Who invented Folk Clubs UK

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 01:26 PM

Clipperty clop, clipperty clop - come Al you know how it goes

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 01:18 PM

"Jim, does that mean MacColl was against newly composed songs being sung in a folk club, if they did not use traditional forms."
I was never aware of any prescription of of any type of song being enforced in the club he was involved in.
Visitors sang what they wished and were booked on the basis of what they sang and how well they sang them.
Residents became residents on the same basis - confirmed club policy.
Whether either chose to sing other types of songs occasionally during a performance was a matter for them as long as they didn't interfere with the main policy of the club, though I can't honestly remember residents straying too far from the general folk-repertoire style (the occasional music hall piece being a exception) - matter of personal taste rather than a 'rule'.
I have known audience members complain about singers from too many the floor singing non-folk style songs - seen a letter of complaint to the committee about this.
MacColl occasionally wrote non-folk-style songs himself - 'Nightmare' springs to mind.
Several of the songs for first radio ballad, 'John Axon' were jazz bases and 'The Cabin Boy's Song, from 'Singing the Fishing' was based on Gilbert and Sullivan.
A nuber of the residents sang and recorded songs composed by London songwriter John Pole - not all in folk-style by any means.
It was never a "rule" - just club practice to confine an evening at the Singers Club to folk and folk-style songs - just as it was in many hundreds of other clubs I visited.
I have seen singers (and experienced myself once) specific requests not to sing contemporary songs and I regularly visited several in the North of England which displayed "no instruments" notices on the wall.
All cubs have and are entitled to have their own policy, even if that policy is "we have no policy here".
The dominance of what you find at a club determines what type it is and the quality of the residents is a measure of whether it is a good or bad club IMO.
As for what 'folk style' means - as has interminably been pointed out, if you don't understand folk styles enough to articulate them (not sure I do fully) you tend to recognise them when you hear them.
It's not necessarily a question of style anyway - function and utterance can be a determining factor in the uniqueness of folks song.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 01:13 PM

Sunray, don't be such a great big party pooper. Can't you see it's the railing we enjoy! That can be fun too ~~ otherwise why did you post, eh?

〠~M~〠

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: SunrayFC
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 12:59 PM

Have you guys no life? Singing is fun! Enjoy it, dont rail it!

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 11:10 AM

"MacColl always argued that folk clubs might as well be museums if they didn't present newly composed songs using traditional forms"
Jim, does that mean MacColl was against newly composed songs being sung in a folk club, if they did not use traditional forms.
and what exactly did he mean by traditional forms was he referring to melody or construction of song or both? if he meant melody was he implying that those melodies had to use ONLY A FEW particular modes?

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 10:22 AM

You don't need the air time - the credibility, the wherewithal to spread the word - that's what I thought.
Otherwise - didn't understand a word of your increasingly gibberish gibberish
Still no explanation of what you mean by 'folk Al - c'mon; it's nearly Christmas.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 10:09 AM

no the Irish and the Jamaicans - they aren't po-faced about their music. but they're po-faced about being Irish, American, and Jamaican - in a way that only the most humourless conservative Englishmen are about being English.

And its that inclusiveness that makes our folkclubs so special. Being English is special but not in the way that we need to make a conscious effort and hold our hand on our heart every time the national anthem is played.

We've been here for too many years to get insecure about who we are, and to need phoney aides de memoire about what it took to hold on to who we are.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 08:47 AM

"Ok Jim, calm, calm"
This is calm for me Les - you try living off the Atlantic Coast with its pissing rain and forty mile an hour fog - now that's what I call stormy!
Rosma
It's not really what any club presents that's the problem - it's what it claims to be in the order of things that's the problem and what has caused the damage.
Ireland has had the success it has by knowing what it means by folk/traditional.
Not only has it attracted a significantly large new following, but it has now become a respected art form, opening the door too large research and performance grants, but also gaining access big time to the media.
I can turn the radio or television on and can almost certainly find programmes of and on traditional/folk music and any level of understanding and interest most nights of the week throughout the year.
We fought tooth and nail when I lived in the UK just get a central archive of our recorded music - the end result wan the sound archive at the British Library.
Irish music is in no way po-faced - it is played straight and experimented with - room fall all tastes and inclinations.
The kids coming in are in the process of making it their own music in a way we never managed to.
The lesson is a simple one - take yourself seriously, get some sort of consensus and others will respect you, whether the like your music or not.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 05:21 AM

Ok Jim, calm, calm ..... I am with you all the way, as I think you know.

Do you think the real problem is that Al doesn't know the horse joke? Because surely his position is summed up so well by it and it would save him endlessly repeating all that stuff.

Come on Al, either tell us the horse joke or admit that you don't know it.

Best wishes

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: rosma
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 04:36 AM

I haven't been around as long as some of you, and I haven't been to as many folk clubs as many of you but I have been to a good selection of clubs, sessions, sing-arounds, etc.

I know there are exceptions but in my experience most of these include variety. Yes you usually have people providing traditional English, Scottish and Irish folk (and some of my stuff is too) but variety is what it's usually about. If I was visiting a club I hadn't attended before I would be reluctant to sing on the first visit but if I did I would first assess what other people were singing and not stray too far from it if I could.

At one set of the sessions I used to go to we would say to any newcomer "Can you sing, dance, recite a poem, juggle?" It's whatever gets people involved.

The only limitation is usually that it needs to be acoustic, though a chap did once turn up to a session with an electric guitar and that was OK too - as a one-off. There were strange looks but no one complained. If you can get people in you might just turn some of them to the music you like but if you don't, at least they're keeping it live.

I find it's a given that a folk club includes British folk songs and tunes, shanties, European folk, military songs, blues, Americana, humour / parody, singer-songwriter, classical guitar, monologue / poetry, and a few other outliers to make up the mix. Let it long be so, I say.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: johncharles
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 03:57 AM

where did the singing horse get to? Have I missed it?
john

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 03:37 AM

"So it is OK to sing songs that don't fit the 1954 definition in folk clubs?"
Who on earth ever claimed it wasn't?
Definitions are for discussion such as these and for documentation so we might make some sort of sense of what we do, write about and pass on.
As someone who likes to listen to folk song for pleasure, I want the right to choose the type of music I listen to; I what to know what clubs I am likely to hear it in, or what shelves I can find it in a record or bookshop.
If I make the effort to go to a club and come away without hearing anything that resembles a folk song in any shape or form, which happened often enough for me to stop going to strange clubs entirely, I feel I have been conned - it's sharp practice; it is no way to assist the music to survive.
Having argued with Al before on other subjects, it doesn't really surprise me that this isn't a consideration with him.
No musical form will survive if the punters turn up to find that they are being passed off with something else other than what they know to be their choice of music – transfer Al's attitude to jazz, classics, any pop music venue...... and see how much sense it makes.
Whatever the weaknesses and however much in need of repair, the existing definition brings with it some form of consensus – it is certainly worth more than the sneers and avoidance it gets som some quarters.
Anybody coming new to the music and deciding they want to know something about it can be pointed in a definite direction - the folk song and music is, by its very nature, if different,; it has a different history, its origins and utterances are unique, it's place in our culture has an importance of its own.
I came to folk via the clubs – The Spinners opened the doors into a rich varied and entertaining scene for me – from there I could go anywhere I liked without too much trouble.
If I wanted to listen to country and western I didn't even have to leave the building – I could go to the basement and hear Hank Walters.
I went to The Cavern to listen to the best of jazz (in those days).
They all brought with them their own uniqueness and identity – they all stood on their own two feet and said "this is me – this is what I am".
Folk clubs used to be part of that uniqueness, now only some of them are and you have to go out of your way to find which ones are and which ones have no idea what they are or what they are doing (Al certainly appears not to be able to explain his music other than to sneer at what others are doing.
A newby no longer stands a chance, which can't be good for the music as a whole; I can't see how it can do Al's music any good either if it has no identity of its own.
I'm sure you are fully aware of all this - what's your point Bryan?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 02:37 AM

I always fancied being a Roman soldier. I've always fancied Nerys Hughes in The Liver Birds.....its that look.

A velour top, a suede mini skirt, maybe a dazzling flash of white panties......I just have a feeling I could carry it off quite well...

amo, amas, amat....

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 09:49 PM

G'day Big Al ...

It's a bit of hazard going back to the Latin ...

... '\"tradere": 'hand on' OR 'betray' ...

Well, who trusred the Romans anyway ...?

regards,

BobB

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: SunrayFC
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 08:56 PM

Don't get me started.....

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 07:22 PM

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:54 PM

snail ....its okay. you don't need anyone's permission to sing anything. its what our dad's fought hitler about - amongst other things.

you can even pick your own tradition.
tradition comes from latin ; traditio = I hand over.
look with honesty at what has been handed over to you. the songs you sang as a child, the songs your parents sang, the songs you used to celebrate love death, the whole shooting match.

that's what was handed to you its a great responsibility - don't hand it over to some ideologue who can't see past the end of next weeks session.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: TheSnail
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:23 PM

Jim Carroll

MacColl always argued that folk clubs might as well be museums if they didn't present newly composed songs using traditional forms

So it is OK to sing songs that don't fit the 1954 definition in folk clubs?

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 04:48 PM

At the end of 2013, Vic & Tina Smith of Folk at the Royal Oak Lewes are stepping down. We've asked them do a special evening at Lewes Saturday Folk Club on 29th. March 2014 at which they will not only sing and play as usual, but give a presentation on their fifty years of running folk clubs for mainly traditional music. They have always made a point of booking source singers as well as modern performers; their Sussex Singers Nights featuring The Copper Family, George Belton, Bob Lewis, Bob Blake, Cyril Phillips and Scan Tester were an inspiration to me when I was in my teens.

The evening will be entertaining, nostalgic and highly instructive for anyone interested in a tested method of running a folk club over a very long time. Entrance will be £5 and floor singers will, as always, be welcome. We'll start at 7.30 p.m. rather than the usual 8.00 p.m. to give Vic and Tina extra time.

By the way, I think this presentation could usefully be put on at festivals and anywhere else where people might welcome informed practical guidance about how to run a traditional music club.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 04:38 PM

'they folk songs 'the old songs' or my father's songs' or 'Traveller songs'

so some travellers that Jim ran into in the arse end of nowhere get to decide what is folk music for all of us. just so we know what you souls liberated from my reasoning are held in thrall by.

I think I'd better leave you to it. a life codified and tidied up in definitions supplied by the British Library and 'those in the know'.

I think I prefer a life - more life like and untidied up.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 03:01 PM

"no they used Pink Floyd's Brick in the Wall"
Which isn't by a million miles folk music - in Soweto or here - what's your point Al?
The Travellers used MacColl's Freeborn Man, Thirty Foot Trailer and the Moving On Song as I means of self-identification - it doesn't make them folk songs either.
The ones we interview didn't reckon the C and W songs they all sang as folk either, they folk songs 'the old songs' or my father's songs' or 'Traveller songs (all up for listening at the British Library.
It seems the only ones who can't tell their fork arse from their elobows are he folkies from Boggart Hole Clough and the rest of you.
Sorry Mike - didn't read your posting in context.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 03:01 PM

"no they used Pink Floyd's Brick in the Wall"
Which isn't by a million miles folk music - in Soweto or here - what's your point Al?
The Travellers used MacColl's Freeborn Man, Thirty Foot Trailer and the Moving On Song as I means of self-identification - it doesn't make them folk songs either.
The ones we interview didn't reckon the C and W songs they all sang as folk either, they folk songs 'the old songs' or my father's songs' or 'Traveller songs (all up for listening at the British Library.
It seems the only ones who can't tell their fork arse from their elobows are he folkies from Boggart Hole Clough and the rest of you.
Sorry Mike - didn't read your posting in context.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 02:57 PM

"Folk decide what is folk music. I know you wish it was you. But its not. "
.,,.,
Nice try, Al. Good way of trying to bring off what Macbeth said the Witches were doing, of "paltering with us in a double sense". You are not really as stupid as you would wish to appear here, in pretending not to realise that you are using the word "folk" in two distinct senses:

a. that of simply a synonym for 'people'; and

b. that of the designation for a precise æsthetic genre.

You know the difference whatever you pretend; so that your statement is not the wise aperçu, which by your tone you would wish us to believe; but just a not very good or profound pun.

So, having demolished this convoluted and inaccurate invocation of the concept of 'folk', to take up your second point:

If it's not me, what makes you think it's you?

Best regards

~M~

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 02:36 PM

No but Al - the horse, the horse joke it says it all really

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 01:58 PM

I have never agreed with Bert Lloyd about folkmusic being a minority - ploughmaen lying in bed at night with lonely muse aS they honed their words to perfection.

bit of a face saver for traddies who know they sound weird to the general population.

when people need a song to tell them about Nelson Mandela -did they turn to one one of Ewan;s many finely crafted songs - no they turned that bloke out of Fun Boy Three,

When the Sowetans wanted to protest about Afrikaan being the language used in the school -did theyturn to a product from all their friends in the Critics Group - no they used Pink Floyd's Brick in the Wall.
The best song about the English class system - Leon Rosselson maybe - no he hasn't done anything as strong as Pulp's Common People.

Folk decide what is folk music. I know you wish it was you. But its not.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 08:54 AM

I like Howard's model - it does describe things very well. What ever the label people give to a public event it needs to help the public understand what the event might be like.

Many of us are clear about what we would expect in a Folk Club and Open Mike events have evolved - and more power to them - to give people who sing almost anything - an opportunity to do so. I have been to a few and probably wont go again. But all live music is good.

But Al, tell us the one about the horse - you know we like that!

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 06:14 AM

No, Bert didn't support it Jim. You missed my point. Where I agreed with him was that the 'horse' statement was 'a dreary axiom' [Bert's formulation]. My 'I don't' was an ironic response to Les's "Go on Al - tell us about horses not singing - we like that one".

Of course the original 'horse' thing was a silly off-cuff joke [by Satch or Broonzy or whoever is this week's candidate for having first said it] which got taken over-seriously & so got out of hand.

~M~

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 06:00 AM

"The trouble with that is that you have then abandoned all rules and the choice is purely subjective."
o I have not Bryan (sorry about previous mis-spelling)
We came into the revival back in the early sixties to a mixture of new songs and traditional songs - CND, political songs mainly - no conflict, no attempt to claim one was the other.
MacColl always argued that folk clubs might as well be museums if they didn't present newly composed songs using traditional forms - that's what we did, that's what we believed - nothing new, no opening doors to pop songs, just a recognised practice in most cubs.
The few clubs that banned new songs and instrumental accompaniment were generally singled out as being 'antiquarian'.
This is not what clowns like Al are arguing for (still no specific description Al - must accept that you believe that anything not sung by a horse is a folk song - how quaintly out-of-date).
He is not only abandoning any description to what goes on in his club (they were singled out as anything-goes clubs way back when), but he is claiming that whatever goes on in his club, or any club which terms themselves as 'folk' must be folk song - stupid or what?
Once again I must bow to Howard's skill with words - he puts it far more articulately than I do.
"I don't: I agree with Bert Lloyd"
Didn't think Bert supported the singing horse idea.
Somebody pointed out that the original statement, whoever said it, what a witty remark that got out of hand when it was taken seriously - am inclined to agree
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: TheSnail
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:56 AM

Not quite, Howard. I think everybody thinks that where they are is the centre and everything else forms concentric rings around that.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Howard Jones
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 04:40 AM

I would describe the folk scene as a series of concentric circles. If the term 'folk' is to mean anything at all, this must have traditional music at its core – the Harry Coxes, Sam Larners, the Coppers and their like. Surrounding this you have the folk revival – modern singers interpreting traditional material in various ways which we can recognise, if not easily define, as typical of the folk revival aesthetic.

Outside this it starts to get more complicated. You have those interpreting traditional material in un-folky ways – I would put folk-rock here, and Bellowhead. I might also include those concert acts which have become too large and dare I say too complex for folk clubs – June Tabor, Kate Rusby, the Unthanks. However you also have those writing and performing non-traditional material that sounds is if it should be trad – writers like Ewan MacColl, Keith Marsden, perhaps Eric Bogle.

Further out you have the 'contemporary' folk, people writing their own songs which don't draw much on traditional styles or structures, but nevertheless performing them in a way which bears some relationship to the revival styles found closer to the centre. This might also include those who perform acoustic versions of popular songs.

Out at the margins you have the comedians, poets, monologuists, jugglers and other hangers-on who appear to have little connection to traditional folk at all but who have somehow managed to latch onto the folk scene, perhaps because no one else will have them. You might also find those performing music which has no relationship to traditional musical structures and doesn't use conventionally folky instrumentation, and whose only connection is that one of the band once did a floor spot in a folk club.

Clearly, the further out you are from the core the more likely it is that there will be disagreements over whether this is really 'folk'.

The boundaries are of course blurred. Many performers straddle these zones to a greater or lesser extent, but most can be defined as belonging to one or another. Likewise the taste of most audience members will straddle the zones (as well as encompassing other genres which fall entirely outside this model). Individual folk clubs may centre themselves anywhere, but the further out from the centre they are the less likely they are to be recognisable as 'folk clubs', at least as far as Jim Carroll and those of his way of thinking are concerned (I include myself). Big Al, on the other hand, on the evidence of his website is himself positioned some way out from the centre and therefore understandably considers 'folk club' to be a valid description for these.

I think I should patent this idea and offer it to folk clubs as a marketing tool. They could then describe themselves as fitting into Band 1, Band 2 etc, and even publish a graphic on their websites indicating where in the circle they consider themselves to be. Then both Jim and Al will know which ones they can safely visit.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: johncharles
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 04:11 AM

The clue is in the title "FOLK" club. For those with broader tastes there seem to be a whole raft of events; open mic, acoustic open mike, virtually open mic etc. where anything seems to go. I am told some of these even allow poets to perform; usually a sign for me that I should be elsewhere.
john

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 04:10 AM

BTW, Les. I did recognise your irony. I was just building on it.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 04:09 AM

I don't: I agree with Bert Lloyd who called it 'a dreary axiom'. I always say the I have never seen a horse dancing in a tutu either: so does that make Swan Lake & Coppelia folk dances?

~M~

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 03:49 AM

Go on Al - tell us about horses not singing - we like that one

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 08:10 PM

should read


'In forty years I cannot recall ever having heard anyone sing an Elvis song or a Buddy Holly song in a folk club. '

wel all I can say in forty years you can have been to bloody few folk clubs. in face of your complete ignorance, let me explain what jim is endlessly bitching about.

some kids have been influenced by Eva Cassidy who played acoustic guitar and sang some Buddy Holly songs in her repertoire. Some older people were influenced by Don Maclean - a man who was influenced by Josh White Elvis Presley, pete seeger and Buddy Holly. Most contemporary English folksingers were influenced by John Cash who - whatever the hardships of the character in the song /story he was performing, delivered it in epic style - rather than the snivelling miserable quavering voice so loved by traddies.

jim feels the traddies are right and the rest of humanity are infra dig.
something tells me you agree with his opinion. don't worry - seek liberation inside your shell, mon petite escargot.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 07:23 PM

'In forty years I cannot recall ever having heard anyone sing an Elvis song or a Buddy Holly song in a folk club. '

wel all I can say in forty years you can have been to bloody few folk clubs. in face of your complete ignorance, let me explain what jim is endlessly bitching about.

some kids have been influenced by Eva Cassidy who played acoustic guitar and sang some Buddy Holly songs in her repertoire. Some older people were influenced by Don Mac, pete seegerlean - a man who was influenced by Josh White Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. Most contemporary English folksingers were influenced by John Cash who - whatever the hardships of the character in the song /story he was performing, delivered it in epic style - rather than the snivelling miserable quavering voice so loved by traddies.

jim feels the traddies are right and the rest of humanity are infra dig.
something tells me you agree with his opinion. don't worry - seek liberation inside your shell, mon petite escargot.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: GUEST,johncharles
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 06:48 PM

I must get down to Sussex one of these days.
john

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: TheSnail
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 05:07 PM

GUEST,johncharles

folk club party tonight expect we will sing some carrolls *<:)

Here's a little something we're doing in Sussex this Christmas - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgInUHrWIf4

Note the reactions of Will Duke and Bob Lewis when Stuart Walker conducts a little too enthusiastically.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: TheSnail
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 04:14 PM

Not being facetious Jym, just trying to make a valid point. I'm glad you've never attempted to restrict what goes on in a folk club. You might well have been politely requested to go forth and multiply if you'd tried. You have, however, expressed some strong opinions about what should or should not go on in a folk club. Correct me if I am wrong but I think you have said that a certain amount of written material informed by the tradition was acceptable. You gave me a list of examples. It might include, for instance, the works of Ewan Macoll.

The trouble with that is that you have then abandoned all rules and the choice is purely subjective. If someone wants to sing Elvis, your own rules allow them to do so.

A couple of points -

I haven't taken the slightest bit of notice of anything Big Al says for quite some time. I recommend it. I think you will find it liberating.

In forty years I cannot recall ever having heard anyone sing an Elvis song or a Buddy Holly song in a folk club.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 02:28 PM

... Terry: my recollection is that Sandy called up a young man called Terry to sing at Eel Pie Island. He sang a couple of Irish songs. I said 'hi' to him at the end, & mentioned Peter Kennedy's monthly folk afternoons at Cecil Sharp House, the next one of which the following Sunday I was due to chair. The young man called Terry came in a bit after the start, & I said "One of the best young Irish singers I have herd for good while has just come in. His name is Terry & I met him recently at Eel Pie Island. How about a song. Terry?", and he sang "Moriar-i-ty". At the end, I remember, a young woman called Jennie Leathers, who had earlier sung the McPeakes' Jug Of Punch, went over to chat him up.

I think that Terry might well have been you. Any bells rung?

~M~

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 02:12 PM

"You'll have to remind of your name, although the old grey cells are not what they used to be."

.,,.
Hi, Terry. Thanks for response. I think you may be the same man that I remember. It was a good while ago -- 55 years by my reckoning!

My name is Michael Grosvenor Myer [in those days it was just Michael Myer].

~M~

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 12:33 PM

Tony McCarthy emigrated to Australia to work, I believe, in broadcasting/TV.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 11:19 AM

He can't Jim

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 11:00 AM

"the greatest influence on his Dad's generation of singers was Al Jolson"
So what Al - are you suggesting Al Jolson was a folk singer - a Bridge too far even for you.
Go to South Wales and you'll find hundreds of miners choirs singing opera - Verdi a folk composer - come onnnnn.
I eat food - I'd crawl over broken glass to sample a South Indian vegetarian curry at this moment - all down to my choice in what I want to eat/listen to at any given moment - a right you are happy to deprive me of it would seem.
Stop talking gibberish and tell us how you define what happens in your club - what can I expect, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Singalonga-Max, give us a clue.
The majority of people's particular tastes in music are a thousand miles away from folk music, and thanks to the efforts of people like your good self, are likely to remain that way for the forseeable future - Attila the Hun could have taken lessons from you people in how to tear down something that some people took centuries to pass on to us.
By the way, of all the people to choose, Ian Campbell was both knowledgeable and articulate in explaining what he meant by folk music - he didn't faff around in hiding his opinions.
If I was ever at a loose end in Birmingham The Jug of Punch was fairly high on my 'go to' list.
Unable - unwilling to comprehend.... until you explain what you mean by folk - either will do.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 09:55 AM

I also recollect the late Ian Campbell telling me the greatest influence on his Dad's generation of singers was Al Jolson - so what I'm proposing is not a new idea. And it has occurred to others far more distinguished in their achievements than I.

If you find the ideas inane -maybe you just are unable to comprehend, or unwilling.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: GUEST,johncharles
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 08:47 AM

folk club party tonight expect we will sing some carrolls *<:)

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 08:21 AM

"Would it be OK to sing a Ewan Macoll song in a folk club?"
Don't be facetious Brian - I've have never attempted to restrict what goes on in a folk club, I just object to turning up at one and not hearing a folk song.
I'm still chasing this myth about folk song being re or de-defined and trying to find out what that re-definition is, if it really exists - next stop Loch Ness!
I really didn't start this, but Al's insecurity seems not to allow him to make a comment on folk clubs without taking a pop at those of us who are delusional enough to believe that we know what folk song is - silly us!!
Wot Howard just said with knobs on.
Happy Christmas to all, just in case I die of boredom or anticipation before the event in a 'folk club' (as distinct from a folk club)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Howard Jones
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 06:47 AM

Al, no one disagrees with the fact that the 'folk' have voted with their feet. For decades, mass culture has been more interested in commercial popular music than in traditional music. That may or may not be regrettable, depending on your point of view.

However it is irrelevant to what goes on in folk clubs. These were never intended to reflect current popular or 'folk' culture - they are governed by an aesthetic approach rather than a sociological or ethnomusicological one. The folk clubs were (and are) places to enjoy a specific musical genre, which has at its core a particular style of treating traditional material.

For reasons partly to do with the origins of the folk revival and partly to do with an ethos of encouraging ordinary people to perform, folk clubs have always been more or less accepting of quite a wide range of other types of music which have only a tenuous relationship either to the core tradition or the revival style of playing. That is both their strength and their weakness. It has meant however that folk clubs have been seen as a suitable outlet for a wide range of performers who don't fit easily into other genres and might otherwise find it difficult to find other venues in which to perform.

They have also come to regard their music as 'folk' and may come to believe that they have an automatic right to be accepted in folk clubs, and may even feel aggrieved when their talents are not as widely appreciated as they feel they deserve. The reality is simply that their music is on the fringe of what the folk clubs are based upon, and will only find a limited audience within this genre.

I don't think most other genres would be as tolerant. Try going into a jazz club or classical music group with your guitar or melodeon - I think you'll soon be asked more or less politely to try elsewhere.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: TheSnail
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 06:42 AM

Would it be OK to sing a Ewan Macoll song in a folk club? We've got Jon Heslop and John Connolly booked next year. Is that alright?

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 06:34 AM

Ewan once said he didn't consider himself a ' songwriter ' he just made some stuff up.

Dave H