Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter

Subject: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 04:34 PM

I just went to the Boston Folk Festival's
web site to see the line up. Not only was there not one traditional act there wasn't one folk act (IMHO). They were all contempory songwriters. So this is a songwriters festival right? They can all go & pat each other on the back & give their self congratulations to one an other & the rest of us can watch as they enjoy each other.
I don't mind them doing what they do but can't these peer-motors
get their musical genres straight. They seems to get it right in the bio discriptions of the performers why can't they get the headlinning of the festival right.
THis is in my back yard & if it was a folk festival I'd be there but I can't even justifiy going to this with a free pass in hand.
The shme of it is that Boston's got a wealth of traditional & contempory singers & musicians & lovers of what's folk. I just don't get it I guess! If they use the word FOLK do they at least have to sign up 1 folk act to give it an air of truth? Am I way off base, do I need a reality check?

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 04:42 PM

" Am I way off base, do I need a reality check?"

The reality is the word "folk" has taken on many different meanings. I agree, it is a shame that the festival does not have any traditional singers, and WUMB finally dropped the F word from their logo.

Still, this looks like a great festival if you embrace the concept that folk can be a living tradition and the word has morphed into something for a new generation. I wish traditional music would draw more people to an event like this, but it does not.

Long live the Boston Folk Festival.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 04:48 PM

They should drop the "F" from their festival headline too.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 05:06 PM

Then how would the contemporary folk fans know where to find it?

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 05:51 PM

"Then how would the contemporary folk fans know where to find it?"

By reading the line up if they can't trust the heading.

Call it a Music festival with a tag line.

"'A Folk Festival" without the any folk acts'"

Present it as a "Singer/Songwrtier Festival", an "Accoustic Music Festival", a "Contemporary Folk Festival", a "Traditional Folk Festival", if it's either of the last 2 or a mix then how bout calling it a "Folk Festival" but call it what it is. DOn't go calling it what it ain't!

Jesus Ron, all I'm asking is if it's gonna be put out to the public as a folk festival why not include at least 1 folk act. Every act they've booked they discribe them as songwriters, there's not one word in any of the bio's that says "folk".

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Francy
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 06:04 PM

I don't usually respond to these conversations, but Ron: you sound like one of Geoge Bush's press agents rationalizing and justifying his misadventures and mistakes.....I think you should work on the reason you're here/......Frank of Toledo

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,Tom Nelligan
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 06:16 PM

For better or worse, the festival programming is in line with WUMB's increasing emphasis over the last couple years on contemporary songwriters and semi-acoustic pop music, which I find extremely unfortunate. As Ron Olesko notes, they recently stopped billing themselves as "Folk Radio", which at least is being honest about it. I know that a lot of longtime listeners like myself don't like the format change at all, but they're trying to find a younger audience by playing pop artists like Feist and apparently assume that they won't drive people away in the process.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Ref
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 06:45 PM

Gosh A'mighty! I bet not a one of them will drone on and on interminably about Barbry Allen. It may not be trad folk, but Gorka has held up the banner of folk for most of his career and McKnight writes songs that fit right into the traditional form of story-telling. No one on this website has been appointed to determine what is or isn't FOLK. Lighten up.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:10 PM

count yourself very lucky. all we have in this country is talented musicians wasting their time on songs and tunes that for the most part would have been better off dying out.

any songwriting is immediately castigated as navel gazing rubbish. usually by people who think they can empathise with the chaps in nelson's navy or mine and factory workers who lived lives of utter degradation. whilst at the same time they can't empathise with anybody whose clothes don't have the same expensive labels as their own.

No one has been appointed, but plenty are doing the determining of what is and isn't folk on a freelance basis.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Jeri
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:11 PM

A 'living tradition' has some tradition to it other than the tradition of the music biz. I don't think the problem is that there are singer/songwriters. I think the problem is that's ALL there are. WUMB probably drives the festival and they've gone to a unpopular pop format for much of their programming. Still have good stuff and plenty of singer songwriters I like, but they also go over the edge far enough to make me turn the radio off sometimes. (And I've just noticed Tom Nelligan's post above and agree 100%.)

It probably would be better if they did re-name the festival. Music festival, singer/songwriter festival, songwriters' showcase or Boston Songsmiths, 2008. Something that wouldn't attract people who mistakenly believed it was a folk festival.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Ref
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:53 PM

So, we're going to require trad festivals to include more new folk artists? I love the Old Songs Festival, but I like new stuff, too. I can choose to go where I want, and refrain from getting my jollies trying to define other people and their music. Gorka says he's folk and proud of it. So do others on that list. Trad is just one more category.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:01 PM

Barry, I completely understand and respect your committment to keeping traditional music alive. I admire you greatly.

Frank, that was a very rude and stupid thing to say and I think you are the one that needs to work on the reason you are here. You may find it easy to compare someone to Bush, but that is uncalled for. It is one thing to disagree with an opinion, but there is no need for such an insults. I am very surprised that you would stoop to that level.

Like it or not, the Boston Folk Festival IS a folk festival.   Please tell me how Henry Butler is not a folk musician? Eliza Gilkyson? John Gorka? Andrew McKight? Kathy Mattea? Pat Wictor?   Have you heard ANY of these artists?   I'm sorry, but each of these artists carries a piece of the tradition with them.

No, you probably won't hear them dusting cobwebs off of old songs or trying to emulate something they aren't. They do not pretend they have spent time aboard whaling ships or worked in cotten fields. They do not represent young urban white kids who felt that all they needed to do was put on a flannel shirt or a paisley dress and strum a banjo to get in touch with our nations traditions and culture.

Yet each of these artists carries on a tradition that some of you wish to ignore. Their living tradition is not honoring a business tradition. They are creating songs in the same fashion and for the same reasons that most of the songs we label as "traditional" were created.

People are too fearful that THEIR tradition is being taken away because others have chosen to honor OTHER traditions.

I know the arguements - by calling these musicians "folk" and not providing opportunity to showcase traditional music the music will never be exposed to new generations. BS.   Music is "discovered" and embraced by generations for different reasons. Most of us are products of the folk revival which grew because it met a need for the time.   What most people fail to see is that the revival never died, but it grew and had a huge impact on the music of the next decades right up to today.

In all my years, I have NEVER heard a singer-songwriter mock the individuals whose respect and dedication to preserving traditions have allowed them the opportunity to wear the mantle of "folk". It is a shame they do not receive the same respect.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:06 PM

"No, you probably won't hear them dusting cobwebs off of old songs "

Let me take that back. You WILL hear them dusting cobwebs off old songs. Songs are not meant to be put on a shelf and looked at from afar. They are not delicate artifacts but robust works of art that were created to be used.   Each of the artists that I mentioned in my previous post has and does play traditional songs, yet do it in their own style - much like the folks you hear on the field recordings were doing.

Anyone who closes their ears to Jud Caswell, Eilen Jewell and Emily Elbert are denying themselves an opportunity to hear some powerful songs that deserve to be in everyones songbag.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:32 PM

... and once again, I do agree that the Boston Folk Festival should offer traditional music as there is certainly a large audience for it in Boston.   However, based on the lineup, I feel they are justified for calling it a folk festival.

Now, if you wish to talk about Newport....

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Ref
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:39 PM

Well written, Ron!

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 02:54 AM

They are all contemporary songwriters. They sing all their own stuff except for the few that swap between themselves.
Yes Ron I've heard them, they are the new up & coming pop/commerical singers that play to the easy listening genre. Listen & look at the bio's. They're writers of commericals, jingles, pop, jazz, honky tonk, country, R&B, they span every genre but folk. If you're gonna do folk you have to at least have some background in it. The backgrounds of this bunch varies from heavy metal, jazz, claassical, opera.
I like Eilen Jewell & Annie Lynch & the Beekeepers but they're not folk. I like Eliza Gilkyson to but she's not folk either. Kathy Mattea's about the closest you'll get with this bunch, she's good but is she really doing folk stuff? Her latest CD is the closest she's come to being in that arena. I'm not gonna discuss Gorka, sorry I don't have much possitive to say so I'll say nothing at all.

It's no different than Newport. The same arguement can be made by others in support of Newport that you're making about this festival.

Folk doesn't mean the songs have to have cobwebs & that they need a dusting but at least give us someone that's has at least walked past a folk song during their upbringing.
There are plenty examples of contemporary songwriters that would fit the bill far better that what they've lined up.
Richard Thomson, Steve Tillson, our own George P., there are plenty, they don't even have to be steeped or write within a tradition like Utah Phillips, just as long as they once smelled a folk song. These writers couldn't write or sing a folk song if you drowned them in an ocean full on them.

"Please tell me how Henry Butler is not a folk musician"

Have you listened to & followed Henry, he comes out of a R&B, Jazz & Pop grounding & he still hasn't convinced himself that he's not a Juke Joint messenger, he's a few different things & maybe he's not excatly sure of what he is but he ain't folk.

"I'm sorry, but each of these artists carries a piece of the tradition with them."

What makes you think that these singers carries any tradition with them. I'm tired of hearing about how the new contemporary singer/songwriters played in garage/grunge/rock bands & had a change of clothes & are now writing folk songs. Just because you slow a song down & don't screem it don't make it folk.

I like Jeri's wording of calling it a "Songsmith's Festival"! That covers alot of ground & it gives the public a better grasp of what's being offered.

Ref says that he likes Old Songs but also likes new stuff & that Trad is only one genre. Well I like new contemporary stuff too but that's only one genre (singer/songwriter) here too & that's all that's being offered. So this is like the far extreme right to a traditional folk festival, a no folking folk.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:08 AM

& yes Tom, I agree with you. WUMB has taken the folk off their radio billing & are now at least being honest about it. They should've done that a long time ago & they should be honest about the festival too. What folk they've offered & you're right about their format in both the station & the festival is no more than a offering of crumbs when it comes to folk. They are targeting a younger pop crowd while hoping not to lose those that they've catered to in the now seemingly distant past.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:14 AM

"In all my years, I have NEVER heard a singer-songwriter mock the individuals whose respect and dedication to preserving traditions have allowed them the opportunity to wear the mantle of "folk"."

That's the biggest load of bollocks I have ever read on here, and boy have I read some.

"Finger-in-the-ear"
"Aran Sweater"
"Folk Police"
"90-verses of nasal drivel"
"irrelevant"
"GEFF"
"Beards and tankards"

These are just SOME of the examples. You've even got the example of WLD - excellent performer though he is - misguidedly rubbishing his own and his country's heritage and roots on this very thread.

There seems to be an endless stream of senseless and ignorant insults poured out about folk music, song, and indeed dance, by those whose appreciation of their own times and circumstances stretches no further back than last Thursday.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 04:00 AM

Richard, there's an endless stream of senseless and ignorant insults poured out by both sides, the traddies and the contemporaries, and it's completely unneccessary IMHO. Both genres can, and in many clubs and festivals do, live side-by-side - all it takes is tolerance and an open mind (which I guess are one and the same?).

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 04:36 AM

Sounds to me like our stateside friends have their own particular sources of grief without us weighing in.

However, please note Richard and John - the number of roots artists over there who are making an unsubsidised living. their roots are nearer the surface - people in America would recognise what they are doing as American music. A more common muse.

All we have is our rarefied airy fairies doing it part time after a hard day as a librarian,etc. Playing music that, for the most they don't give a damn if anyone connects with. And if you told most English people that it was their roots ...they'd laugh at you.

i was at a session last night. the sheer indifference to what the audience was understanding and taking away from the experience had to be seen to be believed. Not a word of explanation, not even telling other musicians what tune it was or what key it was in. It was almost a solitary pusuit in a room full of spectators. if they make love the same way they perform music - there must be some very unsatisfied partners.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 04:50 AM

I was at a session last night . . . sheer indifference to the audience.

A session is not a performance. It does not have an audience. A session is for the enjoyment of the players. If people around are enjoying it, that's good, but by definition a session does not have an audience. And as for 'not even telling other musicians what tune it was or what key it was in' - we do something called listening. Then we recognise the tune and know what key it's in.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 04:53 AM

PS I may be insulting, but I'm not all that ignorant.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 05:46 AM

Well I think that's all a bit hoity toity.

How many of us have got perfect pitch and know what key a piece is in, without being told.........not many.

And why are we playing this particular piece of dull as buggery instrumental music. what is its provenance and significance?

These are questions which perennially cross my mind on these occasions.

Perhaps I would be better off rolling up a trouser leg and joining the freemasons. At least they admit its a secret society.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 05:59 AM

Well, Al, freemasons have the same cavalier attitude to history that you seem to.

My point was that it is simply untrue to say that songwriters and contemporary musicians are not rude about folksong singers - as you bear out.

The point I have made before and will make again (before leaving the particular issue of this thread to those prmiarily affected) is that as the Americans say, you have to know where you are coming from. I will add that one reasonis so that you can know where you are going. If African Americans are enhanced by finding their roots, so are white Englishmen and women. To dwell only in the immediate present has been the source of much wrong since the evil Thatcher asserted that there was no such thing as society. Those who learn not from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 06:04 AM

well as you say, I AM horribly rude to traditional musicians, but only in a loving way.......

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Acorn4
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 06:58 AM

It's taken a while for me to click that this is Boston, Mass, USA not Boston, Lincolnshire, UK.


DURRRGH!

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 07:05 AM

"To dwell only in the immediate present has been the source of much wrong since the evil Thatcher asserted that there was no such thing as society. Those who learn not from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes."

Couldn't agree more, Richard, which is why I maintain that the genres of traditional and 'contemporary-folk' music can, should, and in the tolerant majority of venues do, live side-by-side. As in all things, variety is the spice of life! :-)

But this is really a thread for our US-brothers and sisters. What they regard as 'traditional' and 'folk' is often seemingly quite different to what us UK-dwellers would recognise (for example Ron's assertion that Kathy Mattea, wonderful though she most certainly is, is a folk-artist doesn't ring any bells with me).

And, even as a mostly contemporary performer myself, I'd hate to go to a 'Folk Festival' that had no 'traditional' content - it dahn't make no sense, Gav'nah!

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Input
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 07:22 AM

Ron and Richard, you speak perfect sense. I have had this discussion on other threads. It bores me rigid the way that the traddies bang on and on about 'proper' folk music. Just because it's not 200 years old and 'collected' by some old geezer with the arse hanging out of his trousers that stumbled across some fella singing about the merry month of bleeding May, doesn't mean that it isn't folk music. Now let's have a big hand for the Boston FOLK Festival and it's awesome line-up.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Acorn4
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 08:23 AM

to weelittledrummer:-

yes, taking the p*** is also a time honoured English tradition as well as singing.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: mrmoe
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 08:30 AM

it looks like a great folk line-up to me....I think Barry needs to expand his definition....

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: DebC
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 09:57 AM

As someone who crosses the ocean quite a bit to hang with our folk brethren in the Isles, I see this as a PERFECT opportunity to discuss folk in the US vs folk in Britain and Ireland, especially when talking about singing and the singing tradion.

I apologise for generalising here; I may be wrong (and I hope I am), but in my own experience, I DO see a much bigger nod to the singing tradition in British songwriters than in my US songwriting brothers and sisters. It's the rare Amereican s/s that gives the nod to the tradition or, as my good friend Barry states above that they perform anything other than their own compositions.

The other thing I notice in UK and Irish-based songwriters is that the writing is usually based in the roots of the tradition, be it Scottish, British or Irish and is obvious (especially with the UK based s/s that I am familiar with: George P., Caddick, Tilston, Napper/Bliss, Lister and even some of the floor singers I encounter at the UK folk clubs) that they have listened to the old songs and know them intimately. With a few exceptions, I don't hear that in a lot of American singer/songwriters' performances.

Just speaking from my own experience,
Deb

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:04 AM

I tell you what, if you really don't to admit Henry Butler into the sacred list of 'real' folksingers. He can play for our team - we'll swap a couple of melodeon players and a bodhran player for him.

And you can have a few of those Child ballads back to sweeten the deal.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:05 AM

The American Heritage dictionary lists the following meaning for the words "folk music":

1.Music originating among the common people of a nation or region and spread about or passed down orally, often with considerable variation.
2.Contemporary music in the style of traditional folk music.

Barry - as much as I respect you and admire your committment to traditional music, there needs to be respect given for the second definition as well.   The words have evolved and encompass a lot more than they way you and some others are defining it. You can state your opinion that Gorka, Mattea, and the others are not "folk", but you are in the minority, not that there is anything wrong with that. (Check out Kathy Mattea's latest CD "Coal" and then report back.)

"To dwell only in the immediate present has been the source of much wrong"
Absolutely. And to dwell only in the distant past has also been the source of much wrong. You need to keep perspective on both and learn from each.

I do wish there was more traditional music offerings at all festivals.   I love Old Songs because of their diverse blend of style and their honoring of the tradition. They should be the role model for all festivals as far as I am concerned.   I just would not get my panties in a twist because someone is using "folk" in a way that I may not agree with, when the rest of the world has evolved to realize that folk music is a much wider genre than a handful of people are trying to deny.   The traditions do not and will not die out, they are not endangered, but there is a lot of interest in more than just an old ballad and those needs should be served as well.

Suggestions that it be called a "singer-songwriter" is just as useless. Woody Guthrie, Madonna, Neil Diamond, and even Irving Berlin were and are singer-songwriters.   They are not all "folk".

Sorry Richard, but you can call it "bollocks" if you like, but I remain steadfast when I say that I have never heard a singer-songwriter speak about the traditions with such disrespect. It is one thing to have a pissing match with someone like Al and sling insults back and forth, but all the singer-songwriters in the folk genre that I know understand the tradition and treat it with respect and greatly admire those who have preserved it and opened doors.

We can all cling to one definition and act like an inbred dysfunctional family, or we can celebrate the diversity the encompasses "folk" music.   I'm not trying to change anyones mind - it is pretty obvious to anyone who spends time on Mudcat that the forums are filled individuals who stand on their position at any cost. All I am trying to say is that it might make sense to stand back and look at what is happening in the world, and instead of moaning about how great the old lightbulb was, understand that the light that is currently shining is just as bright - and it can allow many people to share in the glow.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:17 AM

Amen.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:30 AM

Not going there. You know what I am certain that "folk" music means.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:31 AM

Hi Barry its great you care about the music called"Folk"
Why dont you sign up for a set and show them how 'tis done.
Peronaly I like many differing genre of the musical kind and being a pedant myself I would be a little sniffy at the misuse of the descriptive in the advert.
Bloody singer song whingers get everywhere.
Why oh why oh why(etc) do people advertise accoustic music nights when...........

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Maryrrf
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:49 AM

I am in total agreement with Barry here.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Jeri
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:59 AM

Anyone telling another person their likes and dislikes are invalid is a complete idiot, and those who think this is another opportunity to AGAIN post their arguments regarding trad vs. singer songwriter are idiots. I am perhaps also an idiot for believing people are capable of understanding specific issues and posting original and appropriate responses.

This is a festival in Barry's 'backyard' that has shut out all the music he cares about. That's the bottom line. I'd go if there were something for me, and now, there's not. I'd join WUMB if there were something for me, but there's not. It's not that there are singer/songwriters. Hell, Barry writes songs and so do I. The problem is they don't want those who love traditional music at the festival. Not even enough to throw us a bone.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Acorn4
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 11:07 AM

I think the problem with a lot of modern singer/songwriters is that they make Leonard Cohen look positively cheerful!

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Jeri
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 11:09 AM

There's one for the 'stuck in a rut' bunch.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 11:11 AM

Jeri, I am not sure if you were directing your comments at me, and if anyone felt that by comments I was telling a person that their likes or dislikes are invalid, then I apologize for that misunderstanding. That is far from the point I was trying to make. I sincerely respect traditional music and people like Barry who continue to support it and perpetuate interest. Any individuals likes and dislikes in music are valid, and no one can ever say that is wrong.

I am sorry that Barry and others feel they cannot support the Boston Folk Festival, and I do understand why. I may be wrong, but I don't think this years lineup is any different from offerings at previous Boston Folk Festivals.

I strongly feel that there is room for both traditional and singer-songwriters under the "folk" umbrella, and we spend way too much time arguing terms and not enough time celebrating why we love the music in the first place. There should not be a civil war among folkies, as everyone loses. I am sure that anyone not familiar with folk music in any fashion would get turned off by reading this thread.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Jeri
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 11:26 AM

"I strongly feel that there is room for both traditional and singer-songwriters under the "folk" umbrella..."

Then you understand what I'm saying. My comments weren't directed at you unless you're trying to say Barry should enjoy the festival even if it has nothing he wants to hear.

The civil war is based on intolerance of peoples views. Think about whether YOUR opinion, not other people's, and see if maybe Barry has a right to feel the way he does before you take up your flag of choice.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 11:40 AM

I absolutely feel that Barry has a right to feel the way he does, but I do think that Barry and others should also understand that others have a different opinion and we can all co-exist together, and probably learn from each other. While Barry feels that "folk" is a misnomer for the Boston event, there are others(including myself) who think that the description fits. The dictionary has two meanings for a reason.

We can salute each others flag.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Jeri
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 11:42 AM

Acorn4, sorry. That was my last nerve over-reacting. Maybe there should be another thread.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,Richard Bridge on the computer called Rachel
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 12:08 PM

It isn't really about likes and dislikes. It's about the misuse of language. But, hey, to an advertiser a word means whatever will separate the mugs from their money.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 12:27 PM

May I offer a minority viewpoint? I feel as though I might be a minority of one here, but here goes anyway:

I find the viewpoint that the adjective "traditional" can only describe a particular historical (if not literally "dead") tradition to be extremely shortsighted. Believe it or not, actual living traditions exist in some parts of the world, if not in yours, and the musicians who keep them alive wouldn't pay the slightest bit of attention to the arguments being debated here.

I know very little about the current acoustic-songwriter scene popular in the northeastern US, which may or may not be "folk," and which seems to be the focus of the event in Boston that is under discussion here. (I probably know even less about the UK folk subculture, although reading Mudcat has given me some idea of the personalities and issues if not the actual music.) Among all the names of the BFF's featured artists, I recognize none except for two: Kathy Mattea (with whom I am only vaguely familiar, but whose singing I've thoroughly enjoyed on a very few occasions) and Henry Butler (whom I know pretty well, and whose work I greatly enjoy and admire).

Sure, Henry has roots in jazz and R&B ~ and that very precisely defines the tradition of which he's a part! Here in South Louisiana, if not elsewhere, we enjoy a vibrant living musical tradition actively played by multiple generations (in many cases, generations of the same families) which reflects the indigenous and very personal musical expression of people who have lived here for hundreds of years. There's a virtually seamless connection of work song to spirituals to blues to "trad" jazz to R&B to modern jazz to today's street-parade/funeral/social-and-pleasure-club brass band music.

Look, I don't begrudge anyone their individual taste, and I have to recognize that any sniping and name-calling from any quarter is nasty, short-sighted, and ultimately unmusical, to say the least. But I do feel more sympathy and commonality with those who are open to contemporary musical creation (even in contemporary genres that might not be to my taste) than to those whose only interest is in trying to "preserve" their own conception of what they'd like to believe occurred in the distant past.

I mean, really: there's no way we can know what any music sounded like before the advent of recording, as much as some of us would like to revert to some romanticized vision of a simpler time. And think about it: if you were living back in one of those seemingly "simpler" eras, what are the odds that you'd be among the privileged few able to enjoy and exercise your educated taste? For that matter, do you really think you'd still be alive at your current age?

My idea of music that is "of the folk," or valuable insofar as it represents a "tradition," has nothing to do with whether a song is ancient or brand new, nor with the intrument(s) used in its performance:

~ The music has to sound to me as though it has something to do with a tradition with which I'm already familiar. (Sorry: I realize this is vague, but it's the best I can do to describe an admittedly very subjective criterion.)

~ The music has to be performed "live," or at least be capable be being performed in person. In other words, I have no problem with "electrified" (amplified) instruments, but I draw the line at music that relies on studio effects. This is not to say that I don't enjoy "I Am the Walrus" or "Pet Sounds," etc. ~ just that I wouldn't include such music within my already-quite-broad definition of "folk" or "traditional."

Just one example of what I'm trying to say: Muddy Waters did not suddenly become less than a traditional blues artists when he moved from Mississippi to Chicago and plugged in his guitar. At least, not so far as I'm concerned.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 02:09 PM

What I don't get about the singer-songwriter types working in the standard "Dylan meets Broadway meets Nashville" idiom is how labelling themslves as "folk" makes any commercial sense. The folk music market is relatively small and somebody like Kathy Mattea has so little chance of getting a sale from somebody whose favourite idiom is that of Belle Stewart or Ole Bull that there just doesn't seem to be any point. Why do they do it?

I can kinda see the point of weelittledrummer's approach - just try to insult any potential competition into oblivion since you can't attract an audience for your work on your own merits (he probably slags off opera and hip-hop under other pseudonyms). But most singer-songwriters don't go all-out to be offensive. They just earnestly think we ought to be interested in them, for no imaginable reason. It's like a manufacturer of meat cleavers advertising in a vegan magazine.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 02:28 PM

Hey! I may disagree with WLD, but he's rather good at what he does. It may not be folk (which it isn't) but it ain't bad at all.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 02:35 PM

"I am sorry that Barry and others feel they cannot support the Boston Folk Festival, and I do understand why. I may be wrong, but I don't think this years lineup is any different from offerings at previous Boston Folk Festivals"

Hi Ron,
below I've posted the past partical line ups since the festival started, do note that I left off many whom I consider singer/songwriters & not folk but there was plenty of room for all, including contemporary & trad artists. Please note the difference also that there are no representives of foriegn cultures anymore.
Also note as the yrs move ahead the decline in what's folk lessens.

2006: Richie Havens, Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul, Kim & Reggie Harris,Jesse Winchester,Jennifer Kimball

2005: Matapat, Guy Davis, Ruthie Foster, Chris Smither,Lori McKenna and Janis Ian.

2004: David Bromberg, Natalie MacMaster, Sam Bush, Geoff Muldaur, Ollabelle, Tom Paxton, Chanty Boat Singers

2003: Joel Mabus, Tarbox Ramblers, Carol Noonan, Luther "Guitar Jr" Johnson, Tom Rush, Koko Taylor, Tony Trischka, Danú, Paul Brady,   Emmylou Harris, Capt. Stan and Daisy Nell, Koko Taylor, Scott Alarik

2002: Waifs, C.J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band, Guy Clark Richard Thompson, Nanci Griffith, Iris Dement, Southern Rail, Barachois, Bill Staines, Janice Allen, Barry Finn, Ken Schatz, Ken Sweeney, Patty Larkin, Utah Phillips,

2001: Rosie Flores, Chris Smither, Jimmie LaFave, Aoife Clancy, Altan, Eddie From Ohio, The Kennedys, Shirley Lewis, The Sevens, Chris & Meredith Thompson, Freddie White, Chris Smither, The Spirit of Africa with Mohamed Kafifa Kamara, Bill Morrissey, Mustard's Retreat, Laura Love Duo

2000: Garnet Rogers, Paperboys, Seamus Connolly, Robbie O'Connell, The Bagboys, Geoff Bartley, Ibrahima Camara & Safal Band, Magnolia, Djembe Safara, Lynn Noel, Barry Finn, Cuchullan, Kim & Reggie Harris,
Richie Havens, Tish Hinojosa, Jim Kweskin with Samoa and the Swinging Tenants, Jimmy LaFave, Late Bloomers, Christine Lavin,
Magnolia, Magpie, Roger McGuinn, Peter Rowan's Texas Trio with Tony Rice, Steeleye Span, Josh White, Jr.

1999 An Cre, The Barra MacNeils, Ibrahima Camara, Capoeira Camara,
Michael Cooney, Daragee Drum Ensemble, Jeff Davis, Stacey Earle,   
Eddie From Ohio, Kat Eggleston, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, The Eileen Ivers Band, The Kennedys, Louis Killen, Kate MacLeod, Murray MacLeod, Mustard's Retreat, Kelly Joe Phelps, Silver Leaf Gospel Singers

1998 Odetta, J.D.Crowe, Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson, the Tannahill Weavers, Tom Paxton, Lui Collins & Dana Robinson, Susan Werner, The Swinging Steaks, Devonsquare, Turgay Erturk, Tolino, The Tarbox Ramblers, The Freighthoppers with Sara Smith, Eddie From Ohio, The Silver Leaf Gospel Singers, Brooks Williams, Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong, Guy Davis, Paul Rishell & Annie Raines, Happy Traum, Josh White Junior, Skip Gorman, Tony Cuffe, Taproot, Murray MacLeod

Thanks to all (so far anyway) that's posted their thoughts.
My gripe is that this festival has EXCLUDED not only trad but by the looks of the line up all BUT singersongwriters. Also, WUMB, the festival sponser has done the same with their station programing with a few exceptions (like Sandy's Saturday night Traditions show & a Celtic program). WUMB was a driving force in Boston's folk community along with Passim's Coffeehouse. Passim's has follow suit & many of the other venues are doing the same. Boston has become THE singer songwriter captail of the country & it's to the exclusion to all other geners of folk.

I don't want to force Trad or even contemporary folk on any festival, venue or person BUT I don't want the SS to force the others into hiding so that they can premote themselves at the cost to those that allowed them the breathing room in the 1st place to grow & prosper. UNGREATFUL kids!

Lastly, these SS cover almost exclusivly themselves or one another. Is that the new folk mantra? That's gaul.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 02:50 PM

I am not a folksinger out of commercial sense.

I am a folksinger and have been one for nearly fifty years, because I identify with a great artistic and humanitarian movement.

I seem to remember there was a rendering of the gospels by a bishop entitled - Your God is Too Small.

Your folkmusic is too small.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:00 PM

Ya, it may be small but after nearly 40 yrs of it it hasn't ever been boring, I still can't see the bottom of the well, I can't help but be refreshed by it & I'm still knocked out by what I hear.

WLD, whose folksongs do you sing or do you write all your own?

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:08 PM

Barry, thank you for posting that note. Your points really become clear now.

While I still do not object to the use of the word "folk" for such a festival, I agree that the lack of traditional after what you have shown us was offered in previous years is a bad sign. When WUMB dropped the word "folk" from their logo and altered their format, we had a vigorous discussion on the Folk-DJ list. I sided with those who were appalled by WUMB's action.

To me, it seems that WUMB and their festival is now being driven by business interests instead of meeting the cultural needs of the community that it was trying to serve.   It could be a sign of an aging audience that no longer supports or needs WUMB, or it could be a sign that WUMB was missing their audience.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:10 PM

Hi again Ron
By the line up & schedule tell me if you think there'll be any sessions or informal jamming or song swaps this yr, aside between the performers. Do these performers even do sessions & swaps with the festival patrons?

They advertise nearly 2 dozen artists this yr, actually there are only 16, a far cry for the rosters of the past, what's up here?

At least they've dropped the ticket prices from the early yrs. Again, what's up here?

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:19 PM

Jack Campin makes a good point. Why would anyone interested in selling records and concert tickets bill themselves as "folk"?

As I noted above, Kathy Mattea is the only name on the BFF bill that I recognized, with the exception of my homeboy Henry Butler. What little I know about her makes me think of her as a "country" artist, or maybe "alt.country" (to distinguish her from the worst of Nash-vegas). I would think that either of those labels would serve her career much better than "folk," at least in a nationwide context

Of course, Boston ~ with its ever-changing college-age demographic ~ is probably a large enough scene to have its own definition of "folk" stand up as a desirable label for youth-oriented singer-songwriter types.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:21 PM

Barry, I really don't know the Boston Folk Festival that well. For me, here in NJ, it has never been worth the expense of traveling up for - I see most of those artists at Old Songs, Clearwater or Philadelphia Folk Fests.   I have seen swaps and sessions with performers and patrons at other fests - the campfire scenes at Kerrville and Philly spring to mind - but I really do not know what they are doing.

My guess is that the Boston Folk Festival is still being planned. Let's discuss again in the fall!

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:22 PM

I dunno I have been s despairing of the current developments for a while.

It always seemed to me that folksingers brought us together. Not in a Kumbaya sense. But when I was a kid I'd see Johnny handle at the Exmouth folk club, and he's talk about mines and the North east. Jacquie and Bridie would talk about their community in Liverpool. The Journeymen down at The Jolly Porter in Exeter would have Devon folksongs. The Yetties would have their Dorset stuff. Dere Brimstone would pop in and tell us what was going down at Les cousins in Greek Street. It was inclusive and it spoke of worlds unknown.

Now its all bloody authoritarian. people telling you what is and what isn't folkmusic. Its all a load of cock if you ask me.

A mate of mine said to a man I know Richard holds in high esteem ( no name no packdrill - Richard knows who I mean) In your opinion is Tom Paxton a folksinger?

his answer was - no way! not at all!

Theres lots of great traditional songs and I sing many of them, and when I was gigging the Irish bars I sang even more. But its not what I do and its not what I have to say as an artist. And in a few years I'll be dead and at this point in time, I am announcing my right to say it. And my annoyance at the people who suppress it - along with many other artists who they say aren't 'real' folk music.

And really what the hell do they know/ And what makes their point of view any more valid than mine - other than the barefaced power that they wield over English folk press and radio.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 03:23 PM

Would it be fair to say that WUMB is DUMB?

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 05:02 PM

But that's it dammit. Tom Paxton is an excellent singer songwriter (even I like some of his songs). But it's not folk. I don't want to stop Al singing what he sings. It's good. It isn't folk, but it's good. No-one suppresses contemporary acoustic music. There are many more consumers consuming it that there are those consuming folk. But it isn't folk.

Almost all the acclaimed artists in "folk and acoustic" right now are singing songs they write, and/or putting tunes and words they write into folk songs. No barefaced or even whiskery-faced power is wielded over over English (or other British) music press, radio, or TV. Hardly any folk music is there, and hardly any gets a fraction of the promotion that music that may owe something to the tradition but is not folk gets.

Al's type of music gets it all. It gets the exposure. It gets the promotion. It gets the consumers. Even Eliza Carthy is writing her own material. Even Lal Waterson wrote her own songs.

Why the hell do you want to call it "folk" when it isn't (and as SWMBO will tell you, falling it "folk" is the kiss of death anyway)?

Nothing stops or restricts you, Al, from doing exactly what you want. You'll not be as financially disadvantaged (99% of full time musicians are very poor) as you would be if you were doing folk music. What's your problem?

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 05:11 PM

Richard, it is folk. It is not traditional and it does not meet your definition, but to the majority of people who know him, Tom Paxton will be recognized as a folk musician.

The train has left the station, to the public it will be folk music.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 06:46 PM

Oh yeh Lal and Eliza - and they sing in that woebegone traddy voice - so they sneak in under the wire.   

To conform in such a manner insults my intelligence and sensibility.

And Ron, why is the public sensibility so erroneous. For my money - they've got it right. The point about folksong is that addresses folk. Not from a doctrinaire standpoint, but from within the community.


I can see no difference between Tom Paxton's song about the firemen at 9/11 than Tommy Armstrongs stuff about geordie miners. Qualitatively - its very similar.

The trouble is that we're dealing with critics who are bought and sold and legions of Salieris who frustrate God's creation in the form of Jack Hudson.

Jealous and not very bright.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 01 May 08 - 09:35 AM

Wee - I never said the public was wrong! I can accept that "folk" has different meanings. There is a huge difference between a traditional song passed in the oral tradition and a composed song written yesterday, but they can both be considered "folk" to the ears of the listener.

I wear my Mets cap often. A baseball cap was designed to have the visor in front with the logo proudly displayed above. The visor is in front so when you are in the outfield shagging fly balls (I know that probably means something different to the Brits), your eyes receive protection from the sun. As a fan of the game, I think that is the only way to wear a hat. However, just take a walk down the street and you will see hats worn tilted to one side, around the back, etc.   That is not the way a hat is supposed to be worn! The same thing with those twits who insist on wrapping a sweater around their neck because they are too damn lazy to carry it or feel that it looks cool that way. They are not wearing the items they way they are supposed to?   Should I go up to each of them and complain? No, I will continue to wear my hat and sweater the proper way and realize that public fashion has dictated changes. I do not have to like it, I do not have to follow suit, but it is what it is.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bill D
Date: 01 May 08 - 10:37 AM

As many of you are aware, I agree totally with what Barry Finn is trying to say.

Anyone remember the joke about the guy who claimed he owned George Washington's axe? "Yep", he said, "this is it. Of course, it's had 5 new handles and 3 new heads." Just how much change and 'evolution' is allowed before the name is no longer relevant?



Over and over and over...again, and again and again....those who want to include almost ANYTHING that isn't hard Rock & Roll under "folk" miss the point! (and I have heard THAT included!)

Ron's line about "...each of these artists carries a piece of the tradition with them." also misses the point. They have that 'piece of the tradition' pretty well disguised, or hidden in their pockets.

"So, Bill...you Purist Snob, you...what IS the damned point?"

The point is: This is not about what is 'good' or 'popular'. It is about keeping some semblance of context alive in your NOMENCLATURE!
I have written about this for years, and have tried in tedious detail to show that when the 'feel' of the music changes, the DESCRIPTION should also change! What are those of us who want to hear mostly the original & older sorts of 'folk' to call it?
If Barry & I did put on a festival, and called it FOLK, and a bunch of people showed up expecting to hear singer-songwriters, they would probably be bored! Suggestions...and some good ones, have been made above about how to promote a festival with the more ...ummmm... 'modern' touch. But 'folk' take up such a smaller space on the posters!

It is one thing to decide that YOU like definition with a wider, more eclectic set of musical genres, but I do get tired of things like " if it's not 200 years old and 'collected' by some old geezer with the arse hanging out of his trousers that stumbled across some fella singing about the merry month of bleeding May... being put forth as OUR definition.

The big problem is that IF 'folk' is going to mean mostly singer-songwriter stuff, and that's what gets looked for when staging a festival, then the older stuff (the base on which is is all built) will gradually get lost. All that Barry & I want is a way to KNOW what we are getting into when we buy a ticket! (And those who DON'T care for the older stuff should also want to know, so they don't waste THEIR money if Barry & I start a festival!)

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 01 May 08 - 01:21 PM

So, Tom Paxton is not a folk artist. Makes perfect sense, given a particular definition of folk art.

By the same token, Woody Guthrie doesn't qualify, either.

That may make sense to Morris dancers and other British traditionalists, but I can't see it making any sense at all in the US.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 May 08 - 03:00 PM

There are many (I suspect) American folk songs in a range of traditions - and indeed many of the known English/other British folk songs were preserved in America. There have been many eminent American folklorists. There are none so blind...

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 01 May 08 - 03:29 PM

There are none so blind...

as those who cannot see.   

I believe that is the rest of the quote, and I agree with you!

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bill D
Date: 01 May 08 - 04:35 PM

PoppaGator.. Tom Paxton is, in my opinion NOT mainstream 'folk'...but he IS obviously in the 'folk tradition' of singing and writing topical songs about 'life'. Even more so was Woody. They write lyrics about what is 'out there', rather than what is just 'inside', and they do it with largely singable melodies. All songs were, presumably, written by 'someone', but in time many of them become trad/folk by being known and sung BY 'folks' who have little idea who guys like Paxton and Guthrie were.
Other areas...like autos or furniture... have their standards about what is a classic, or an 'antique'. It doesn't need to be strict & formal, but there IS a difference between the status & feel of "Barbry Allen" and "The Twa Corbies" as compared to the latest hit by some new, hot group.

There is a famous line..."They don't write 'em like THAT anymore!"...perhaps you have used it - and it is true for some of the older songs....because society has changed, few CAN "write 'em like that". Even if some of modern S/S music has certain debts and similarities to the OLD 'folk', we all know the differences, even when it is not easy to define precisely. I even listen to and LIKE some of it, and some stuff, as I note above, is borderline....but WHEN I am in the mood for really 'trad' stuff, I want to know what I am spending my dime for!

All I am asking for festival & concert venues to do is clarify what they are offering. (I do 'wish' they'd offer more of what I want, but I can cope with my CDs and old LPs and the occasional Getaway or private party where I can count on the content.)

So....about once a year, I get out the soapbox and preach...(rather than weekly, as I used to do).... you can all relax for awhile now.....unless...

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 May 08 - 05:30 PM

In 1966, the Seattle Folklore Society was formed. They let it be known right off that they would be sponsoring performances only by traditional singers and musicians—people who had grown up in rural America and had learned the songs they sing from their toothless grandmothers. They also let it be known that they were not interested in urban-born singers such as myself or Bob Nelson or Walt Robertson or anyone else who had learned the songs they sang mostly from songbooks, records, or each other.

My, how times have changed.

In 2006, the son of two well-known and highly respected folklorists and song collectors was doing a West Coast tour and contacted the Seattle Folklore Society to see if he could do a concert under their aegis. They asked him about what songs he had written. He responded that he did not write songs, he sang traditional folk songs that his parents had collected. The SFS answered him, saying, sorry, but if he didn't write his own songs, they would not be interested.

This was when Stewart Hendrickson, Bob Nelson, and I decided to resurrect the long-defunct Pacific Northwest Folklore Society (the reason the PNWFS was defunct after a most auspicious beginning is a story much too long to go into here). The first event of the newly reformed PNWFS was to sponsor this person's concert.

The sudden appearance—or reappearance—of another folklore society in the area got the attention of the Powers That Be at the SFS. In a friendly conversation, it was made plain that we have no intention of being confrontational or competitive with the SFS. But if the SFS does not want to sponsor singers of traditional songs (traditional in the historical sense), then we will. On that basis, it isn't a matter of competing organizations, it's "division of labor."

In fact, as a result, I understand that there is a re-evaluation of policies, and there has been quite an interesting flurry of activity within recent months. A local coffee emporium is in the process of converting itself to a 1950s-60s style "coffeehouse" with folk (traditional) music as regular entertainment, and the Everett (city forty-five minutes' drive north of Seattle) Public Library is sponsoring a series of folk concerts. More to come.

I have nothing at all against singer-songwriters, and am fully aware that some (not all, but some) are very much in the tradition of the troubadours, bards, and minstrels of previous times, from whom many of the traditional songs we sing today came. One of my favorite singer-songwriters is Gordon Bok, who is so steeped in traditional material that the songs he writes are almost indistinguishable from traditional songs. Tom Paxton, Townes Van Zandt, several others, yes.

Indeed, I just discovered that there is a young woman living in the same apartment building where I live who is a singer-songwriter. We just became acquainted within the past couple of weeks (her first CD has just been released) and she writes some very interesting songs. She tells me that she is pretty well acquainted with folk music—but the question that lingers in my mind is that I'm not totally sure what she thinks of as "folk music."

The word "folk" has become so diluted within recent years that it seems to have lost its original meaning, hence, when the term is used, it all too often requires that the user clarify what he or she is talking about.

But I do not buy the idea that anyone who writes songs and then sings them is, ipso facto, a "folk singer" and that the songs they write are automatically "folk songs." Perhaps they will be. But to say that "I just wrote this folk song last week" is like saying "I just wrote this classic last week." It may be in the "style," but whether it is ever a folk song or a classic, only time will tell. If the composer is the only person who ever sings the "folk song" or plays the "classic," then, no. Sorry, no cigar.

To call something a "folklore society" if it is not interested in traditional material, or a "folk festival" when only contemporary music is perform, displays that one does not have a very good command of the English language,

Don Firth

P. S. Style should not be confused with substance, and I think that may be one of the problems here.

If someone sings to the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar, the assumption is often made that they are a "folk singer," oftentimes regardless of the nature of the songs they sing. Unless, of course, the songs can be quickly identified as belonging to a specific genre. Suppose they are singing songs by Cole Porter? Or Neapolitan love songs? Or songs by Jacque Brel? Or songs from Broadway shows? I'm sure no one would then think of them as "folk singers." Why, then, if they are singing songs that they have written themselves, suddenly "folk singers?"

Now, if they write songs in a "folk style," one might tend to lean in the direction of calling them "folk singers." But that's still not accurate.

If one absolutely insists on calling someone who sings songs they have composed themselves, in a style usually associated with traditional (historical) folk songs, to the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar a "folk singer," I would suggest that confusion—and a great number of arguments—could be avoided by qualifying it a bit and referring to what they sing as "contemporary folk."

Anybody have any problems with that?

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 01 May 08 - 06:15 PM

I note on the festival website that Kathy Mattea is playing, now while most people associate her with country music (18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses), her roots, as it were, lie in folk. As is stated in her mini-bio Mattea has recorded a collection of traditional coal mining songs from West Virginia (Coal)

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bill D
Date: 01 May 08 - 06:38 PM

Thank you, Don, for saying what I wanted to say even better than I said it....well, different, anyway.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 01 May 08 - 08:14 PM

HI Charlotte R
In my original post I mentioned that Kathy was probably as close as they were gonna get.

There's much to your analogy with the "Classics" Don. If in fact you were an English Lit professor & your specialty was the classic's & you just read a newly published read, I would say that you might at the end say "this is gonna be a classic" or not. You've been studing them for you whole life, pouring through those that claimed to be but were't & steeped in those that were. You've developed what might be called "a feel" for what is & what isn't. Well, I'd say that some of this feel can be used used along with what would also be a more rational reasoning & explanation. Like what you were saying above.
So many times I've gone to a venue where I didn't know about the said "folksinger" but took a chance because of what the billing discribed or the person at he other end of the phone said only to get there & after 3 or 4 songs want to vomit. My stomack knows the difference.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bill D
Date: 01 May 08 - 09:48 PM

And, like Barry, I have been unpleasantly surprised a few times....twice when I was sure it WOULD be 'right'.

I attended a Malcolm Dalglish & Grey Larsen concert many years ago, and was pleased...so when they returned, I went again, only to find they had gone astray. Best example was the canal boat song "Shawnee Town". They speeded it up and made it ummm...bouncy! When I asked, they replied that 'they were doing lots of college gigs, and that's what the kids expected!', so they changed the style. They DID have a sort of excuse...like, they wanted to keep making a living doing music....but they KNEW they had altered the feel of the music for a buck.

Then, there was Battlefield Band. The first couple times I saw them, WOW! Then there was a 2-3 year lapse, and when they returned with a bit different composition, it was ¾ loud, driving stuff with electronic tricks by THEIR sound man, and only a little of the trad stuff I remembered. At least I bought the early LPs while I could.
...As Barry says, my stomach knows the difference...and my ears do too! The later stuff HURTS!

   They have the right to play what they wish, to anyone who will pay for it. I just want some help before I spend my limited money foolishly.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Ref
Date: 01 May 08 - 09:54 PM

Maybe we should just change the name of this site to "Arrant Pedantry." All this fuss over how to delineate FOLK music is a waste. There ain't no hard lines and there should be no hard lines between musical genres. Again, and I shall bother no more, lighten up!

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 01 May 08 - 10:06 PM

Never purchase Grape Nuts. No grapes, no nuts.

You might be disappointed about Girl Scout Cookies too.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: stallion
Date: 02 May 08 - 01:13 PM

Bill D
The Battlefield Bands sound man is our sound engineer and very good friend, Rob Van Sante, he has served his time on the folk circuit for the past thirty years I have known him. Haven't heard the BB lately but I think the sound is a consensus and not solely down to him. Admittedly he has a large input to the final sound quality can't say about the arrangement, he is a very good sound engineer.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 May 08 - 01:23 PM

Do you know why there are such things as dictionaries? They're so people can look up worda snd find out what they mean.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 May 08 - 01:45 PM

Sure Don. If you read the above you would see what it means.

To save you the time of having to find it again, The American Heritage dictionary lists the following meaning for the words "folk music":

1.Music originating among the common people of a nation or region and spread about or passed down orally, often with considerable variation.
2.Contemporary music in the style of traditional folk music.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 02 May 08 - 01:48 PM

I love the thin mints Ron, I just hope they don't change the recipe & add carmel & keep calling it the same thing. (hee,Hee)

The SS & who ever else want to make a living at what they do, I have no gripe about that. I'm not even as much a stickler as Bill (pretty close though). If a preformer changes their game plan & who'll they'll target so be it. But when a radio station and festival that holds as much sway in the folk world of a city like Boston try to premote a genre of music & try to pass it off for what it ain't & try to relable it's product & redefine a genre in a city that's a hub for that genre, that's not sitting well in my gut. WUMB has been a 24/7 hr folk station for 25 yrs up untill lately & this most recent direction has moved them almost off the folk map completly. They've done the same with their festival. Are they trying to convince their followers & the city & it's enviorns of what the "NEW FOLK MUSIC" is? New & folk can live together but there's also a line somewhere as Ref says, that's maybe not a hard line but it's there somewhere & I'm not gonna have it from a festival or station that's got an a stake in the matter tell me where they think that line is. They crossed the line & they should copt to it. The past few yrs they've "BLURED" the line which could be tolerated up to a point but they're beyond that point now & they need to to called on it.
And I'm calling it,,,,,as I hear it.

This is not a folk festival, again look at where they've come from & where they are now.

It's not a matter of "is Kathy Mattea a folk singer" or "does she sing folk songs". Her new CD "Coal" is a departure from what she does & what she does is good & her "Coal" is black & hot but do you think she's gonna be doing something from a different corner of folkdom when she's in a crowd of SS like the list that's playing? It's a songwriters festival. Where are the other geners, where's the Blues, the Bluegrass, the Cajin or Zydeo, where's the Cowboy, the Western, the Mountain? They still work & sing & write about the mines, they still sail & write songs about that. Do we need to hear only from the songwriters that WON'T WRITE from, within or even near the box. If they're only singers that are writing from far outside the box, well, let them call their box something else & don't go trying to convice a city that's there's a "new kid on the block" & that we need to buy into that new kid & for go the rest at the rest's expense.

They (the premoters) are trying to sell us who love folk music a new set of goods which isn't what it appears to be.
Look I go into a store & they have been selling me beef for yrs, now they've come up with a new canned product, no more raw beef that I have to cook myself. It has the taste & flavor of beef, smells of beef, even has some of the helper stuff to make it look like beef but when I read the ingredients I find there's no beef. I go to the manager & ask why they're selling me this & calling it beef & why they're not selling any of the beef I used to buy? They say cause "it is beef", this is the "NEW BEEF".
I ask you when you look at this line up of singer songwriters "WHERE'S THE BEEF"?

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 02 May 08 - 01:51 PM

Barry, re your remark about dropping the "folk" out of the name...The Vancouver Island Folk Festival (west coast of Canada) did just that, it's now known as The Vancouver Island Musicfest, the name change certainly hasn't done any damage to attendance figures.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 02 May 08 - 01:58 PM

The problem is that so many singer-songwriters who are primarily acoustic do NOT write songs in the style of traditional folk. They're interesting acoustic POP (short for "popular" BTW) songs, but that doesn't make it FOLK music because the only thing it has in common with folk music is that it is acoustic.

Linn

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 02 May 08 - 02:00 PM

Oops, left out a word -- let that read:

The problem is that so many singer-songwriters who are primarily acoustic do NOT write songs in the style of traditional folk. They're interesting acoustic POP (short for "popular" BTW) songs, but that doesn't make it FOLK music because the only thing it has in common with TRADITIONAL folk music is that it is acoustic.

Linn

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 02 May 08 - 02:40 PM

Bill D, thanks to the quick answer, and same to Don Firth. What the two of you had to say was quite pertinent and eminently understandable.

I was only being partly facetious in asking whether Woody Guthrie passed the test(s) to qualify as a "folksinger." He was, after all, nothing more or less than a "singer/songwriter," someone who wrote so much original material that eventually, by the time he came to wide public notice, he performed his own compositions almost exclusively.

Do most (maybe even all) of us accept him as "folk" only because he's dead and gone, and therefore his style is necessarily free of any trace of contemporary influence?

I'm not arguing for the sake of argument, nor am I acting only as a "devil's advocate." I'm wondering out loud because I truly don't know what to think, myself.

"Acousticness" does not, or at least should not, be sufficient cause for classifying a performer as "folk." I definitely believe that some amplified music ~ e.g., Chicago style blues ~ is as authentically folk as just about anything, and much more authentic than most run-of-the-mill attempted re-creation of age-old music as practiced by current-day enthusiasts.

Also, I agree with the most hidebound traditionalists among us that some, if not all, of the quasi-"folk" s/s stuff that prompted this thread is not folk at all, and certainly that it's entirely wrong to label a festival as "folk" when no traditional music is included, and to call one's organization a "folklore society" when denying sponsorship to performers of folkloric material who do not write new songs!

I find it difficult, however, to give credence to any objective criteria in the neverending "what is folk" debate. It really all seems to be about subjectivity, personal taste ~ certainly when it comes to judging performers who do, indeed, write their own songs. Some of them are genrally regarded as being "in the tradition" while others are not, and I can't really see any clear distinction.

Well, there's one reasonable criterion mentioned somewhere above: if all of a singer's concerns seem to be emotionally and psychologically self-centered, we can all probably agree to rule them out. Since so much traditional balladry tells stories from a basically objective viewpoint, and also since so much twentieth-century folksong addresses social justice, I would think that a singer must express some degree of concern for, and interest in, other folks, not just his/her own self, to be a folk artist.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 02 May 08 - 02:49 PM

"They're interesting acoustic POP (short for "popular" BTW)"

John Tams, the English FOLK musician prefers the term popular music to folk music, because, after all, that's what "folk" music was..the pop (short for "popular" BTW *LOL*) music of it's time.

'The problem is that so many singer-songwriters who are primarily acoustic do NOT write songs in the style of traditional folk.'

Sorry I fail to grasp why this is a problem. Are we to expect that all singer/songwriters should "write in the traditional style" (whatever that means)in order to be considered "folk" musicians?

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 May 08 - 02:56 PM

Did I ever get a surprise when I tried sweetbreads! I also sent back the chicken fried steak thinking they left out the chicken!   Of course, I did breathe a sigh of relief when the waiter explained what spotted dick actually was made of.

Look, I do understand the concerns and it pisses me off that traditional music does not get more exposure at these events. As a radio host, I find it nearly impossible to please an audience these days - if I focused soley on the music that all of us (including myself) grew up with as true "folk" music, I could probably fit the entire audience into a studio. Not that I pander to prevailing tastes - I happen to see a connection and I happen to feel that there are important songs that should be heard. I am finding it easier to blend both. Deb made a good point, there does seem to be a reluctance from artists to dip into the traditional songbook of our country, but I do see signs that is changing. Groups like Crooked Still might not be to your liking, but they keep it alive.

While someone in this discussion accused me of being an apologist, I do see the "fit" that contemporary songwriters have in the tradition.   The American Heritage definition, #1, describes music made by a common people of a region or country, passed down through an oral tradition.   Well, the audiences AND the musicians that support contemporary singer-songwriters are part of that "common people" of a very distinct region - it is just that the region is no longer defined by geography and it utilizes tools that were not available years ago.   There is a distinction between this and "popular" music.   When Bat Goddess said that much of what is being written "in the style of traditional folk" - I have to ask, what tradition? There are many, and new traditions evolve.

I realize that this discussion was not meant to define folk, and I do understand Barry's point of view much more clearly than when we first began this discussion.   I am just of an opinion that this is not an issue that will bring doom and gloom the the "traditions" and that traditional folk music styles will remain active and preserved for future generations.    Traditional folk music was not meant to be an exhibition sport anyway, and if people like Barry and others can keep it alive through weekly sessions and sings, then we are indeed lucky.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 May 08 - 02:58 PM

"that's what "folk" music was..the pop (short for "popular" BTW *LOL*) music of it's time. "

Actually, that is not exactly true. A song like Barbara Allen probably was unknown beyond the regions where it was collected. Certainly Tom Dooley was a local song before recordings came about. Often the songs we hear and call "folk song" are the ones that were lucky enough to be collected and then RESURRECTED by musicians and fans since the folk revival.   I wonder if we would still be singing Sloop John B if Carl Sandburg did not sing it as part of his readings.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 02 May 08 - 03:16 PM

Aye but even if a song was not known beyond the regions from which it came, it may well have still been "popular" within those regions, but that's something we'll never know (Barbara Allen is not a song I have ever liked). As far as the U.S.A is concerned which ia not an area of expertise for me, so things maybe different, I have no idea. Sloop John B. I'm not familiar with, other than The Beach Boys reading of the song.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 May 08 - 03:24 PM

Charlotte, you are correct. As I mentioned in the previous post, the songs were probably not know beyond the region. There are songs that are popular to me as an individual, but probably not to many others.

Today when we refer to "pop" songs - the range is much further. Sounds like another discusion!! :)

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 02 May 08 - 03:31 PM

Ron. don't get me started on the popular music of today *LOL*

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 May 08 - 03:32 PM

I agree - it is not very popular in my house either!! :)

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 02 May 08 - 03:38 PM

"Sloop John B" was recorded and made quite famous by the Kingston Trio long before the Beach Boys covered it. I realize that not all of us are old enough to remember that, of course.

If you're too young to know about the Kingston Trio, they were one of the first 1960s folk groups to achieve wide popular exposure and acclaim, and their emergence was a major feature of the early "folk revival." Soon enough, as more and more people became aware of more traditional and "authentic" folk music, the Kingstons were scorned by many as being too "pop," but when they released "Sloop John B," their involvement pretty much defined the song as a "folksong" ~ certainly to those many of us who were not aware of Carl Sandburg's earlier performances.

Another Beach Boys recording that should not be regarded as a "Beach Boys song" is "Barbara Ann." That was by no means a folk song, but it was a top-40 recording by some long-forgotten doo-wop-pop group long before the BBs recorded their cover version. I'm very sure of this because I bought the original 45rpm record. That record is long-gone by now, so I can't refer to the label to tell you the name of the group.

John McCain, who very enthusiastically if rather atonally sings "Bomb Bomb Iran" on a You Tube video, IS old enough to know better, but he erroneously refers to the song being parodied as "the old Beach Boys song."

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 May 08 - 03:53 PM

Somebody above mentioned "pedantry?" Okay, here's some pedantry for you!

Okay, Ron, so citing the dictionary was not necessarily the best defense for my position. However, as I'm sure you are aware, especially within recent decades dictionaries tend to reflect popular usage of words, often with little regard to the niceties of such things as the formal definition of "definition." A good definition consists of two parts: genus and differentia. Genus specifies a broad category and differentia differentiates a particular thing from all other members of that genus.

The use of the genus-differentia definition is by no means restricted to science. Rather, it is the natural thing to do if you are to explain the meaning of a particular word to someone. With this, the "classical" type of definition (Definitio fit per genus proximum et differentiam specificam.), one uses the copula (is, are) after the word being defined (just as if you were using an equals sign in a mathematical equation) and then go on to explain the word by using the appropriate generic term plus those characteristics specific to the thing you are describing which consecutively narrow down the meaning until the word in question can no longer be confused with anything else. [Emphasis mine – DF].

A few comments I posted on a thread some time ago are, I believe, relevant here:

As far as anyone knows, the first person to ever use the term "folk song" was Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803), a German philosopher and collector of volkslieder (folk songs). He was referring to songs of the rural peasant class. In this modern world, which has become more urbanized and which we like to think of as "classless" despite the mind-boggling spread between the richest and the poorest, it makes people uncomfortable to think that there might still be such a thing as a peasant class. When many poor people live in the cities and try to keep body and soul together by scrubbing toilets and flipping burgers (preferably not the same person and not in that order), we don't like to acknowledge that we may still have what might be considered a peasant class. It embarrasses people. It embarrasses governments. Thus volk has slowly morphed into "just plain folks," which we like to apply to everybody, including people with annual incomes that exceed the GNP of a medium-sized country. And the term "folk singer" got pried loose from traditional singers of traditional songs and got stuck on any singer who sings fairly simple, strophic songs to the accompaniment of a portable musical instrument, especially if they write the songs themselves and like to call themselves "folk singers." And especially if they've recorded a CD and music stores opt to put it in the "folk music" bin.

Folk Festival.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 May 08 - 03:57 PM

Actually, the Weavers recorded it before the Kingston Trio - who learned it either from the Sandburg collection that was published in 1927 or perhaps from one of the many field recordings that were later made - including Alan Lomax.

The point is, the song was a regional song that became "popular" to a wider audience due to the work of the collectors. Because the song became so widely known, does it cease to be a "folk song"? Is the Beach Boys version not a folk song because they use electric instruments?

It is gray areas like this that get us into such discussions which are really a turn off to audiences who do not share the same passions. I find it fascinating.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 02 May 08 - 04:04 PM

' I realize that not all of us are old enough to remember that, of course.'

Got that right, sunshine...

However your "long-forgotten", doo-wop-pop group (an area of interest for me by the way) was The Regents who recorded Barbara Ann in 1961, the song written by Fred Fassert. The Beach Boys version came in 1965..a four year gap, not a long time in terms of cover versions of songs.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 May 08 - 04:06 PM

Don, that is all well and good - and frankly I never disagreed, but the point is the POPULAR usage is the one that ultimately counts. As you yourself pointed out, the original use of the word was limited to a rural peasant class and that certainly evolved. Definitions change, there is no "mathematical" formula that will ever lock it down.

This is all beginning to remind me of the Cheech and Chong routine about dog crap.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 02 May 08 - 05:17 PM

Charlotte ~ I'm impressed that The Regents weren't "long-forgotten" by you.

I forgot their name ~ and I had bought the dang record!

Ron, I may have been alive when the Weavers were active, and in fact have very distant, foggy memories of hearing their "Goodnight Irene" on the radio while sitting in a highchair, but I missed being aware of their "Sloop John B.'

Your point is well taken, if I understand it correctly: the well-known songs with which many of us have become familiar as "traditional" classics are actually an essentially random set of songs, each well-known within an isolated local culture, and each of which happened to be "collected" by someone whose efforts turned out to be remembered and widely disseminated. All pretty accidental.

I suppose that the many songs that were never collected and which are now completely forgotten were definitely "folk songs." The songs that we know well enough to argue about were all "popularized" (and arguably "corrupted") to some extent.

Like you, I find all this stuff fascinating. I have a few hard-and-fast opinions, but am willing to go either way on many issues (and will sometimes do so in writing, just to keep stirring the pot.)

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 May 08 - 07:58 PM

I may be weird, but my wants are really fairly simple. I do not want to

1.   go into a Chinese restaurant, order a plate of shrimp fried rice, and be served a pepperoni pizza;

2.   buy a paperback novel that purports to be science fiction and find myself reading a Harlequin Romance;

3.   go to an ophthalmologist's office to have my eyes tested and have him put on a rubber glove and tell me to drop my pants and bend over;

4.   buy a CD of folk songs or go to a concert by someone billed as a "folk singer" and find myself listening not to work songs, love songs, sea chanteys, and ballads, but to a bunch of songs the singer has written himself or herself about their teen-age angst or the composition of their belly-button lint;

5.   etc.

Or consider for a moment the person who wants to hear contemporary songs and finds himself listening to a program of Child ballads . . . .

It's called "truth in labeling."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,Barry, on wife's work computer
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:10 AM

Well Don, tonight I did just that.

I went to Club Passim's, a folk club for 50 yrs is plastared over the stage's flag.
The 2 acts I went to see tonight have been heralded as folk, 1 wining folk album of the yr & other "folk" awards.
I sat through the 1 st act in hopes that the 2nd act had a scent of folk. It did she did "Rose Connelly" with 2 others that were invited up the stage. Every other song written & sung by both act were about themselves. This travelling adventure & that heart brake, the loss of this loved one & how tough it was in college. Never a chorus or a refrain to join in on, even if you wanted to, never a sing along on this one was heard, it's almost like they write them so you can't join in with them, it's their trip & you're not invited on the ride, you're only invited along for "their" telling of it, cheap SOB's. Then I thought that maybe they thought the audience was "dumb", couldn't sing along, 'duh'. I don't have to sing along, I know cause I love long ballads & I don't peep. I finally left before the 2nd act was done. I couldn't take it any more. I didn't go there to be given advice in the form of song or to hear the woes of some self absorbed singer songwriter. I went there to enjoy myself, to become part of the music that was taking place, I wanted to be absorbed into their music. Instead of finding the "Beef", I was taken for a ride, I nearly vomited, motion sickness, again my stomack sussed out the truth.

When Woody sang a song about his hard travelling & his shoes, you know it wasn't about him it was about all those stuck in the same boat as he was or about those in the boat he saw passing by. He wanted others to sing his songs, he wanted others to sing along, he wanted folks to listen to the story of the people he seen & met, or the trobles & joys he saw that others knew & felt, he want the rest of us to feel what he wrote about.
Yes, Woody & other "folk" singers & writers of folk songs wrote about the common folk they connected with through song with these "common folk", that was part of the tradition, the tradition was about "life according to those that lived it", not about my little world, it was always bigger than that. There is no connection with many of these contemporary singer songwriters, they write about themselves & not much else & even when they do write about something other than themselves it's how "they see it" or "it affected them" or what it did to 'their' way of life.
It's I,I,I,I. They don't even care if you get it or sing to it, they're not part of any bigger picture. I'm going home now to get some "beef". I'm sick of this thinner than soup music.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,Jack Radcliffe
Date: 03 May 08 - 08:20 AM

The good news is that there are so many festivals around now that you can find plenty that suit your interests. Remember, too, that Woodie Guthrie, Jimmie Rodgers, A.P. Carter and Hazel Dickens are all also "singer/songwriters" although their subject matter is a bit less self-absorbed than most of what I hear from that genre nowadays.
Meanwhile, There's still Old Songs and Philly and the "new" Eistedfod ... as well as our own Taunton River Folk festival. All trad all the time for four days at five venues in Taunton, Mass. in October.
www.tauntonfest.org
[e-mail]
Jack Radcliffe
President, Packer/Shipper and Dishwasher
Wepecket Island Records

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Maryrrf
Date: 03 May 08 - 09:45 AM

Beautifully put, Barry. You hit the nail on the head about what so many singer songwriters are about - 'them'. That said, there are a few, including a few Mudcatters, who break this mold so I'm not against singer songwriters per se. I just don't enjoy most of them.

Too bad you aren't in Richmond, you are guaranteed a trad experience at our Richmond Folk Music Society concerts. That was exactly why I founded it - to provide a venue for traditional folk music, and I explain why here .

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 May 08 - 10:13 AM

Don, the problem with your analogies is that people do not consider a pepperoni pizza to be fried rice. There are many people that do feel comfortable with considering singer-songwriters "folk" and the term fits.   For the science fiction book, there are many that deal with romance - and ultimately the author is telling a story and determines what form to follow. If a bookseller places the book in the wrong section, does that change the message of the book?   As for the opthalmologist, it depends where people keep their head!!

Barry, I am sorry that you had such an awful time. I think that it is important not to generalize. There are also many traditional songs that deal with "I" and they are an important part of the canon. I'm not a fan of the self-absorbed songwriting either - I used to joke that these people should be called "singer-songwhiners". I'm sure though that you have had experience with god awful traditional musicians who may be serving up "beef", but have burnt the dish beyond all recognition and sapped all the juice and taste from it.

It is all a matter of taste and opinion. The boat has sailed - like it or not, folk music will be associated with BOTH traditional and contemporary.   

As for feeling that you don't know what you are getting - well, in this day and age there are liner notes for CD's, Club Passim and most venues will have descriptions and links to the artists so you can get an idea of what you are going to hear. You would not buy a car without taking a test drive.

I really hope that the energy we all spend discussing a few words can be channeled into practicing, promoting and preserving the music that we all love.   Instead of being hung up on yet another label, lets worry about the quality of the content.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: DebC
Date: 03 May 08 - 10:35 AM

This has been a great discussion, but for me it's not about what is or isn't folk, who writes good/bad songs, who is roots-based and who are the "belly-button people", etc.

It's about EXCLUSION. As a singer who doesn't write, I am excluded from many US venues and opportunities for that reason and that reason only. I hear time and again "We love your music, but we only present original songs." Don made a great example of the Seattle Folklore Society and Barry continues to say (and I agree) "don't call yourself "folk" if you are NOT including the music that is from or based in a tradition.

I know enough songs to where I can give an all traditional performance of public domain material (as Mary from Richmond can attest to) or I can give a totally contemporary songs performance, even though I didn't write those songs.

My complaint is that many fine and excellent artists who respect (and love) a musical tradition are denied INCLUSION just because they don't write songs.

And that's a darn shame.

Deb Cowan

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: DebC
Date: 03 May 08 - 11:08 AM

Oh my goodness...I posted #100!!

Hee hee,
Deb Cowan

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 11:12 AM

Well Deb, I'd be excluded too, and have been, for *shock! horror!* daring to use electric instruments *LOL* But you know what? I ceased caring along time ago. I play what I play on the instruments of MY choosing, not the choosing of those who presume to know better than me (and usually don't).

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: DebC
Date: 03 May 08 - 11:59 AM

I know what you mean, Charlotte and I follow the same kind of thing. I sing songs *I* like and find interesting and I am really not concerned with someone else's definitions of said songs.

And this certainly isn't about me, I was just citing my own experience. It's about the people who, through their music can TEACH the rest of us about the history of not only the music but our culture. That is what is being lost when these venues and festivals exclude trad and roots based music.

Deb Cowan

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,mb
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:12 PM

The Wumb fest has performers I'm looking forward to seeing. They can call it whatever they want. For all of you looking for that trad folk feel check out the Taunton River Folk Festival. This is it's 2nd year and will be held in Taunton Ma over the Columbus day weekend. It's got the feel of the former SMU Eistedfodd, but it features a lot more blues in the mix. Check out the sitehttp://www.tauntonfest.org/index.htm Last year's schedule is posted.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:15 PM

Just to clarify after 100 posts, it seems that we have two main issues -

1. The use of the word "folk music".
2. Venues and festivals that exclude traditional music.

While I am more tolerant of the use of the word "folk music", I do agree with Deb when she says that we are losing something when we exclude trad and roots music. Producing two radio programs and now booking for a venue(the Hurdy Gurdy Folk Music Club), I am always trying to straddle a line - realizing and wanting to perpetuate the traditions, and the reality that I need to do whatever I can to keep the radio program on the air and the venue operating. The sad reality is that my audience would significantly descrease if I only offered tradtional music. While there are very passionate people here at Mudcat, the numbers are not enough in the "real world" to sustain.   My only hope is that enough of us continue to make and share the music that we know has value in the hopes that audiences will be attracted and keep it alive and growing.

As for the venue, my reality is that I am spending $500 for rent, sound and insurance everytime I open the door - and that is before the cost of paying the artist and any advertising and other incidentals that might help. When we brought Mike Seeger to New Jersey, and spent months hyping and promoting the concert - we ended up with less than 60 people. Considering that we are in the NYC metro area with 15 million people within a 25 mile drive, that number is shameful. It was a memorable concert, Tony Trishka came over and joined Mike onstage and the music was incredible - but how often can we present shows like that and lose our shirt? What we are trying to do is establish our non-profit status to enable us to go after grant money that will allow us to put on shows like this.

At the same time, we are proud to honor contemporary folk music's finest. Tonight we have Eve Goldberg and Thea Hopkins in a special co-bill. Our ticket sales are slow, but we are keeping our fingers crossed. If anyone is in the vicinity of Fair Lawn, NJ tonight - come out and see us! (www.hurdygurdyfolk.org). I don't think you will have the same reaction to these performers as Barry did to the artists he saw last night.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:21 PM

Now here's one for you...I just receieved a e-mail from my dad..The Winnipeg Folk Festival (Manitoba Canada), now note the word folk there, has just announced that one of their top line acts for this year is........Ray Davies (ex-Kinks)...observational song writing anyone? ;-)

'can TEACH the rest of us about the history of not only the music but our culture'

Deb, I completely agree, much has indeed been lost already. I can only go on my experience. I always remember a quote from the English fiddle player Dave Swarbrick who once said, " would you rather play a good murder ballad on an acoustic or electric instument?" I see his point. :-)

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:22 PM

ooops that "Guest" was me. trying to juggle paperwork and typing at the same time *LOL*

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:38 PM

Wouldn't happen if you joined the forum instread of posting as a 'Guest', Charlotte! :-) :-)

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:38 PM

Molecatcher's Apprentice -- I was addressing the secondary definition that Ron Olesko gave

From th American Heritage Dictionary:
" 2.Contemporary music in the style of traditional folk music."

So, yes, to be considered "folk" by that definition would be to write songs in the style of traditional folk music.

Otherwise the songs are pleasant maybe even interesting examples of pop music, usually performed acoustically.

Will people still be singing them in 100 years? Or are they too personal to the singer-songwriter ever to be meaningfully performed by anyone else? Do you come away from the song humming it?

And I think what we are actually arguing about is whether a festival that excludes performers that actually perform traditional music and who do not write their own material should be labeled "folk" -- and I definitely agree with Don Firth; to call it folk is mislabeling and very much open to misinterpretation. I'm a firm believer in using language as precisely and clearly as possible. That's the point of communication. And if you lose words and nuances, the language is poorer for it.

Just my additional four cents' worth (inflation).

Linn

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:48 PM

By the way, "Tom Dooley" was collected by Anne and Frank Warner in 1938 from Frank Proffitt who learned the song from his father. And his grandmother knew Tom Dula (Tom Foster), a native of Wilkes County, on whom the song was based.

I think it was first recorded by Frank Warner on Elektra in 1952-ish.

Linn

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,Bob Dylan
Date: 03 May 08 - 01:07 PM

99.9% of Americans think I am folk.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,Paul Simon
Date: 03 May 08 - 01:13 PM

not sure on the percentage here

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 May 08 - 01:22 PM

99.9% of Americans don't care either Bob.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 May 08 - 02:35 PM

When one goes to sessions, parties, songswaps, singalongs, clubs, concerts etc. & hear's the likes of folks singing the songs of contemporary artists it's a clue that, that artist may be on to something. Aside from the many traditional songs I sing I also sing songs written by Si Kahn, Ewan MacColl, Archie Fisher, Stan Rogers, Richard Thompson, Martin Grabe, Steve Tillson, Paul Siebel, Badger Clark, Kate Wolfe, Peter Bellamy, Lyle Lovett, Mike Harding, and a whole host of others. I hear other folks singing songs from contemporary artists. AAAAND I hear others singing along, they also know & enjoy these songs. This may not be a scientific approach but if no one else is singing your songs off stage or singing along except for maybe a few friends &/or another contemporary stage performer then I don't think that your songs cut it as what might make it into the contemporary folk song catagorary. You can't call yourself a folk singer or a writer of folksongs, the common folk will take care of that, they will deceide if your songs are worth singing. Just cause one stands on a stage & has a great voice (BTW the 2 I saw Friday night had fantastic voices BUT) & plays an accoustic instrument talks a folkie talk & walks the walk doesn't mean that crowd is gonna take your songs to heart & start singing them BUT when they do, when one's songs start popping up at different places & are being sung by a host of others, when someone starts looking for the words to your song on the internet cause they want to sing it.
Yrs ago 30 ? I heard a woman get asked at a session if she'd sing one of her songs. I had no idea who she was I was new to the area but they all seemed to know her. She asked if it was alright if she tried out a new one of her own & the players/singers were very incourging. It seems that this was played out a few times before. She sang the song, it was great, it was one worth stealing. Before she was done others were trying to join in then after, asking if she'd do one more. That was Kate Wolfe, the stuff she wrote gets sung by many. Will she be considered a folk singer, a writer of folk songs? It certinally seems that way. She doesn't write from any perticular tradition but she wrote in such a way that it very much appealed to those that loved to sing & hear folk songs. So it's not up to a permoter, radio station, festival, or the songwriter themselves. We will be your judge, if we sing your songs & sing along to them, no matter who sings them, then let someone bill you as a songwriter who does "folk" otherwise you're a singer/songwriter & today you're a dime a dozen.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 02:56 PM

Generally I play and sing for myself, if the audience wants to come along for the ride, fine, if they don't well that's up to them.

As I stated in an earlier post to Deb Cowan
"I play what I play on the instruments of MY choosing, not the choosing of those who presume to know better than me (and usually don't).

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:05 PM

I ain't done
I got more bones to pick & more axes to grind.

I'm gonna use you Deb C as an example, hope you don't mind but you'll help to make my point.

Deb & others don't get bill at certian "Folk" venuse cause they don't write songs!!!
She & performers like her are "conduits of folk", they are a pipeline!
Now I've seen & heard Deb many times from around a living room to concerts stage, to coffee house setting. She's good, very good. So she doesn't write contemporary songs,,,,,,,,but she picks them like fruit from a hosts of trees with the heart of migrant worker. She uses her personnal tastes to chose them, maybe with input from others sometimes I don't know. She performes those songs & to me it seems that her audiences loves what she picks & does. They sing right along or are listening intently on the edge of their chairs & it's a full applause when she's done, weither it's traditional or contemporary. So it should behove the folk premoter to hire her on because it seems that she's got something that makes her bettter able to judge what "folk songs" her contemporary writers have written that the lovers of folk music want to hear. If she's picked out a song from one of those that the Boston FF is presenting I'm more apt to want to hear that singer if Deb sings her songs than what the fest premoter says about the songwriter. If Deb chooses a song to preform, she knows after awhile if it's a keeper or not, she has the sounding board that others don't, she also has the knack & hunch of what's good. If she errored in a choice of a song, she knows when to drop it, even if she loves to sing it. She is not the one who makes the final choice but she is one of the ones who has the gift & talent to bring it out & showcase it to the community. You kill off preformers like her & you eventually kill off the very songwriters that you're trying to support, it is preformers like her that will give good songwriters the exposure they deserve. It's fine for the SS to showcase their baggage but if others aren't gonna run with it they might as well be pissing into the wind, cause if others aren't gonna run with it, it's a sure bet it's not good enough.

Thanks Deb for my use of you, please forgive me (I did enjoy myself though, Hee,Hee).

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:11 PM

Well there are those that can and those that either teach or criticize. It'sn't that how the old saying goes?

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:19 PM

Ron, I believe you fully understand the point I'm making in my above post, despite your somewhat flippant remarks. The operational words in that post are "truth in labeling."

". . . to call it folk is mislabeling and very much open to misinterpretation. I'm a firm believer in using language as precisely and clearly as possible. That's the point of communication. And if you lose words and nuances, the language is poorer for it."

Exactly so, Linn. And in addition to my other activities, as a writer and for a period of my life as a radio announcer and news director, I am especially sensitive to the precise and perceptive use of language. I suppose 'twas ever thus, but I find the way language is often used—especially in advertising and politics, but in many other areas as well, to make things seem like they are something that they are not—is downright Orwellian.

Interestingly enough, it was Jeff Warner (HERE and HERE), the son of Anne and Frank Warner, whom the Seattle Folklore Society did not find met their criteria for what constituted "folk music." I learned both "Tom Dooley" and "Gilgary Mountain" in the early 1950s from Frank Warner's Elektra record.

The reason the Pacific Northwest Folklore Society was resurrected after fifty-some-odd years was because the existing society—calling itself a "folklore society"—had cut its traditional roots and its raison d'être, and was presenting contemporary singer-songwriters, some of whom did not ever identify themselves as "folk singers," to the exclusion of singers of historical/traditional material.

As I understand it, due to the success of events sponsored by the very recently reorganized Pacific Northwest Folklore Society, the directors of the Seattle Folklore Society have been startled into re-evaluating some of their policies.

Don Firth

P. S. I do not write songs myself. I know my limitations (many singer-songwriters, I have noted, do not know their limitations). Most of the songs I sing are historical/traditional. But not exclusively. I do, however, make it clear to my audiences which is which. Nor do I call myself a "folk singer" (although others do). I am a singer-guitarist. But the bulk of my repertoire consists of folk (historical/traditional) songs.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:39 PM

Don, we both know that language evolves just like everything else.    No sense belaboring the point.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:50 PM

Everything else aside, I certainly think it's a damn shame that a well-regarded professional performer would be turned away from any venue for the sole reason that he/she is not a songwriter. And of course, it's doubly (or triply) wrong wrong for an organization billing itself as "folk" to have such a policy!

There are and always have been singers and musicans worth hearing who are primarily (and even exclusively) interpreters of material that they understand, love, and select for their audiences' pleasure and edification. A couple of pertintent examples from the recent past, in the general area of folk and folk-influenced pop/rock music: Dave Van Rock, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker. I'd certainly enjoy attending one of those folks' shows; I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy listening to someone whose only claim to legitimacy is the fact that they perform their own compositions to the exclusion to proven material that people know and love.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 08 - 04:09 PM

Certainly, language changes over time. But there is evolving and devolving or degenerating. I don't see that altering terminology for the purpose of clouding an issue or peddling one thing as something else is "evolving."

The point needs to be belabored until it is fully understood.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 May 08 - 04:16 PM

It is not a question of understanding your point, I get it. However, you need to realize that there are some who feel that it is NOT degenerating - but there are those of us who do not feel that way.

We are not ALTERING terminology, the terminology has already been altered - and it has since people like Woody Guthrie and others started writing their own songs.

If you study words as well as folk traditions you will see how these changes come about, and I have great concern about trying to stop the evolution and the effect it has on the culture.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Acorn4
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:02 PM

Fascinating thread - I think that the key point is the one someone raised about considering the audience.

My wife uses the term "musical masturbation" - it can apply to angst ridden singer songwriters, traditional singers who think they are at a prayer meeting, or nodding "its my turn to do a solo now" guitarists - but the worst are jazz musicians.

Some great crossover between the US and UK music scenes in this thread!

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:06 PM

I have studied and do study words, Ron. I've been a wordsmith all my life. And in addition to having been a singer since my late teens, I've been a serious scholar of folk traditions since then as well. So I'm not, as you imply, speaking out of ignorance of the subjects under discussion.

I believe I've made myself clear, and I've said everything I really want to say on the subject. At least for the moment. Let others make up their own minds.

I do have a theory as to why so many singer-songwriters think of themselves as writing "folk songs," and also why some of them seem so desperate to have their songs regarded as folk songs. But that exploration here will have to wait. For now, I have "miles to go and promises to keep."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:11 PM

Don, I was not questioning your background and I never implied that you were speaking out of ignorance. I respect your opinion and while I realize that you do not respect mine, I am not alone in what I have been saying - nor am I saying it is the way it should be.

As an observer and also someone who has devoted a lot of time and energy to the study of this music since MY late teens, I feel I am entitled to have a different opinion than yours. I also believe I have made myself clear and there is no need to make this discussion personal. As you say, let others make up their own mind.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:22 PM

"Some great crossover between the US and UK music scenes in this thread!"

Plus Canada, Acorn4 :-)

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Acorn4
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:34 PM

Yeh, sorry !

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 03 May 08 - 06:46 PM

"" 2.Contemporary music in the style of traditional folk music."

So, yes, to be considered "folk" by that definition would be to write songs in the style of traditional folk music.


And I think what we are actually arguing about is whether a festival that excludes performers that actually perform traditional music and who do not write their own material should be labeled "folk" -- and I definitely agree with Don Firth; to call it folk is mislabeling and very much open to misinterpretation. I'm a firm believer in using language as precisely and clearly as possible. That's the point of communication. And if you lose words and nuances, the language is poorer for it.

Just my additional four cents' worth (inflation).

Linn""

Yes Linn, I too have a love of precise English, to the extent that Star Trek, with its split infinitive (to boldly go) drives me to spitting, spluttering fury.

Everyone on this forum who has been involved in this "What is folk music" argument knows that Richard Bridge and myself have repeatedly clashed on this subject.

Richard's views on "snigger snogwriters" is well documented.

I was today involved in a competition at the Rochester Sweeps Festival, called "Folkfactor", at which Richard was one of three judges.

I sang a song which I had composed nearly forty years ago, and the critique from Richard was well thoght out, fair, and cogent, as well as positive. Would that all here could suspend personal bias as well as this.

If you want the actual content, ask Richard what he said. Suffice to say that I felt I had been treated with the utmost fairness, and this from a man with the reputation of being a diehard traddy.

And NO! I didn't win. Truth to tell, I didn't deserve to. I WAS good, but others were better.

I'll think twice before challenging his views again.

Folk is pretty much what we perceive it to be, but traditional doesn't always mean hidebound.

Having said that, I would be very unlikely to attend any event which actively excluded either traditional, or contemporary music.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 08 - 10:53 PM

It's not that I don't respect your opinions, Ron, but I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree about this matter.

###

During the 1950s and into the mid 1960s, I knew a fellow who had been a local restaurateur who played the guitar and was a sometime singer of folk songs (I shall identify him as "Bob C."). Bob sang well, knew a lot of songs, and enjoyed singing at parties and songfests. People enjoyed his singing, and even though he was dragooned once into singing on local television, he didn't seem to have any great interest in becoming a professional performer.

Sometime in the late 1950s, Bob C. was present at a late-night party where a knock-down-drag-out fight of monumental proportions took place between two of his acquaintances. He felt that this epic battle was the stuff of which great folk songs are made, and it deserved to be written up in song. So even though he didn't consider himself to be any kind of a songwriter, he set himself to the task. As a starting point, he picked a traditional folk song (approved and ordained as a genuine folk song since it's included in Folk Song U.S.A., compiled by John and Alan Lomax, and recorded by Pacific Northwest folk singer Walt Robertson on his first record for Folkways). The song Bob chose told the story of a similar fight in a logging camp. He took the tune wholesale, but wrote an original set of words, patterning his song along the lines of the "original," much the way Woody Guthrie wrote many of the songs he did. And Bob came up with one helluva song!

He sang it around a bit. In fact, once they'd heard it, people requested it from him. Subsequently, I learned it from him and I sang it around a bit. Other than just the two of us, I don't recall ever hearing anyone else sing it.

It was new words set to a traditional tune (the not uncommon practice of a new song growing out of an older one). It tells a story of a kind very commonly heard in folk songs. And since it does tell a story, it is, by definition, a ballad (although it bears no Child number, obviously). It has the additional virtues of being both funny (even the fellow who lost the fight acknowledged that the song was "pretty funny") and true—including in a manner that even Bob C. didn't know about at the time he wrote it. It has far better "folk song" credentials and it is most certainly more of a folk song that anything I've heard recently produced by the current crop of singer-songwriters, with the possible exception of something written by Gordon Bok. By almost all criteria, Bob C.'s song is indeed a "folk song." Except one.

I do not regard it as a folk song, nor, do I think, would Bob C. In fact, I don't think Bob C. even cared whether people thought of it as a folk song or not.

There is a very good reason that I do not regard it as a folk song—yet. I haven't seen Bob C. since sometime in the mid-1960s, and I understand he left town about that time. Nor have I heard anything from him or about him. As far as I know, unless Bob C. is still among the living, I am the only person in the world who knows this song and can sing it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 May 08 - 11:39 PM

Thanks Don. I guess we do agree to disagree, although I actually agree with just about everything you say.

Your story about Bob C. hits a key point that I was trying to make, but I don't think I could say it as eloquently - and I don't think you even realized you said it.

When you said that Bob C. probably did not care whether people thought of it as a folk song or not - that is the point.   The appeal of the song is what counts - and where you and I differ is that acceptance of contemporary music by an audience that grew out of a folk revival.

Your friend wrote a song that appealed to you and it was based on a tradition that you understood - a song collected by John and Allen Lomax, who collected from a number of diverse communities and often found commonalities among them.

John Lomax included "Home on the Range" in his first collection, a song where we can trace the author and the melody to specific individuals, and it did go through some changes as it traveled in the west before Lomax collected it. Yet, is it truly a folk song? Perhaps the most important aspect is that the song has been accepted as a folksong.   Could the song from Bob C also be considered as folk song?

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 May 08 - 12:18 AM

I don't think either you or I can say if Bob C.'s song is or can be considered a folk song at this point. Under the assumption that it would be okay with Bob (he wrote it just for the fun of it, and he didn't copyright it or intend making any money out of it, he wrote it just to sing--which, I think, is yet another qualification for folk song status) I intend to put it into circulation. Then we'll see where it goes from there.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 04 May 08 - 12:25 AM

right - we can't consider it a true folk song, but we could enjoy it.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 May 08 - 01:03 AM

Well, Barry, take a look at the pictures of the performers. I'd say most are under 40 - although Kathy Mattea is almost 50, and maybe that's why you like her.

Are you getting old, Barry?

[grin]

-Joe, almost 60-

P.S. I say I like traditional music, but then I realized that most songs I sing are written by somebody whose 100th birthday hasn't past yet. Still, I don't sing songs written by anybody under 40.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 04 May 08 - 01:24 AM

Well I'd say you're both right. Neither of you could call it a folk song. But if a bunch of other singers of folk pick it up & run with it, the rest of the crowd likes it enough to pss it around & keep it alive, then it probably stands a good chance. Again it is "we" who would eventually deceide.

Back to the festival topic. Do any of these singers write songs that others would want to pick up & run with. The 2 I heard the other night don't seem to have made a mark & most of those listed don't either. The difference being that most of the SS out there pushing their wares about are doing it for themselves. They aren't writing for their community, don't care if they write something that others would want to sing or to sing along with they don't even write about others much of the time. It's their trip & "we" aren't espically or specificly invited but we can slum along if we so choose, kind of like a 3rd wheel. Mighty nice of them.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 04 May 08 - 02:50 AM

"Some great crossover between the US and UK music scenes in this thread!"

We keep having this hoary old 'folk/not folk' argument in the UK. IMHO there is no definitive answer because people have differing opinions on what Folk Music is/was/should be, and it's a genre that's in constant evolution. But I agree with Barry, it's a pretty poor Festival that excludes traditional performers. And I'd reckon a festival that excluded contemporary material was pretty poor too. There's room for both.

But at least the US-contingent keep their arguments civil and civilised, unlike some of the contributors to arguments this side of the pond. Congratulations Ron, Don et al - you do yourselves credit. :-)

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:23 AM

"The difference being that most of the SS out there pushing their wares about are doing it for themselves. They aren't writing for their community, don't care if they write something that others would want to sing or to sing along with they don't even write about others much of the time. "

There is a lot of truth to that, but I do it see it changing - slowly.

Yes, a lot of songs are personal - but then you could also say that about songs like "Greensleeves". If you break that folk chestnut down, you have one of the most self-absorbed whiney songs of all time! Even a song like "I Gave My Love a Cherry" was probably introspective for it's time.

I do agree however, many of the songs can only come out of the mouth of the songwriter - and I also agree that is not a good sign.   But, if you look at a songs like John Gorka's "Down in the Milltown" or "House in the Fields", you do get the sense of community that you are referring to - AND - they are songs that are being sung by others.

What is unfortunate is that folk music has largely become a spectator sport instead of a participatory one.   Going to venues to WATCH someone else make music is really what we are talking about in this thread. Is that truly folk music of any kind??

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 04 May 08 - 04:50 PM

"What is unfortunate is that folk music has largely become a spectator sport instead of a participatory one"

I agree Ron, & that's part of what seperates "them" from "us". We don't need preaching & we don't want to be sung at!

The language & vernacula, the idiom that the songs like "Greensleeves" were sung in, were in the same tone as was to those listening. The songs were directed towards the people of the community even when they were "whinning" (I do so hate that song but love the melody). It is the lack of connection, the being "full of one's self", the "it's my trip" that I dislike about the current crop of SS. They are not 'folk' when they tend to their own selfness needs. I am not in any way trying to say what's folk & what's not, I'm just saying that when a SS like the crop that's billed at this festival (with few exceptions) don't fit any of the normal excepted discription of folk singer, when they've crossed the line so far that the line's no longer even blurred, when it becomes all about them & nothing about us, then it's time to call them on it. They need to change the name, other wise it's a mockery.

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:03 PM

I've carefully reviewed this thoughtful thread and am somewhat surprised that no one has raised the question of how in the States we have a National Folk Festival (along with a set of cloned stare folk festivals) that present only "ethnic world" folk music. What's excluded are any "revival" folk style musicians, those who are making an efforts to carry on the singing of traditional songs but are multicultural.

The ethnic folk performers are of various ages, multigenerational, and much of what they present is interesting to listen to. What I object to is the exclusion of anyone or group that is not rooted in a particular community for generations.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bill D
Date: 04 May 08 - 10:29 PM

While I was out of town for 3 days, many new additions were made to the discussion, although some were just restatements of earlier points.
Let me address one point Barry made back up there about the use of 'inner focus' in many modern songs.

"There are also many traditional songs that deal with "I" and they are an important part of the canon. "

Well....sort of. Of course many traditional folks songs are written in ostensible 'first person'. "As *I* went out one May morning", "When *I* was a young man, *I* lived all alone, I worked at the weaver's trade...." etc.

But don't you see how that, in most older songs that survived, the *I* was a universal...it was meant to reflect a common experience of many *I's*. Stories of love, war, anger, murder, passion, joy,...that were not MEANT to be read as ONE specific persons life. Even the ones with no chorus, sung by a solitary ballad singer were seldom 'introverted' personal messages! (Yeah, I see your point about 'Greensleeves'....but I said seldom, and who do you know that sings Greensleeves? (other than the first verse, just to be silly)

   The songs which DID name specific individuals were generally not written by that person...("My name's Napolean Bonaparte, I'm the conqueror of nations")
Obviously, with the advent of recording, it was 'possible' to be aware of the author, but still most songs were thematically universal, whereas now the intent seems to be to "tell my story" and "make my personality a part of YOUR concern."

We KNOW the middle ground is fuzzy, and that things which were daily issues in the hundreds of years before the recording industry ane not 'quite' the issues of today...but those early issues made us what we are today. We KNOW that tastes change, and young people often want to express things differently...we simply want them to invent new descriptions for their new ways!

If you look in the DigiTrad database and analyze the songs that EVERYONE agrees are folk, you find a number of characteristics which are common (style, type of tune, chorus, topic/subject matter, etc..)
As Don Firth noted about one "By almost all criteria, Bob C.'s song is indeed a "folk song." Except one.". THESE are the songs we narrow-minded pedants make exceptions for! *grin* (Craig Johnson, who has been mentioned here many times and recorded by Art Thieme, does a FINE job of writing in the tradition, and has done a couple which have fooled folks).


I ask again, as I have so many times over the years in this forum...If 'folk' now means something different, what ARE we who want to cling to some older styles to do? What shall we call it? Do WE have to write a 2 paragraph explanation when WE have a concert or festival, similar to that Maryrff has done for her Richmond group?
It's all very well to say, "well, like it or not, that's what the public thinks of nowdays"...but still the question stands - What are we to CALL the older stuff in public?

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 04 May 08 - 10:43 PM

"If 'folk' now means something different, what ARE we who want to cling to some older styles to do? What shall we call it? "

You do not have to explain it to anyone. It is traditional folk music. How do you explain jazz or rock or rock and roll?

More importantly, if you take contemporary out of the mix - how WOULD you explain folk?   How do you explain that a childrens play song is folk music and so is a chantey? How can you simply explain a cowboy song and a Child Ballad are both folk songs? What about an English folk song and a Spanish folk song? How about songs sung by slaves centuries ago and a song sung by loggers? It is IMPOSSIBLE to create a LABEL that can fully describe the distinction among each of these types, and we get by simply calling it "folk music". The umbrella CAN incorporate contemporary music that fits some basic similiarities.

Barry pointed out the feeling of community. In 2007 with all of our advances, our regional communities have expanded. Is there not a feeling of community among those who frequent modern venues and support contemporary folk music? Besides ethnic and regional groups, communities can be labor unions, field workers, sea farers, prisoners or others that share common characteristics.

As for the "I" songs, it is a matter of perspective.   You can't lump all the singer-songwriters together as being self-absorbed.

"THESE are the songs we narrow-minded pedants make exceptions for! *grin*"

And well you should! I am the first to admit that there is an academic definition of "folk music", but we should not let that stand in the way of a good time.

You like what you like. Charley brought up the National Folk Festival - and that is a perfect example of how many different traditions make up "folk" and how the word cannot have a simple defintion.

"Do WE have to write a 2 paragraph explanation when WE have a concert or festival, similar to that Maryrff has done for her Richmond group?"
Naturally!!!   How is anyone to know what kind of folk music are you referring to? Will their be Greek folk songs? Would I be disapointed to discover that you do not have a single performer that sings folk songs of the cowboys?

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Barry Finn
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:59 AM

I don't believe that folk means anything different today than it did yesterday.
I do think that commerical endevors do try to obscure the scope of the folk umbrella so as to include whatever little genre their at present trying to sell/out.

Thanks Bill for the nice explanition of the folk "I" meaning us all & the SS "I" meaning me.

So why would a premoter advertise a festival of singer songwriters when they can hide it's content when pushing it off on the public as a folk festival?
Who would one be targeting by billing a SongSmith's Festival? Or a SingerSongWriter's Festival? Not much attraction there is there?
Folk Festival does sound much better, doesn't it?

If the folk community deceides what is contemporary folk music (they don't need a tech manual to follow) by keeping what's worthy of the title of "folk" alive just by the mere singing of it & letting the rest rot by the way side then why do these others who are not "folk" artists who are not considered folk singers get hire to plug their wares when their wares aren't being carried by the folksingers themselves nor their community? It sounds to me like someone's putting the real ass before the cart.
Shouldn't the songs of a songwriter go into the folk repertoire before they're called folk singers (unless they are already singers of folksongs). If they sing only their own songs (or those of companions SS) what are they then but just singer songwriters (not even singers of songwriters) & not much else. Some folk singers or singers of folk songs do also write but are not considered writers of folk songs, at least not until the folk community & other folk singers have picked up their songs & started to run with them.

Thank you, so far, all for such a great discussion & debate & for keeping it so civil & mild mannered, you all do the 'Cat" a great servive & credit to yourselves.

Keep on, please

Barry

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 May 08 - 08:34 AM

Ron et al-

"Charley brought up the National Folk Festival"

Yes, I did and while I described it as an forum for world ethnic music I was also whining about our experience in Maine where groups such as my own (traditional style sea music) were excluded because we didn't represent a particular ethnic or regional group. We argued with the Festival coordinators that Maine had a long sea-faring past (present and future), and we were part of that on-going tradition. We also argued that as individuals some of us had grown up with this music all our lives. However, not one single individual or group based in Maine who does sea music has ever appeared at the National Folk Festival when it was based in Bangor, or at its successor The American Folk Festival.

There were some representatives of lumberjack folk songs balladeers in the initial festival, but they soon were dropped from the program as mere "folk song revivalists."

It's also true that contemporary music groups were also excluded, but their exclusion appeared to have more logic.

Maybe our experience was unique. I certainly hope so.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Jassplayer
Date: 05 May 08 - 08:48 AM

Debra Cowan makes an important point. She posted:<>
I agree that it is, and the argument also holds true for a battle I've been waging within Folk Alliance, and I'll start a new thread for that, namely: FarWest regional conference has for tweo years now required all submissions for showcases to be through Sonic Bids exclusively. It's said to be fort he convenience of the selection committee, and their board, composed entirely of people on the singer/songwriter end of the FA spectrum, thinks that's a more important consideration than being INCLUSIVe and welcoming less cyber-enabled folks to strut their stuff on a FA stage.
In other words, if it ain't inclusive, it certainly ain't folk!
Jack Radcliffe, Wepecket Island Records
The Taunton River Folk festival

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:02 AM

"I don't believe that folk means anything different today than it did yesterday."

Very true, and I think that there has been disagreement on how to define the term for decades. While the academics believe it has been nailed down, there has always been a significant difference of opinion such as how do you classify the writers such as Woody Guthrie or songs such as "Home on the Range".

Charley's example is a perfect one. What performer or group should be considered under "folk" in such a festival.

Even the "I" issue is debatable. It is probably very true that the more "me" type-songs have not survived or have been studied as widely as songs that are more personal. The important thing is not to generalize - it is wrong to assume that ALL of the current crop of singer-songwriters are focused on "I", when we do that - we are blocking out some beauty from our lives.

We live in a different age. Our communities have evolved and while we keept traditions alive, we are also witnessing new traditions being formed.   None of us can see what the future holds, but we can enjoy the present and ALL of the offerings available to us.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bill D
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:26 AM

Oh, I think it IS important to do some generalizing in order to make relevant points. If all you have to do in order to justify this wide, inclusive use of 'folk' is provide a couple of counter-examples of SS performers who are not 'too' introspective, then all my attempts to show that a large % ARE introspective are easily dismissed.
   (that's a long sentence...but...)

It just seems fair to me that those who had the name and definitions first ought to have some claim to it, and those who alter the content ought to be the ones who need to find alternate language

This kinda misses my point:

["Do WE have to write a 2 paragraph explanation when WE have a concert or festival, similar to that Maryrff has done for her Richmond group?"
Naturally!!!   How is anyone to know what kind of folk music are you referring to? Will their be Greek folk songs? Would I be disapointed to discover that you do not have a single performer that sings folk songs of the cowboys?]

Of course it is relevant to mention WHICH types of traditional folk music are being presented! All I was suggesting is that Maryrrf and others should not have to signify by some long disclaimer IN THEIR TITLE, or on their poster, that they are doing traditional stuff.

What IS wrong with SS only festivals using words like "Songsmith's Festival" to indicate their deviation from 'classic' forms?

Ron....Don Firth's pedantic essay on differentia was right to the point. It is not necessary to use ponderous Latin terms like I use to identify wood (Salix purpurea, var. "Eugenii" ..for one type of Willow), but with only a few words, one CAN clarify that 'our band does modern variations of Scots ballads' (I have often thought that Martin Carthy should include some sort of disclaimer...*grin*)
   It seems to me that if a few major venues would develop a simple way in THEIR advertising to make the differentiations, we'd be well on our way to a system comfortable for everyone. (No..of course I won't hold my breath until they do...I don't look good when I turn blue)

One of my usual closing sentences in discussions about language is that "If a word is too broad, it ceases to be practically useful". If all CDs were put on a shelf with the label "music", NO ONE would like it. All I want is for the little labels to clarify 'folk' so that I can find the type I want. (Anyone want the now 'old' LP of"Red, White & Blue (Grass)" I bought because it had Norman Blake on it? I think it was only played once. It was 'different', and I guesses wrong.)

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:48 AM

"If all you have to do in order to justify this wide, inclusive use of 'folk' is provide a couple of counter-examples of SS performers who are not 'too' introspective, then all my attempts to show that a large % ARE introspective are easily dismissed."

Bill, it is not just ME that is making the connection. I will challenge your statement that a LARGE number of singer-songwriters are introspective, and I also challenge that introspective songs do not belong in the folk music family.

I'm sorry Bill, but you are starting your arguement with a set of rules that you feel cannot be challenged - "those who had the name and definitions first ought to have some claim to it" - no one can lay "claim" to the use of language. The term "folk music" was broad to begin with - going back to the first time the word was used to describe music of the "common people".

Your insistance on "labels" is your perogative. Do not expect everyone to fall in line behind it, nor do I expect everyone to accept singer-songwriters in the canon. Ozzy Osbourne is a singer-songwriter if you insist on using the definition.

Singer-songwriters, folk songs, and folk festivals come in many different flavors - there is no such "one size fits all" label that you can put upon it. Folk Music is, by its own definition, a broad term.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:52 AM

"If all CDs were put on a shelf with the label "music", NO ONE would like it. All I want is for the little labels to clarify 'folk' so that I can find the type I want."

I defy you to find ANY type of music that can fit a single label. Bluegrass, jazz, rock, Celtic(ouch!), and even classical does not contain a single archetype that will enable you "judge the book by it's cover".   The best you can do is create "headers" and then allow the various sub-genres to fall behind it.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Peace
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:52 AM

The experts here wanna start with basics?

What is MUSIC?

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Bill D
Date: 05 May 08 - 12:16 PM

Ron...you use an obviously true statement "...there is no such "one size fits all" label that you can put upon it." or..."I defy you to find ANY type of music that can fit a single label."....to dismiss MY point that we DO use labels for classification, and that we simply need more accurate ones!

This is especially true for festivals such as Barry was frustrated by. And when a Battlefield Band significantly changes its style, it would be polite of them to tell me! I wish them well...I just don't wish to attend concerts that I only enjoy 10-20% of. I CAN tell the difference, and I KNOW that, being professional musicians, they are aware of the differences. Whether festival promoters are really clear that they have 'edited out' traditional music in favor of 'new' forms is sometimes not obvious.....as noted above, some clearly do when hiring, whether they note it in promotions or not!

(Just to be clear & honest...I do have genuinely 'classic' folk LPs & CDs that I am disappointed in; and I have a few genuinely 'new', vaguely folkish items that I enjoy very much...but I keep the differences clear in my head, in case I am asked for a recommendation.)

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 05 May 08 - 12:54 PM

"you use an obviously true statement "...there is no such "one size fits all" label that you can put upon it." or..."I defy you to find ANY type of music that can fit a single label."....to dismiss MY point that we DO use labels for classification, and that we simply need more accurate ones! "

Yes I did, and you dismissed my point that there is no such thing as an "accurate" label.

When you mention the Battlefield Band and changes - would you expect that different recordings are placed under different labels? You mentioned "red White & Bluegrass" - where would you put it? Where would you put Bill Monroe and David Grissman? Where would you put Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, Odetta, Phil Ochs? Where would you put Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis? Where would you put the Beatles, Black Sabbath, and Madonna?    ALL are different from one another, yet each falls under an "umbrella" label.

Let's face it - the biggest issue is that contemporary folk does not sound like the folk that we grew up with decades ago when we were young.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:29 PM

Jeez someone pleeze let them play some folk nusic somewhere.
All this brian energy going to waste is such a shame.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:51 PM

Tim, I'm not sure if this is a waste. The idea is to let people play some folk music somewhere and to hopefully find common ground for all of us. I hate wasting time cracking open a lobster shell, but it is the only way to uncover the sweet meat!

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:59 PM

As I have intimated before in some threads:
If a million people do a dumb or wrong thing, and one person gets it right,   it is still a dumb thing that the majority has deluded themselves into BELIEVING!

That isn't very democratic, but it hits the nail on the head.

Barry, you are correct.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:11 PM

Slight change of direction: can anyone explain to me how and why pianist Henry Butler fits in with that bunch of singer-songwriters and/or acoustic guitar players up in Boston?

I just heard and saw Henry play a spectacular set yesterday as a guest artist with Bob French's Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, closing out the week's proceedings on the traditional-jazz stage of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Henry is a very great musician and a stellar exemplar of a tradition, albeit a tradition not often included under the folk umbrella, the tradition of blues-to-ragtime-to-jazz/R&B. But I certainly do not see how he fits any of the competing definitions of "folk" under discussion here.

The defining characteristic of "traditional"-style New Orleans jazz is group improvisation. It differs greatly (and, to my mind, very charmingly) from more modern kinds of jazz where all the improvisation is essentially solo. Henry fit right in with a group of primarily old-style players committed to this approach, and certainly never violated any of the basic structural rules of staying within the chordal structure of a given song.

On the other hand, much of his playing, especially in his solos, incorporated a great deal of modern (be-bop and post-bop) influence, and every moment of his performance imbued the band's sound with an overall "rocking" (i.e., hard-swinging) feel that would not have been present without him. That said, I still believe it safe to assert that his playing absolutely enhanced the ensemble sound, did not detract from it one iota. The set demonstrated quite convincingly that ensemble jazz playing is a living tradition, not ~ as some would have it, especially an entire school of European and Japanese "recreationists" ~ a hidebound exercise in duplicating the sound of old recordings.

I love this music, definitely consider it to be "traditional" in the sense that it represents an ongoing school of musical thought and values, but I can't see that it qualifies as "folk" under any widely-accepted definition of that term.

It's wonderful music, and maybe it should be generally accepted as more representative of American musical "folk" tradition than the output of the more mediocre of the singer-songwriters, but in actual practice, this in NOT what anyone thinks of when confronted with the term "folk music." And yet, there's Henry's name and picture on the BFF website along with all those other folks with whom he has very little in common.

PS: Anyone who classifies all jazz players as "musical masterbators" really should have been there yesterday, or at least needs to be exposed to some real, vital, current-day New Orleans jazz music. I can certainly understand how people can be left cold by say, Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra, and maybe even Miles and 'Trane and those guys, but anyone should be able to understand and immediately respond to the music being put created today by the bands led by Bob and George French, Kermit Ruffins, Kirk Joseph, etc. etc.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:16 PM

Personally I think that this thread should be linked to the other "what is folk music" threads, because that's what this thread has become

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:25 PM

With all due respect Art, you are making an assumption that anyone who disagrees with your opinion is DUMB. None of us are in a position to determine what is right.

I would not make the assumption that one person who had a differing opinion is wrong either.

The study of word use and folklore should be about observation. What we have is a line of separation and a lack of perception to see things beyond what we have grown accustomed to.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:42 PM

'That isn't very democratic, but it hits the nail on the head"
In your not so humble opinion, I very much suspect that it probably does,but I firmly believe that Ron has 'hit the nail on the head' when he states that " With all due respect Art, you are making an assumption that anyone who disagrees with your opinion is DUMB"

I concur.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST
Date: 05 May 08 - 03:05 PM

I did not 'dismiss' you point, Ron...*smile*...I disagreed with it.

Obviously, if total precision and accuracy were required, (like in making a prescription drug), each song and each arrangement would require an individual category, and I am not THAT silly!

To give a general answer to YOUR "where would put 'X'" questions, I would put 'Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, Odetta, Phil Ochs' under folk, because they come about as close as is possible in most criteria. Any more detailed differentiation can be done at home by those who care to file their collections that way. Bill Monroe almost single-handedly created a sub-category, which became popular enough that it now occupies a top-level tier.....but now with ITS subcategories where the fans argue about 'pure' forms and 'adulterated' forms, and are often a lot more virulent than *I* ever was about not polluting their genré.(The first time I ever saw "The Newgrass Revival",(1972?) I thought I was gonna see fights among fans!) PEOPLE CARE! (and the funny thing was, when they were under the stands, rehersing and just playing informally, they played wonderful old classics and sounded like Gid Tanner at times...then onstage they switched to ummmm...,HyperGrass.)

as to "Let's face it - the biggest issue is that contemporary folk does not sound like the folk that we grew up with decades ago when we were young.

.....that's partly a psychological observation and partly a judgmental one. We DO often 'lock in' our first encounter with certain songs as THE right way, but it avoids the fact that certain alterations just...do...not...work. BlueGrass bands are famous for doing slower songs 'up-tempo' until the original 'feel' of the song is warped beyond recognition, then- if the band is well-known, new folk get the idea that there IS no other way to play "Lorena" than fast & zippy! (Wish I could remember who I heard doing that!) Fast is fine...let 'em WRITE fast songs that feel right done fast!
Personally, *I* feel "the biggest issue is that contemporary folk" is that it pays far too little attention to clarifying its debts TO and deviations FROM its sources.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,Bill D
Date: 05 May 08 - 03:07 PM

(where'd my cookie go? It was there when I started typing!)

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 05 May 08 - 03:37 PM

"I did not 'dismiss' you point, Ron...*smile*...I disagreed with it."
Sorry Bill, I thought I would make you happy by using YOUR term (from your 12:16pm post). When I disagreed with you, you told me that I was dismissing your point.


" because they come about as close as is possible in most criteria."
Bingo!


"ITS subcategories where the fans argue about 'pure' forms and 'adulterated' forms, and are often a lot more virulent than *I* ever was about not polluting their genré."
Bingo again!


"Bill Monroe almost single-handedly created a sub-category, which became popular enough that it now occupies a top-level tier"
Bingo yet again!

Lets look at this. Bill Monroe developed a style (following the lead started by people like Charlie Poole) that moved country and old-timey music to a new catagory, and the name came from his group and became THE ACCEPTED TERM for the music.

Contemporary singer-songwriters who have followed in the same path that Guthrie, Ochs, and Paxton have followed (which you called "folk" as well) are now calling themselves AND being recognized as "folk".

Look, if there were a sudden surge to call their style of music Pholk or some other term, then so be it! However, it isn't happening. What has happened is that the children have become more popular than the parents and folk music - to a larger audience - is accepted as incorporating both traditional and contemporary.

It is not a question of who is right or who is wrong - it is question of what is being done. I'm not happy that traditional music is being excluded, but I don't think that dropping "folk" from the title is solving that problem. It is like being in a losing game and one of the players picks up his ball and runs home. Nothing gets resolved.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:14 PM

"I don't believe that folk means anything different today than it did yesterday."

I totally agree with that.

The word folk IMHO needs qualifying to describe the precise sub genre under discussion.

Followers of the genre known as Jazz don't have a problem with that word being used to describe three sub groups; i.e. Trad, Modern, and Progressive. There may be others. I am not that knowledgeable about Jazz.

So why do we collectively have so much difficulty living with the idea of a similar set; e.g. Traditional, Revival, and Contemporary.

Nobody has, to my knowledge, suggested that 20th century composers should not be allowed to use the term "Classical" to describe their works.

Are Folkies really the most narrow minded people on Earth? I had always thought that we were rather liberal in our attitudes, but I do wonder.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: PoppaGator
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:16 PM

"What has happened is that the children have become more popular than the parents and folk music - to a larger audience ...."

I've been in agreement with just about every thing Ron has been saying in this discussion, but not this (well, maybe not all of it, and/or not in the sense that I'm understanding it).

Is the genre under discussion, that of all-originally-written contemporary song, really that widely popular? Not as far as I can see: I know absolutely nothing about it, never hear a bit of it, and no radio station within my on-the-air reach ever plays any of it. (I'm sure that internet-radio sources exist everywhere, of course.) More traditional forms of American folk music, on the other hand, have some audience in and around the Gulf South, however small, and some presence on the radio and in performance venues.

I could be wrong, but it certainly seems to me that interest in such stuff is geographically regional, and demographically fairly limited.

By extension, it just might be that the acceptance of using the category-name "folk" to describe such music is also confined to a fairly limited circle of enthusiasts, in which case Don and Bill et al have a point.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:41 PM

Poppagator - after reading the quote the way you put it,I don't think I was very clear.

What I was trying to say above is that I feel that there is an audience that accepts both genres - the numbers may show there are more fans of the contemporary side and fewer on the traditional side, and most will accept the term "folk".

Traditional folk music enthusiasts are very important and I wish there were more so that this discussion would not be necessary (or at least different!)

If you go to the Clearwater, Boston or Philadelphia Folk Festivals you probably won't hear much (or any) traditional music - and the contemporary artists are drawing the most SUPPORTERS.

The NY Eisteddfod, which I have had the honor of serving as emcee for several years, is one of the finest gatherings of traditional music I have ever attended. It is truly an inspiring festival and I look forward to LEARNING and having a good time each year.   I only wish that attendance figures would be in the thousands, not in the low hundreds.

I feel that a mix is needed. Old Songs does a superb job of that. I try hard to emulate that feeling on my radio show.

What has happened is that there are more contemporary artists who are singer-songwriters, and the supportive fan base for venues and festivals exists because of them. The Boston Folk Festival is meeting the needs of A community, not necessarily the community that made it possible in the first place.

Should there be SOME representation?? Without a doubt. If you want to petition or picket the festival for their lack of traditional music - I will be the first to sign or carry a placard. If they drop the term "folk", I will also be protesting.

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: DebC
Date: 05 May 08 - 06:49 PM

Ron wrote:
I feel that a mix is needed. Old Songs does a superb job of that.

Again, New Bedford Summerfest
is a festival where you will see an acoustic pop singer songwriter on the same stage as a traditional singer.

Deb Cowan

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: GUEST,mary louise
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:52 PM

Art,
I would love to find out more about your time on the Twilight and Julia Belle.
Could you reply back, please?
Thanks,
Mary Louise

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Jassplayer
Date: 08 May 08 - 02:04 PM

Here's Andy Cohen's thoughts on the subject (he's not a Mudcatter ... yet):
Jack,

I'm in Kent, Ohio. May Fourth, y'know, some things take precedence. Tell 'em this: to all intents and purposes, the same run of gigs is pursued by all parties in the Folk Biz, all unorganized in any rational way. Each performer of whatever stripe, below the level of being able successfully to play at events with some heft, like a folk festival, are stuck with a welter of bars, coffee *shops* like Starbucks, coffee *houses* like Caffe Lena, bookstores (either mom & pop or B & N), local, church basements, bar mitzvahs and weddings, and all the other jobs for hire that musicians do.

Looked at from such a class perspective- there are fewer jobs which, if you had fifty of them in a row, that would be a decent living- most of us must cobble together a unique loop. Some gigs you can repeat, and some, like the Ark, say, you can't for some time, because you are part of a very large stable that has accumulated over the years.

If we had licensure, which I'm glad we don't, some authority would be responsible for the overall balance between traditional and innovative presentation. No such luck. Willy nilly, you are a folksinger no matter what piece of it you adhere to. In forty years I have seen a shift toward songwriting from pursuit of traditional material, as the source people pass away. Youngsters emerge, and a complex arithmetic of publishing, downloading, combined with the crash of distribution and the subsequent influx of hundreds of former mainstream acts into the world where Caffe Lena and the Ark mean something. Traddies get short shrift. Without selling the place out, people who are merely good at spiritedly reproducing an old art have little value except as legitimators representing the group they study and know.

I would rather take a group of source people around, because even at their frailest, they define an obvious baseline against which the kids then have to measure up. Sadly, there are few of those from the pre-war period left to play, and so 'folk' festivals are stuck with those who study the old musics.

I don't have a solution that doesn't involve hierarchical ordering. I wish I did, for myself and others. What is important to me more than anything else is that the bedrock of our national repertoire be preserved 'in the air' as well as on Library of Congress recordings, County, Yazoo and Document.

SERFA, the new Southeastern region, holds some hope for me. The Southeast has the largest concentration of continuators in the country, as far as I can see, and the most loyalty to its own region's music.

For me, there are some false premises involved in the presentation of folk music to begin with, in dealing with the interaction between our musicians and the public: the economics that necessitate publishing and copyright as the main economic drivers, combined with what I feel is a massive overemphasis on asserting one's own 'voice'. I feel good if I can adequately represent some of the bearers of our known and collective musical heritage, our source people. I am at a loss to understand why 'originality' (mostly, recombinance in my view) is considered more artful than faithful reproduction of source material.

Andy Cohen

Subject: RE: Boston NOT Folk Fest?? Singer/songwriter
From: Mark Ross
Date: 09 May 08 - 10:14 AM

Good job, Andy.
What used to be called the Willamette Valley Folk Festival here in Eugene is now the Willamette Music Festival, which suits me fine, since they didn't have any idea how to run a Folk Festival anyway, no workshops with diverse performers from different traditions trading songs on stage, no MC's to keep the ball rolling(too much dead time on the main stage while the next act sets up what seems to be too damn much equipment). It's a free fest no admission charge, and most of the performers play for the exposure(how I hate that word). And most of the performers are singer-songwhiners. They can't really call it a folk festival, but they did up till now.


Mark Ross