluegrass bands. My main impediment was all the cultural crap I'd been fed growing up.

I recommend you shell out for an album listed here for sale. It's the second (yellow cover) Carter Family album in the list and is a wonderful selection of some of their best recordings. Given your interest and dedication (as chronicled here) I'd say it won't be long until you love the Carter Family as I do.

Good pickin',

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Investing in Traditional Music. Why?
From: Marion
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 12:40 PM

Thanks Mark. Actually there's a second song on the Carter CD that's starting to grow on me now. But I think I will try somebody else next, before getting more Carter Family.

Marion

Subject: RE: Investing in Traditional Music. Why?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 Jun 01 - 11:33 PM

Mark, Good observations.

Art