Your folk epiphanies

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jun 08 - 04:35 AM

Listening to Irish Traveller singer 'Pop's' Johnny Connors and Jeremy Sandford being interviewed on the latter's book 'Gypsies' on radio 4 one Sunday afternoon decided for me what I was going to devote the rest of my life to - still at it - not dead yet!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: Colin Randall
Date: 22 Jun 08 - 04:34 AM

Too many to mention or even remember, but - all from late 60s, early 70s - here's a few:


Albums:
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (the one with young Clapton reading the Beano and, if memory serves, singing for the first time on record: "Rambling on my mind").

Steeleye Span - - Please to see the King" was a revelation after a couple of years of attending a rather purist folk club where most instrumentation was frowned on

Bothy Band: traditional Irish, unamplified but as vibrant and exciting as any rock music I'd heard



Gigs:
Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee - Civic Hall theatre, Darlington on tour in the UK with as the American Folk Blues Festival, a troupe of amazing old men

High Level Ranters: Bishop Auckland folk club changed my views on music from the area of my childhood & youth

Watersons   - at Les Cousins in Soho

Dave & Toni Arthur/ Young Tradition/ Northern Front/ Barbara Dickson/ Therapy at various venues in the North East

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: Stu
Date: 22 Jun 08 - 04:21 AM

Hearing Planxty for the first time sometime in the 80's - I think it was the album Cold Blow The Rainy Night. That was when I knew Irish Trad was for me.

Then I heard the Watersons, and I knew English singing was also for me. What a wonderful world.

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: glueman
Date: 22 Jun 08 - 03:52 AM

Stripping the Willow age 6. I knew that folk and its enthusiasts was essentially evil then.
The Kinks. I realised that folk had nothing to do with the instruments or the packaging.
Steeleye Span. Pop goes the folk.
Love the music and maintain serious reservations about its practitioners (something that holds good for all music e.g. Wagner, Gary Glitter, 'English' folk music, etc)

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: quokka
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 11:02 PM

I first heard Eric Bogle in the 80's when I was in my teens (fave back then No Man's Land;now Singing the Spirit Home) and that was probably my epiphany. Although growing up with Irish trad and folk music we didn't appreciate it as kids,but I have learnt sense now! BTW I'm seeing Eric Bogle TONIGHT!!!Through Eric I got to hear and love Stan Rogers,Christy Moore, Mary Black and The Pogues. How eclectic is that!
-Another moment was when I read BOUND FOR GLORY as well, again in my teens. I have just re-read it and am in awe all over again.
-There are lots of others of course - like hearing Gemma Hayes sing 'Ae Fond Kiss' in a movie, that got me started on Burns; the first time I heard 'Alice's Restaurant'; oh theres's just too many moments...
Cheers,
Quokka

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: Mark Ross
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 10:16 PM

1963, Hunter College in NYC, I was 14... Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, all for 2 dollars! MY parents said I couldn't go, didn't want me wandering around the city at a late hour at that tender age, went anyway, got grounded for weeks, and let me tell you it was worth it!
Between that and reading Woody Guthrie's BOUND FOR GLORY that same year, I was scarred for life.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: GUEST,Songster Bob
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 10:08 PM

I was watching "Down From the Mountain," the concert film with music from "Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?" There was a back-stage scene where this family band was rehearsing, and they hit one spot and looked at each other with such joy in how they were sounding, and it suddenly struck me:

I get to do that, too!

I get to have that fleeting, rare moment where the music I'm hearing or making (it's best when it's in the making) just gets to me and those who are making the music with me.

I've had lots of "Aha!" moments in my umpty-ump years of playing and singing and finding and listening and even teaching folk music, seeking this one moment of universality, that feeling of one-ness, but it was seeing it on the screen that said to me, "Yeah! I get to do that, too!"

Bob

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: DebC
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:55 PM

Jethro Tull...1970...Steeleye Span circa 1972...very early morning on a low power AM station in the northern suburbs of Chicago

Those two moments changed my life.

Debra Cowan

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 06:15 PM

Was that the Jolly Porter?
Was it a floorspot? I can remember Paul and Phil being pissed off cos they wouldn't book them at the Jolly Porter even when they were being booked everywhere else in the country.

I hope they DID get a gig there eventually.

there used to be some nice clubs round Exeter.

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: GUEST,Kevin Parker
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 06:00 PM

When I was about 14, some friends invited me to go along with them to a folk club in Exeter. It was good because the club would let us in, unlike the local pubs and bars. There was a young man at the club playing the fiddle and singing 'Sir Patrick Spens'. I've been hooked on folk music ever since. The performer's name? A very youthful Phil Beer, now of Show of Hands......

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: kendall
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 05:36 PM

July 1959 I was crossing the deck of the schooner Alice Wentworth in Camden Maine. I was going aboard the state patrol boat EXPLORER for our week long patrol of the islands in Penobscot Bay.
As I passed by, there was a young man sitting on a hatch playing the guitar, and making some of the most beautiful music I had ever heard. That was my first encounter with Gordon Bok. I didn't know such music existed.
We became close friends, and have remained so ever since.

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 05:33 PM

The Hootenanny Show on BBC television when I came home from Germany in February 1964 ! And then finding I had joint membership of a Jazz Club AND a Folk Club in Hitchin , with Louis Killen running the Folk club !

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: Chris Green
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 05:28 PM

The Bothy Band Live at the BBC. My guitar teacher at school lent me this album when I was fifteen and the world changed. I liked Fairport, Steeleye et al but hadn't found anything entirely acoustic that did it for me. These guys, however, played traditional jigs and reels on acoustic instruments but with the power and energy of the Who! Listening to Rip The Calico still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up now!

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 05:13 PM

Lonnie

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 04:57 PM

The First Time I ever heard Martin Carthy, both live and on record.

Subject: RE: Your folk epiphanies
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 04:56 PM

oop - nudcat ate my Silly Sisters! what I was going to say was that the songs had a similar effect on me to Little Musgrave, but that grey Funnel Line also introduced me to Cyril Tawney - magic.

Subject: Your folk epiphanies
From: GUEST,Ruth in Cheshire
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 04:53 PM

Listening to the Radio Ballads programme on The Archive Hour tonight, with Sam Larner featured, reminded me of the phrase George P used the other day: having a "Sam Larner Moment".

This refers to Martin Carthy's Damascene experience in seeing Sam Larner for the first time: it opened him up to the world of traditional music.

My generation had some of their "Sam Larner moments" on recording rather than live; but it would be nice of you wanted to share yours. These are 5 of mine:

1) Little Musgrave, Christy Moore, approx 1987: it was a recording, but it was definitely a revelatory moment for me. I'd grown up in America, and had never experienced "folk" beyond the 60s singer/songwriter generation. I heard this song and thought it must be a contemporary pastiche - no folk songs existed that could possibly date from Elizabethan times...did they? When I was assured that Musgrave was "the real deal", as it were, it changed how I thought about folk music forever.

2) Silly Sisters, Maddy Prior/June Tabor, approx 1987/88: This collection of songs had a similar effect on me to little
3) Ian Campbell, 1994: my ex-husband interviewed Ian for a piece on his two rather famous sons. During the interview, my ex mentioned that I had developed an interest in English folk music. Ian invited us down to have an evening out with him and his sister, Lorna, at their local. Afterwards we went back to theirs and sat up, singing and talking, till about 3 am. It was only afterwards that I realised exactly how significant Ian had been in the folk movement. But we were invited to his forthcoming album launch, and Lorna, bless her, asked me to sing. It was a very memorable occasion for me.

4) Peter Bellamy, thanks to Jon Boden, approx 2004: I read a piece in Living Tradition magazine where Jon Boden acknowledged the influence of Peter Bellamy on his singing style. I soon sought out some Peter Bellamy recordings, and was blown away. I could see why he's a love him/hate him sort of performer, but I was hooked from the start. I have started learning some songs from The Transports, because I think these songs represent some of the finest work of the folk revival and are not heard nearly enough.

5) Sam Larner! 2005: My dear friends John and Shiela, when realising I was taking on the daunting prospect of organising a folk festival in Loughborough, decided to take my further folk education in hand. Realising that my knowledge of traditional music was paltry, they started lending me CDs. The first one was, without a doubt, one of the best CDs I've ever heard: Sam Larner's Now's the Time for Fishing. I can't even begin to describe how important that CD was in me discovering and assimilating traditional music. It made me hungry for more; it led to the discovery of wonderful Gypsy singers like Mary Ann Haynes and Phoebe Smith, whom I listen to pretty much every day now because their spirit and power sustains me. I still adore Sam Larner, and he holds a special place in my heart.

it seems sad that most of my "Larner moments" are recorded, but they've led me to some spectacular live experiences. I could have had 20, to be honest, but I didn't want to go on too much!

Right then - who's next?