Who invented Folk Clubs UK

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 08:20 AM

Xlnt post GSS but I still want Al to tell the horse story

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 08:40 AM

Can't see a single thing that contradicts what I have said - I have put that same letter up to show that it was club policy to base what happened there on Folk songs as we know it.
It was a policy confirmed on a regular basis by the audience committee, of which Pat and I were members for over ten years, that we restrict our nights to Folk and Folk based songs, with the exceptions I have already mentioned.
As Peggy's letter said "This policy was meant for OUR club, not for other clubs."
It is exactly what I said and exactly what I mean.
Peggy's letter was a response in support of a previous letter of mine and Pat's (The Living Tradition - about three issues previous to Peggy's letter) making the points I am making here - we entitled it "Where have all the folk songs gone"
What is your point, but please don't make this another of your stalking campaigns.
"Ewan was very a good songwriter, I would have been interested in the answer, was traditional style based on tunes [that only used certain modes] or lyric structure or both?"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 09:12 AM

"Ewan was very a good songwriter, I would have been interested in the answer, was traditional style based on tunes [that only used certain modes] or lyric structure or both?"
Sorry - missed a bit - as I have indicated - you'll have to ask him
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 12:24 PM

"By the way - Ewan MacColl didn't "write" folk songs"
not intentionally but some of them have become that, which is in my opinion a compliment to his song writing skills.
however I asked Jim a question in an attempt to be fair, since he will not answer the question, I have to assume from his statement, "macColl encouraged people to compose songs USING TRADITIONAL FORMS", so it is not unreasonable to assume that he did not encourage song writers to perform at his club who did not use traditional forms.
I wonder what his reaction would have been if John Lennon had turned up and sang Imagine[ a song that has incidentally inspired millions of people to question the warmongers of this world]
and still we do not know what this term tradtional form means, does it mean that songs have to be written in a question or answer patternlike tradtional songs "Swan swims so bonny" or is it meaning the use of only 3 particular modes.
whichever way it is imposing an inibition on the creativity of song writers, it is restriting them to working within a limited perameter.
why is Imagine less of a folk song than masters of war?

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 12:34 AM

strangely enough Nottanum Town on which Masters of War is supposedly based was the one song I did ask MacColl about. He was very friendly and gave me some ideas.

I sometimes tell a story about the bath/horse trough that Lancashire police horses drink out of, and was the bath that Buck Ruxton dismembered his wife and maidservant in. I also wrote and occasionally perform a song called Buster the Line Dancing Dog.

However the horse joke escapes me. If I told you it Les, it was perhaps whilst I was in an altered state of consciousness.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 04:06 AM

Oh, come on Al don't be like that - you know the story .......


....... Folk music? Folk music ...... it's all Folk music .....

... I never heard .......

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 04:56 AM

nottamun town which was collected from jean ritchie shares the same tune as masters of war.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: johncharles
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 05:02 AM

is it the tale about the horse with a long face listening to tales of whoa?
john

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 05:10 AM

Very good John, but no, Al must know mustn't he - he knows so much about .................

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: johncharles
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 05:28 AM

"I guess all songs is folk songs. I never heard no horse sing 'em."
Big Bill Broonzy
He should have checked youtube

small horse
john

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 06:14 AM

A horse is a horse, of course of course.

Obviously never heard of Mr Ed either

:D tG

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 06:16 AM

Not really my style Les, I do tend to specialise in jokes that make people laugh - albeit showing a complete lack of good taste.

just one of those predjudices commonly held by clowns.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 06:43 AM

The 'never·heard·a·horse' bollox also attributed to Louis Armstrong. Bert Lloyd called it 'a dreary axiom', as I remarked above. My reply (as I might have said before but never mind) is that I've never seen a horse dance in a tutu, so does that make Swan Lake a folk dance?

~M~

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 10:39 AM

Hello Al, I just wondered why it took you so long to respond.

I started this thread to explore the origin and evolution of Folk Clubs in the UK because I think they have been and remain an amazing phenomena.I think that question has been answered but as often happens on here we get back to the "What is Folk" question and "Why are their less Folk Clubs than their used to be".

I will do what most people do on here I probably want go back and read eveything again. But somewhere between the 1954 definition (songs from within a community, passed on orally, author uknown) and the looser - anything sung in a folk club since 1954 - lie many, many definitions or descriptions.

I guess yours lies near the second of these two?

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 11:11 AM

I suppose I became aware of folk music as a term applied by radio dj's to recordings of groups like the Kingston Trio - that would be around 1958 when I was nine.

By the time Seeger and Dylan were having their glory glory years in the early 60's - folk seemed to me, and I suspect to the general public in England like a great artistic movement. Iwould imagine that is still the understanding of most English people. Donovan, corn dollies, The Yetties....

Names like Ewan MacColl and Cecil Sharp and AL Lloyd - they were turning up in books by Oak Publications. Even though we did not realise we had met them already in Singing Together on the radio when we were kids.

I would agree - not everything in folk clubs is folk music. But I look on everyone who comes into a folk club as being a possible recruit to the great adventure called Folk.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 11:41 AM

Same route Al, same people - throw in the Spinners, Clancy's and Dubliners and all your other points - especially the last sentence.

This will by my 50th year performing in folk clubs so I don't have time to waste. When it's called a Folk Club I would settle for 50.1% folks songs collected in or before the 19C. I want lots of open mike events so that live music of all kinds can be found.

I would like English Folk Music to have the popularity and standing that Irish Folk Music has - I am not sure why - probably because I think it would make lots of people happy.

Best wishes

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 12:14 PM

But I look on everyone who comes into a folk club as being a possible recruit to the great adventure called Folk.
That's the real point, the person who turns up thinking that "folk" means Mumford needs enough to hold them until they can realise what else there is.

OK, I like the heavy "finger in the ear" end of folk and if places with a population to support one clubs like that then all the better. The important thing is for clubs to be clear in their publicity about what they are offering and what their core audience expects, not just the bland "all types welcome" which isn't always true by any means.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 02:54 PM

I agree there's a lot to enjoy in E, and in particular nglish Folk music and it would be great to give it a higher profile and for it to be more highly valued.

but bear in mind, who was it slagging off the popularisers like the Corries, The Spinners, The Yetties, etc. when they were most active - it was English trad purists.

in England we are horrid to musicians = the purists are the most horrid.
'that's not what I call traditional jazz - not with a saxophone'
'that's not country music - not with a loud drummer like that'
'that's not bluegrass....not real bluegrass'

I've been listening to shit like that all my working life as a musician.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 05:49 AM

That's as maybe. But a point that Jim Carrol made earlier is important; all kinds of music goes on in Ireland and excellent world-class traditional folk music is part of that and is extremely popular with the general public.

No doubt their will be many reasons musical, political and social.

I am not suggesting that we will get to an understanging of the success of traditional Irish folk music here or that we can simply follow the Irish experience even if we wanted to. But I do feel we could learn something from that experience.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 06:28 AM

"That's as maybe. But a point that Jim Carrol made earlier is important; all kinds of music goes on in Ireland and excellent world-class traditional folk music is part of that and is extremely popular with the general public."
I live in Ireland, that in my opinionthat is partly true but is an over simplification.
country and western is more popular,
within trad music unusual phnomena appear, there are very few folk clubs, there are a lot of venues where music is background music, there are a few singers clubs[with strict rules about unaccompanied singing only]there are tradtional instrumental music sessions where only a small amount of singing is encouraged, so there is a divide amongst trad music of singer and instrumentalists, there are very few clubs where singer songwriters are encouraged to perform in a listening environment, most singer songwriters end up performing in pubs and end up being wall paper music, i find this sad because to me lyrics are important., the only place people listen to lyrics are in singers clubs, or the ocasional song which is a break for trad instrumentalists, all is not entirely rosy in the irish folk garden.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 07:53 AM

well there of course lies the problem.

being English we decide that country music isn't folk music. Personally I used to love that thing of playing in an Irish club where you'd do Black Velvet Band, orThe Galway shawl in waltz time and the floor would fill up with dancers.

It felt like something folkish was going on to me. And frankly something at a deeper more instinctive level than much more prestigious forms of folk music.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 09:27 AM

but black velvet band and galway shawl have no connection with country and western or country and irish, their roots are not in american old timey music they are irish songs, black velvet band is an irish transportation folk song, galway shawl , relates a meeting between two people and mentions playing irish tradtional tunes, how is that a country song?

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 09:29 AM

"and excellent world-class traditional folk music is part of that and is extremely popular with the general public."
o intention of getting bogged down in one of Dick's mud-fields, but can I put this in context.
It really doesn't matter how popular which or whatever music is "more" popular (nobody can claim traditional music has been "more popular" than any other form for a long time in these islands) - Irish traditional music has come into its own at long last here, thanks to the dedication of people who didn't faff about trying to please all of the people all of the time and didn't stumble around trying to re-invent it to please a bunch of hangers on who wouldn't recognise a folk song if they stumbled over an eight volume set of The Greig Duncan collection - and wouldn't like it if they knew what it was.
Over twenty-odd years ago there were accounts of musicians being turned out of pubs if they were carrying musical instruments - certainly they were never welcomed over the howls of 'That'll be the Day' coming from the juke boxes.
Kevin Glackin described how he went to music lessons with his fiddle tucked under his coat for fear of being jeered at or even set upon by his schoolmates.
Nowadays, around here, in Donegal and other counties, traditional music (proper) is on the rise.
I can go out three/four nights a week and hear good traditional music well played in the pubs in our single-street town - not as background music, though any public playing has its hazards, and always has had.
Local families like the McCarthys are now entering into their third generation as traditional music, youngsters are coming into the music in a steady stream.
The country has two magnificent world-class archives and traditional music is now part of the curriculum in several universities.
The media coverage is as I described it above - later on this year we hope to be putting together a programme (series maybe) on the work of Ewan MacColl for national radio.
We did a three part series on national radio on Irish Travellers in London a couple of years ago.
Our collection of around 300 songs from west Clare goes up on the county library web-site for public access in March (hopefully).
The situation is uneven - Dick's part of the world may be as he described - who knows, with a little effort and a little less self-absorption, he might be able to play a part in improving the situaion there, but it seems more than a little perverse to point out that Country and Western is more popular - so is Kylie Minogue, or Lady Gaga - so what - that's why "popular music" got its name.
It no way detracts from the importance of traditional music; not does it change the fact that Ireland now has a base to build on for the future.
I don't give a toss whose music is more popular than our is - I do know that it's only by focusing on what we do and what we mean my 'traditional' and 'folk' not by trying to decide whether 'Masters of War' and 'Imagine' are more folkie than one another.
Back to the archiving
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 12:55 PM

well you segue into Goodnight Irene - you get my meaning.

I guess you're right |Jim. you lot started up the folk clubs. the English people sodded it up because they didn't think Saturday night in a museum of folk music constituted a decent night out

Still it seems that you're quite happy and everything is to your liking over where you are.

so no harm done
apart from to our sacred heritage - which we don't seem to give a bugger about.

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 01:19 PM

" the English people sodded it up because they didn't think Saturday night in a museum of folk music constituted a decent night out"
Not as simple as that Al - but even if it was, so what?
The English people made folk song - just say they have now disowned it, it doesn't make a gnats cock of difference - they made something beautiful that lasted for centuries and became an essential part of our history, culture and entertainment.
We may have managed it better and it may get more attention that it is now getting (if it wasn't for the morons in between - (as the song nearly says) - but it will be around long after we are for others to enjoy - long after we're gone and the Boggart Hole Clough Folk Club is a "where" in people's memories.
In the meantime, we'll have to soldier on and continue to amuse ourselves as best we can.
Happy Christmas Al and all
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 02:21 PM

Clancys, Dubliners, Johnstons, Chieftains, Planxty, De Dannan, Patrick Street, Bothy Band, Altan, Clannad, Danu, Fureys, Lunasa .....

Seems an amazing collection of musicians that are just some of the Irish bands that were and some still are popular with the widest audience in Ireland, in the UK and in many cases around the world.

They have all stayed close to traditional music.

UK folk bands as popular as these? Steeleye? Fairport? Spinners?

And now? Bellowhead

Population of Ireland 4.5 million. Population of UK 63 million.

We are currently going through a great blossoming of English traditional music - Spiers & Boden, New Albion Band, Lady Maisery, Emily Portman, Jackie Oats, Jim Morray, Maukin/Causley, Demon Barbers, all those in Bellowhead who perform in 1s, 2s and 3s.Melrose Quartet .....

All groups making great music and staying close to traditional songs and tunes.

So, looks like it can be done.

We run a singaround every 1st & 3rd Wednesday in Chorlton, Manchester and some of the people who come are very good, most of us get by and some are not good. We have a tunes session on 2nd & 4th mostly English and steady. Around 20 of us appear as a Ceilidh Band. I can honestly say that most of the public would not enjoy our singaround but I can also say that when ever and where ever we play tunes, English Country Dance Tunes - people always enjoy them.

Maybe its what Irish Bands discovered years ago that tunes and songs are better than just songs?

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 02:27 PM

In any event, Al, museums are valuable places serving a valuable purpose. Don't you feel it a bit unworthy to use the word as a term of belittlement and abuse?

Regards

~M~

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 03:13 PM

"The situation is uneven - Dick's part of the world may be as he described - who knows, with a little effort and a little less self-absorption, he might be able to play a part in improving the situaion there,"
Jim your post is partronising and rude and inaccurate.https://sites.google.com/site/thefastnetmaritimeandfolkfest/

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 03:34 PM

no not really Mike lots of love and much respect at Christmas and always
al

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 08:36 AM

Jim Carroll, I also run a monthly singers circle, and organise a weekly trad tunes session, and organise a yearly folk festival do you organise anything yourself?

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 08:43 AM

And to you likewise, Al ~~ all best Seasonal Compliments from Emma & me.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 08:47 AM

"Maybe its what Irish Bands discovered years ago that tunes and songs are better than just songs?"
Both are important Les and one is never "better" than the other unless you measure the value of your culture by the numbers of bums on seats.
Always worth remembering that Shakespeare went through periods - sometimes centuries without audiences.
Tried to get into 'Dream' when I was in London - not a snowball's chance...
Even as archived and studied material, folksong is one of the most important aspects of our culture, whether people come to listen to it or not.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 09:54 AM

As I mentioned above, we have songs and tunes an alternating weeks and sometimes together - overlapping groups of people.

With the odd exception the most popular groups currently out of Ireland or the UK offer a mixture of songs and tunes - and quite a few through in clog dancing in the UK

Subject: RE: Who invented Folk Clubs UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 11:18 AM

We are lucky enough to have a weekly music session which also caters for and encourages singers - not common.
Some musicians tend to treat singing as a sing-'n-chat break, on the other hand (as was recently pointed out), some singers will use music as 'wallpaper', yet still expect silence when they sing.
Give and take does it.
Strangely - or maybe not so - it is always the solo musician who manages to command respect and attention in a pub session.
I've related this before but worth repeating I think:
At the time of veteran fiddle-player, Junior Crehan's death, spme fifteen years ago, local radio did a long obituary programme where they interviewed numerous musicians who had played with him.
Junior, as well as being an extremely important musician, was also a fine storyteller and singer.
One friend, also a veteran fiddler, Joe Ryan, was asked about the singing side of Junior's talents, and why some musicians were not interested in, and sometimes hostile towards singing.
He replied that at the time when music was always played in farmhouse kitchens the singing usually took place at the end of the evening when the musicians and dancers had had enough.
Joe said he could never get away from associating singing with the end of an enjoyable night's entertainment.
Some of Ireland's great musicians were also singers - Josie McDermott, Mary Anne Carolan, Willie Clancy, Johnny Doherty and many others were musicians as well as singers.
The last time we saw Kevin Burke he was singing imn addition to enthralling the audience with his fiddle playing.
He even sang one he had made himself, about the music pubs in London.
The great Seamus Ennis's contribution to traditional song was as important as his playing - certainly as a collector and passer-on of both
Jim Carroll