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Who invented Folk Clubs?
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST,Hootenanny Date: 20 Jan 07 - 10:08 AM To Beachcomber; The venue which you attended in Soho Square would have been the Ballads and Blues Club, the venue was the offices of the Trade Union Association of Cinematograph and Television Technicians, the ACTT, we moved there after the Princes Louise, other venues were The Coram Hotel in Tavistock Square, The Horshoes Tottenham Court Road, The Sevendown Coffee Bar at No 7 Carlisle Street which had previously been The Partisan, The King and Queen Paddington Green, The Black Horse Rathbone Place, The Porcupine by Leicester Square Tube and finally the King of Corsica in Berwick Street. I think that covers it. The same guys also promoted concerts in London by Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Jesse Fuller, Jack Elliott and Derrol Adams, Josh White etc. The folk club as we have come to know it definitely grew out of the skiffle movement which came out of the "Trad" jazz scene. Re Tony Donegan, he was known as Lonnie some time before his hit record with Chris Barber. It apparently came about in 1952 at a London Concert for flood relief for victims of the great Essex flood. The US Blues/Popular guitarist Lonnie Johnson was on the bill as was Donegan, the announcer confused the names and Donegan stuck with it. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Alec Date: 20 Jan 07 - 10:13 AM Thanks for that footnote Hootenanny. I've often wondered how & why that name change came about. I love this site. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST Date: 20 Jan 07 - 12:27 PM . |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST,Derek Schofield Date: 21 Jan 07 - 11:35 AM I'm interested in this discussion as I'm currently researching the early days of the post-war folk revival in England so what follows does not apply to the USA or Australia. The first reference to a folk club I have is February 1949: a folk club held at Cecil Sharp House of the English Folk Dance & Song Society (EFDSS). By early 1950, the Cambridge Branch of the EFDSS was running 'singing evenings' in the Jolly waterman in Cambridge - the first reference to a folk song club in a pub. By early 1951, Birmingham Folk Song Club organised by the local EFDSS was running monthly. In 1953, the BBC broadcast the Ballads and Blues radio programmes and in 1954, Theatre Workshop moved to Stratford, East London (before that they had been based in the north, so MacColl was presumably not living in London till 1954. MacColl was still a vital part of Theatre Workshop). Ballads and Blues became the title of a series of Sunday song events held at the theatre in Stratford - how many or frequently, I don't know - perhaps not many of them were held. But this was after the radio series and obviously after theatre workshop moved to Stratford, so earliest was 1954. Then Ballads and Blues moved to the Princess Louise pub in Holborn. So, that club could not have started earlier than 1954, and was perhaps more likely to be later in 1954, even 1955. There was also a memorable concert called ballads and Blues at the Royal festival Hall in July 1954: MacColl, Seeger, cameron and the Ken Colyer Skiffle Group two years before Donnegan had his first chart success. There were Ballads and Blues clubs in other parts of the country - when did they start? wasn't Arthur Scargill the organiser of one, presumably in Barnsley? Good Earth Club started in 1954, 44 Club by 1956. Topic club in 1956. The Ceilidhe Club (song, music no dance) was held at Cecil Sharp House from 1954. By 1956 there was a Kingston Ceilidhe Club (on Thames). Sing magazine was launched in 1954, edited by Eric Winter who was also a singer, as was John Hasted. There must have been a market for the magazine - where did they sell it, where did they perform? Anyone with details to plug the gaps in this story ? I'd love to hear from you. Derek Schofield |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Les in Chorlton Date: 21 Jan 07 - 02:30 PM I guess the EFDSS had Country dance Clubs right through from 1920's? Did they generate song clubs at all? |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST,Derek Schofield Date: 21 Jan 07 - 04:21 PM Pre-1945, the EFDSS principally operated through classes rather than "clubs". Local county organisations of the EFDSS would have occasional song evenings .. recitals .. and song was usually a feature of vacation schools ... sometime Vaughan Willaims would lead the communal singing of folk songs. Post war, folk dance clubs started up and the number of song events increased. I think one of the points my earlier message was making that the EFDSS was not totally absent from the post-1945 song revival. It often wasn't clear which direction it should be heading in, and as a charity had to consider its objectives, and its finances. But some people have written it out of the history books altogether and that's not a true reflection of what happened. Derek Schofield |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST,beachcomber Date: 21 Jan 07 - 06:55 PM Thanks Hoot, I just wish I had made more of an effort to enjoy the "Folk Scene" in London back then. Apart from one or two "journeys of discovery" down West , (under the auspices of my Scottish fellow workers) I confined myself to the "Irish scene" mainly around Kilburn, Willesden, Camden Town and Holloway Rd etc., That was until I "discovered" CSH sometime around 1963/4. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST,Nicholas Waller Date: 21 Jan 07 - 07:18 PM Sing magazine was launched in 1954, edited by Eric Winter who was also a singer, as was John Hasted. There must have been a market for the magazine - where did they sell it, where did they perform? -Derek I don't know about selling the magazine, but the long 3-part article by Alex Easton I mentioned above (over three issues of Tykes' News in 1990) is worth you tracking down. Alex goes into a lot of detail about the early days of the Topic - 1956-7 mainly - and the sources they had for songs, including Sing. One person he mentions a fair amount is John Hasted (Professor of Physics at London University until 1986, I see, so he must have been busy enough in the day job), who was "guide-animator" for an early "Music for Youth" weekend school The Topic organised (before it even got its name) on 11 November 1956. The article says Hasted drove to Bradford many times, played banjo, guitar, accordion and piano, knew hundreds of songs and tales and had the happy knack of being able to pass on his knowledge in the most genial manner. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST Date: 22 Jan 07 - 02:40 AM Don't really think the EFDSS gatherings fit into the description of Folk Clubs Derek. There were gatherings of singers far earlier than any of the established clubs; Sam Larner used to sing every week at 'The Fisherman's Return' in Winterton, and there were similar fisherman's gatherings right up the east coast (and singing competitions). Similarly in Ireland, we have been given descriptions of weekly gatherings of singers in Kerry right into the 1940s. Suggest that Ben Harker (MacColl biography) might have stumbled on some information on the early revival, but he has said that the singing side of MacColl's career is only a small part of his research. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Scrump Date: 22 Jan 07 - 04:40 AM Yes, the Bridge Folk Club at the Bridge Hotel in Newcastle upon Tyne doesn't claim to be the oldest in the country, just the oldest that has been run continuously at the same venue. I've yet to find any evidence to the contrary. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Mr Yellow Date: 22 Jan 07 - 08:11 AM Whatever he called it - I would bet some Sharp guy was the first to hold a regular club of singing folk singists. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Mr Yellow Date: 22 Jan 07 - 08:14 AM And didn't Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie hold Hootenanies? Does this count or are we being word specific? |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST,Hootenanny Date: 22 Jan 07 - 09:13 AM Derek Schofield; Are you sure that Peggy appeared in concert at the RFH in July 1954? Peggy wasn't legally allowed to work in the UK as far as I am aware until late 1959. Earning pin money giving guitar and banjo lessons might have slipped by the Musician's Union and Variety Artists Federation but appearing at a prestigeous venue such as the RFH would almost certainly have been noticed and acted upon. Mr Yellow: As far as I am aware the only Hootenanny that Pete Seeger appeared at IN THE UK (which is the area under discussion I believe)was one of the Ballads and Blues regular Saturday nights at the above mentioned ACTT in Soho Square. Woody was briefly in the UK in 1945 after being torpedoed and he made his way to the BBC and broadcast on Childrens Hour radio show. It still survives. I don't belive there were any clubs at which he appeared Hootenanny or otherwise. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: manitas_at_work Date: 22 Jan 07 - 10:50 AM The Railway Tavern in Stratford is still folk friendly although it hasn't had a folk club for years. It has hosted morris and sword dancers and sessions as long as I've known it though. I played a St Patrick's Night there with Terry Yarnell and he informed me that the landlady, Jan , was the daughter of the landlord from the 1950's when the folk club was running. It's only a few hundred yards from the Theatre Royal and apparently still frequented by the company there. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Suffet Date: 22 Jan 07 - 12:58 PM Greetings: Mr. Yellow asks, "And didn't Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie hold Hootenanies? Does this count or are we being word specific?" The short answer is, "Yes, but..." Here's the long answer, mostly copied and cribbed from other sources: From a Daniel Pearl Music Days workshop presented by MacDougal Street Rent Party to the Philadelphia Folk Song Society • Merion Station, PA • October 8, 2005. The first documented use of the term hootenanny to describe a musical event was in July 1940. The event was a fundraising party at Seattle's Polish Hall for a liberal newspaper called The Washington New Dealer. The paper's editor, Terry Pettus, was a transplanted Hoosier, and he remembered the word from his childhood in Indiana where it was a utility noun whose meaning was similar to thingamajig or whatchamacallit. That first hootenanny was a success, so the newspaper continued to hold one each month for several years. These earliest hootenannies sometimes included dancing as well as singing and jamming, and they often included a potluck dinner. If some visiting performer were in town, the hootenanny might feature him or her in an impromptu mini-concert within the larger event. In 1941, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie came through Seattle, played a guest set at one of these hootenannies, and took the idea and the name back with them to New York City, where their group, the Almanac Singers, started their own hoots. These New York hootenannies were more structured than the ones in Seattle, and the mini-concert became the central feature. Nevertheless, they were a lot less formal than traditional concerts, as there was no stage, the audience was usually invited to sing along, and guests were often called upon to do one or two songs. Often there were more performers present than there were non-performing audience members. The Almanac Singers requested 35 cents admission to help pay the rent for the large apartment they shared, but payment was voluntary. After a break for World War II, these New York hootenannies resumed and then continued into the 1970s, with successive left-wing folk music enthusiasts serving as the hosts. The last were Sis Cunningham, one of the original Almanac Singers, and her husband Gordon Friesen. Sis and Gordon started publishing Broadside in 1962, and their hoots helped to support that magazine of topical-political music. By then the word hootenanny had clearly become associated with New York, but the first use of the word to describe a musical event was definitely in Seattle. Back in Seattle, the original hootenannies changed from being fundraisers for The Washington New Dealer into informal gatherings of folk musicians who came together to swap songs and jam. A few of these were held in public venues, such as Eagleson Hall (the University of Washington student YM/YWCA), but the vast majority took place in private homes. They were very loosely structured affairs, and while typical Seattle hootenanny had some solo performances, mostly there was group singing and jamming. These hoots continued throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, and among other things, they provided an opportunity for novices to perform in front of a sympathetic and supportive audience. After the Kingston Trio's recording of Tom Dooley became a commercial success in 1958, the music industry realized that substantial money could be made from folk music. Promoters throughout North America began producing multi-performer folk concerts which they calledcalled hootenannies. Tickets were required for admission, performers appeared on an actual stage, and the audience sat in theater seats. Once these new style hootenannies gained enough of a following, the American Broadcasting Corporation jumped on the bandwagon. In 1963, ABC launched Hootenanny, a weekly half-hour television program which featured four folk music acts. The program, however, lasted only one season, as the commercial folk boom quickly began to wane. Neither the multi-performer concerts of the early 1960s nor the ABC television show fit the Seattle or even the New York model of a hootenanny. However, for most Americans those concerts and that TV program represented what hootenanny came to mean. As a consequence, the term all but faded from the non-commercial (or more accurately, less commercial) folk music scene. Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen may have continued to use it after the mid-1960s, but they were exceptions. While the word hootenanny may be seldom used today, hootenannies themselves are very much alive and well in all their various formats. The Seattle style hoots live today in hundreds of song circles, sing-arounds, jam sessions, and singing parties. The New York style hoots can be found in festival workshops, in the workshops offered at many folk music camps, and in the programs presented by many coffee houses (especially coffee houses sponsored by Unitarian-Universalist churches). Numerous folk music open mics combine elements of both the Seattle and the New York style hoot, as do open round robin concerts. Finally, the more formal, multi-performer concert type of hootenannies exist these days as tribute concerts, as fundraising concerts, as showcase concerts, and as the featured concerts at folk festivals, large and small. I hope that answers the question! Once again, I make no claim of originality. This was mostly a copy-and-paste job with some editorial revisions, and was used solely as a one-time hand-out. Dick and Susan of the Digital Tradition were in attendance when MSRP presented this workshop. --- Steve |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST Date: 22 Jan 07 - 02:00 PM Jim Carroll wrote: Don't really think the EFDSS gatherings fit into the description of Folk Clubs Derek. well, I quoted the terms used at the time very carefully ... folk club in 1949 .. singing evenings in Cambridge ... folk song club in Birmingham. It depends how you define a folk club!! I am not suggesting that they started at 8, had a guest for 30-40 mins in each half, raffle in the interval, residents, floor singers..... But in a discussion about whether Good Earth or Ballads and Blues was the first, it's worth recognising that EFDSS was hosting a folk club (whatever the format) in 1949 etc. more research may reveal the format. Derek |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Tyke Date: 22 Jan 07 - 03:15 PM I think the key word is Club as in a Membership, a Committee, Rules, a Mission statement and an annual General Meeting and Elections. My understanding is that in 1956 when the entire Bradford Communist Party resigned in protest, when the Russians sent in their tanks to Hungary, they then founded the Topic Folk Club. To enable them to still meet on a Friday Night and sing the same songs. I would think that The Topic Folk Club was in all probability meeting the criteria of being a club from the start. The night that it meets and its mission statement may have changed over the years but a Club it is and a Club may it long remain. Some Folk artists were allegedly sponsored by the Communist Party to promote communist ideals. This you must remember was a very different world and not always for the better. One American Folk Singer had visited Communist China and was not allowed back into the United States of America known then and now as the land of the free. It matters not whether you agree or disagree with politics of a song what is important is that the other view's should be heard. To that end in theory Folk Clubs have not done a bad job enabling ordinary people to air their views. It's my understanding that some of the Folk Venues in London have to have a membership to enable a Folk Night to take place in a particular venue. The change of venue for any number of reasons that may or not have meant a new membership and change of name even if the core of the club had not changed it would be a New Club. The Grove Folk Club in Leeds, Aren't we lucky having two historic Folk Clubs within a few miles of each other, was established 1963 as the venue and the Club have been so much a part of the lives of it's regulars. That it should claim to be the oldest established Folk Club in the Same Venue The Grove Inn, Back Row, Holbeck, Leeds just stones throw from Leeds City Centre. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST Date: 23 Jan 07 - 04:48 AM Tyke, That sounds a rather formal way of running a club; I don't think I have ever been to one that has been set up on those lines. The three I was involved in setting up and running were all started when enough like-minded people came together. Even the Singers Club, which was sponsored by the Co-op was run on more-or-less mutual agreement - the direct contact with that organisation was via an annual meeting to discuss finances, premises, etc; no policy statement, no election. There was an audience committee made up of volunteers, but that was the nearest we ever got to a formal organisation. I never heard of the CP sponsoring clubs, for political purposes or otherwise, most CP members I knew who were involved in the music were interested in it, those who weren't always struck me as not having a clue about folk music. I (mercifully) can't remember the details of Mike Brocken's book on the revival, which struck me at the time as very poorly researched, but I don't think he came up with anything resembling the set-up you describe. There was a radio programme on the history of Topic Records (Little Red Label), which dealt with politics and the early revival - must listen to it again. I wonder what would happen if somebody sang songs in favour of the BNP, racism or the concentration camps; never known it to happen. I did hear that Eric Bogle was punched by an audience member once when he sang his anti-racist song 'I Hate Wogs'. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Folkiedave Date: 23 Jan 07 - 05:50 AM Some Folk artists were allegedly sponsored by the Communist Party to promote communist ideals.
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST,Fidjit Date: 23 Jan 07 - 09:25 AM I was member of the Walthamstow Clarion Cycling Club 1948 - '55. Clarion Cycling Clubs were leftwing orientated. We used to sing as we rode home after a Sunday outing. "I love to go a-wandering" "She'll be coming round the mountain", etc. Stuff like that and others. First mobile folk club? We paid membership!! Later on a Sunday night, I'd be at the Magnolia Jazz club/Pub in Edmonton. Chas |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Tyke Date: 23 Jan 07 - 10:29 PM I agree Guest that it might seem a formal way to run things but to call yours a club would indicate several people clubbing together to cover the running costs. Each member would be expected to pay any losses and to share in any profits. Working Men's Clubs, Labour Clubs, Conservative Clubs, Drinking Clubs, Liberal Clubs, Golf Clubs all have committees, meetings, and people who are elected to run things. I'm not against benevolent dictatorships you take the risk and call the tune. Let's face it if it's a good idea you can always turn it into a Club when it's more loss than profit or when you realise that you can't do everything. It would seem reasonable that when contracts involving money and when any profit or more likely losses could be involved to which several people are liable that rules, regulations, mission statements and Laws are in place. A raffle, for instance, to raise money to pay the guest or for advertising or for the room is probably not legal unless you are a Club and meeting the Laws which regulate Clubs in the United Kingdom. Clubbing together to run an event makes sense especially if you are able to Club together with other clubs to ensure you have say public liability insurance at the cheapest rate. Perhaps some legal eagle could give advise on the Laws relating to Clubs in the UK. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST Date: 24 Jan 07 - 04:34 AM Profits, thought they were fellers who went about predicting the future! Don't think I was ever involved (or met anybody who was) in a club that made a profit. Am not necessarily against your format, but I have always found if you make your set-up too formal you end up spending more time in meetings than at the music. I take the cynical view that a camel is a horse designed by a committee Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Folkiedave Date: 24 Jan 07 - 04:55 AM You must have been missing out Jim!! I refer to the mid-sixties. And yes, I am that old!! The club I was involved in had so much money we had no idea what to do with it!! We bought a complete set of JFS and FSS journals to about 1960, all the books with songs and words that came out - all the Topic record releases and still had change. For people at the club to use. (This included profits from ceilidhs etc too.) There was a club in Darlington (I think it was) which was more of a concert club than anything where the organisers made almost a full-time living. Remember this was in the great days (of what people call the Folk Revival and I prefer to call an upsurge) where we had a queue at 7.00 pm on a Sunday waiting for the pub to open, and we started at 7.30 pm, Guest from 8.15 pm to 9.00 pm, fifteen minute interval - prompt - and then starting at 9.15 pm floor singers to 9.45 and then guest to close. We had three guests a month and floor singers night on the other night. We had room for about 120 and we charged membership (legal reasons) and if all of them had come at once we would have been in real trouble!! Having the Watersons as residents helped. And the structure was a benevolent autocracy. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Mr Red Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:08 AM Woody Guthrie went to Scotland while he was in the UK, it says so in his autobiography. Edinburgh if my memory serves. And I believe he made records here. In fact I have seen a disc with shellac on the playing side and an aluminium substrate that dates and looks for all the world to be him singing but the evidence is circumstantial - the date, style and general feel. Was the White Heather Club ever considered to be a Folk Club? Just stirring it......... |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: GUEST,Hootenanny Date: 24 Jan 07 - 06:13 AM Mr Red, the disc to which are referring was probably one of many that were around in the late 50's early sixties. My own first taste of Woody Guthrie was on an aluminuim based acetate disc labelled in handwriting Sonny Terry's Washboard Band. It was of course a bootleg copy of a Folkways recording with Woody, Cisco, Sonny and possibly Brownie McGhee. I still have the disc in question. At the time it was illegal to import and sell recordings from the States and so these copies were made. There was a time when the folk/jazz record shops in the west end of London, Charing Cross Road in particular were raided by customs and excise for stocking some US illegal imports and the material confiscated. I doubt very much if Woody did record on that brief trip between shipping in and out. However I am continually pleasantly surprised to learn of "new" old recording finds that turn up, particularly in the Blues field. |
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Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs? From: Scotus Date: 24 Jan 07 - 09:44 AM I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the Edinburgh University Folk Club which was started sometime in the mid 1950s by a group of EU students and staff including Hamish Henderson - an early attender was Jean Redpath. Jack |
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