BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK

Subject: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 03:04 PM

From http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2013/10/bbc-radio-6-music-folk-radio-uk-the-ultimate-folk-playlist/

BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK: The Ultimate Folk Playlist
10 OCTOBER 2013
by ALEX GALLACHER
in FEATURED
To celebrate the launch by The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) of The Full English, an online portal of manuscripts and archive from the collections of Frank Sidgwick, Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams and many others – Tom Robinson at BBC 6 Music is to feature an Ultimate Folk Playlist this coming Sunday 13th October at 6:00pm on Now Playing @6 Music. To help put this together Folk Radio UK have been asked to get involved and this is where you can help.

We have selected Six artists which you can listen to below. All you need to do is let us know which of these six artists you think best reflects the alternative side of folk music. I will be introducing the selected artist and a track during the show so make sure you tune in.

Here is the link

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 05:40 PM

"alternative side of folk music" ??
Can you please explain what you mean by this phrase.
Do you mean NOT folk music, or do you use the oft quoted Big Bill Broonzy quip "it's all folk music, you don't hear horses singing it" as your criteria?

Just wondering
Hoot

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Oct 13 - 11:13 AM

Your as bad as Hitler, to be honest, literally.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: Reinhard
Date: 12 Oct 13 - 02:25 AM

"alternative side of folk music" is a journalistic meaningless wishy-washy phrase that could qualify anything. I'd recommend Ravel's Bolero.

The six songs presented here are nice songs of the pop or singer/songwriter genre if I had to pidgeonhole them. But I don't see how they relate to folk music in any way.

As to the unqualified last posting, I haven't heard yet that Hoot has ordered anybody killed, let alone millions.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,John Foxen
Date: 12 Oct 13 - 08:50 AM

It is well known that Hitler had very strong views on alternative folk music as this video shows.
Hitler on melodeons

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 12 Oct 13 - 09:59 AM

Nothing to do with folk music as far as I can tell - surely the link is with 'The Full English', so one would surely expect the material to be traditional English? Or am I just being naïve?

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: doc.tom
Date: 12 Oct 13 - 11:03 AM

Oh, come now guys - be fair. If an anonymous GUEST comes up with a phrase 'alternative side of folk music' then he/she/it should at least be specific as to what he/she/it means (even if he/she/it is too shy to say who they are)- we really shouldn't jump to conclusions! I checked out the list to see if I could work it out, but I only found an alternativre TO folk music not an alternative side OF folk music. Without explanation the query is meaningless.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 Oct 13 - 07:42 PM

I've voted for James Yorkston, because (a) he does actually do the odd folk song and (b) he refuses to describe his own material as "folk" ("what I do are pop songs, even if they're not very popular"). A band called Cocos Lovers seem to be walking it.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 06:57 AM

None of the artists on the list linked to by the OP have any relevance at all to the Full English material - they're all 'folk music' as in a convenient label for 'gazing at own navel whilst accompanying self on acoustic guitar'. A popular and widespread genre (not, let's face it, completely unrepresented on the rest of 6music's output) but irrelevant to The Full English. What a wasted opportunity.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: Leadfingers
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 08:20 AM

Reminds me of the Rock Bands that call themselves 'Blues' because they occasionally play something vagely reminiscent of a Twelve Bar sequence

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,Phil E
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 03:30 PM

Steve - as I said above, that's not entirely fair on James Yorkston. It does seem like an extraordinarily inappropriate response to TFE - most of these acts have as much to do with traditional songs as they do with Bach.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 04:12 PM

The programme was total shite

Subject: RE: BBC Radio arsh6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 05:28 PM

I didn't get a chance to listen to the programme, but looking at the playlist, 'total shite' seems a little harsh.

Not to your taste, fair enough. But it's quite clearly wasn't total shite.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,Phil E
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 05:38 PM

Not just a matter of personal taste - here's an archive of (presumably) traditional material, and they celebrate it with a list that's at most 1/3 trad!

Shipbuilding and Levi Stubbs' Tears are fine songs, but they've got no reason to be on any folk playlist, let alone the *ultimate*.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 08:17 PM

Not a single unaccompanied traditional song (whether from a folksinger or folksong singer).
No Martin Carthy
No June Tabor
No Young Tradition (nor Bellamy, less to my taste but very influential)
No Jon Loomes
No Brian Peters
No Bert Lloyd
No Ewan MacColl (I don't like his singing but he was somewhat important)
No John Kirkpatrick (surely the dominant squeezer of our times)
No Nic Jones
No Copper Family
No Watersons

"Ultimate Folk Playlist" my arse.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 01:54 AM

Well there's slightly more inspired-by-English-trad in that playlist than I expected from the build-up, but nothing directly showing The Full English material in a modern context, and a whole gaggle of navel-gazers and sensitive souls with acoustic guitars. At least some of Richard's list should have got in there.

Mustn't frighten the achingly hip 6music audience away by playing them two records in a row that take them outside their comfort zone I guess.

Still a totally wasted opportunity.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,CJ
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 03:53 AM

Of those 6 listed names, Lisa Knapp was the one I've mostly enjoyed. Her first record was mostly trad but more importantly, mostly very good. Not so fond of this year's follow up, but it's not bad.

The BBC6 playlist seemingly has nothing in common with what it's purporting to relate to. Shame. Very watered down.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 05:25 AM

C'mon! Six Music is not a station aimed at a demographic of older men who like revivalist folk from the 60s and 70s. Some of the DJs play a bit of it (notably Gideon Coe, Jarvis Cocker and Stuart Maconie, where you might hear Shirley Collins between The Moon Duo and some vintage Italian library music) as one element of much broader programming rather than segregated in its own little specialist niche. Personally, I'd rather see folk music integrated into mainstream programming than cordoned off. All the nonsense above about 'frightening the achingly hip demographic' just sounds like tHe sour grapes one might expect from someone who feels inexplicably threatened by other peoples' musical taste - surely not the case? I don't particularly like some of the singer songwriter stuff that they featured (though River Man by Nick Drake was arguably by far the best thing played on the show), not because I have a problem with calling it folk music, but because on a personal level I find it a bit boring - though no more boring than a lot of the stuff churned out by the current swathe of traddies. It however does conform to what most people - the public, radio programmers, music writers, record companies and so on(in fact everyone except folkies!) - think of as folk music. And I imagine more people listened to it (and therefore got to hear Fairport Convention doing Matty Groves) than if it had been wall-to-wall trad, which was never going to happen on Six Music anyway.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,BassNick
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 05:50 AM

I couldn't agree more with the poster above. 6music does make an effort to include what it terms 'folk' music and unfortunately that does often include many of the bland, interchangeable, young singer-songwriter types around at the moment, but I have also heard lots of trad stuff on 6 and, considering it's core demographic, it serves Roots music well: commercial stations just ignore this music completely. You can't please everyone, particularly the purits and protectionists.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,CJ
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 05:51 AM

Of course that's true re 6Music. The disappointment for me lies in the way it was announced -

"To celebrate the launch by The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) of The Full English, an online portal of manuscripts and archive from the collections of Frank Sidgwick, Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams and many others – Tom Robinson at BBC 6 Music is to feature an Ultimate Folk Playlist this coming Sunday 13th October at 6:00pm on Now Playing @6 Music"

Being so different to what they actually played, which was standard BBC6 fare.

Ultimate Folk Playlist does sound a little Now That's What I Call Music though, so I guess it was to be expected.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,BassNick
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 05:52 AM

and purists as well!

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 05:59 AM

Sorry Spleen, but I think you're rather missing the point that I'm trying to make.

6Music offered up the opportunity to showcase how The Full English has affected music ever since.

In the unlikely event that that call had come to me, one approach I might have taken would be to take certain songs from The Full English and tracked them through to the present day. Yes there probably would have been some 50s, 60s and 70s stuff in there, because that's an important part of where we are now; but also the 80s rockers like Jumpleads or The Men They Couldn't Hang, the 90s and 00s revival, and modern acts using the same material or building on it (the wyrd and psych folk movements, Jim Moray and his astounding sound palettes, Trembling Bells, etc etc).

Or maybe I'd have taken a theme suggested by a song recorded in The Full English and tracked that theme through to the present day - maybe as broad as Loss and Parting or a Broken Token ballad, maybe something more specific like the particular story of Spencer The Rover (give me the commission and I'll spend more time working that vague idea up more).

There's two ways that the opportunity could have been better used. Kate Rusby, for example, would probably still get in, because I happen to think she's central to the whhat positive engagement there is with 'folk music' in the wider world, but I'd probably have chosen her doing a traditional song rather than her version of Village Green Preservation Society. Unless VGPS that linked through to The Kinks, and that ill-defined concept of 'English viewpoint' in which case you're off into a whole different area (Lily Allen and Ian Dury, say).

I'm thinking out loud here. But the list of tracks that *was* played, let alone the original vote that our anonymous OP asked us to join in with, shows no such overall concept, no engagement with The Full English or the idea of that collection as representing and making available one of the roots of English music today, no real sign of any thought other than slinging together a lazy list of the usual suspects (Joni Mitchell?????) with a few token 'new' acts of dubious relevance.

To be honest I'm not over-pleased at having my argument dismissed on the straw man grounds of 'older men who like revivalist folk from the 60s and 70s.' I hope I've demonstrated that I'm actually giving it a good deal more thought than that.

Cheers all

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 06:20 AM

Though I did quote your 'achingly hip' quip, Steve (with a 'surely not the case' caveat included in my response) my 'older men' comment was more inspired by self-styled 'grumpy old folkie' Richard B... sorry for any displeasure caused!

Your imaginary show sounds fab and undeniably far better than what actually went out. The job went to Tom Robinson though, who isn't exactly Six Music's most innovative DJ, but probably what the station thinks we need on a Sunday teatime as a corrective to the more exotic and far more interesting outputs of The Sunday Service and the Freak Zone.

Meanwhile, if you had the time and resources to do it, I bet someone like Alex from Folk Radio UK would bite yer hand off for a show like the one you describe.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 08:34 AM

No harm done Spleen.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,Phil E
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 08:52 AM

Naah, I'm not having it. This isn't about demanding adherence to the 1954 Definition from people who've never heard of it, or berating programmers for playing Billy Bragg instead of Sam Larner. It's about what purports to be a response to The Full English - and the response seems to consist of "ooh, folk, who do we know that's folk?", followed closely by "and what have they done that's a bit different?". The first step's deeply conservative, the second one (ironically) is even more so - it's the old "like folk only different" itch being scratched yet again.

The practical effect is to drag traditional artists back into the business of producing novelty, rather than giving them room for the real difference and strangeness of traditional material to be heard. So we get the Unthanks and Kate Rusby, both doing cover versions - that's a bit different, a bit alternative... No, it's not. The straightest, blandest, this-is-a-song-by-Jon-Boden-est reading of a traditional song is more 'alternative' than most of the songs on that list. I'd have expected better from Radio 2, let alone 6Music.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 16 Oct 13 - 06:38 AM

I'd even have expected a bit more from Tom Robinson, who is a lot more familiar with purist, traditional folk than you'd know from listening to (any of) his shows.

Subject: RE: BBC Radio 6 Music & Folk Radio UK
From: breezy
Date: 16 Oct 13 - 10:17 AM

no George Papavgeris ?

no Stan Rogers, oh sorry Canada

No Jez Lowe ?

No Grant Baynham, - good , he's far too clever for this

No pete Morton

no Anthony John Clarke, he of Liverpool ?


What constitutes a folk song? surely something that has something to say about something that is not about the composers hang-ups, failures and suicidal tendancies.

I want to tell a story

Hey Mr DJ get off our patch

I must admit to not bothering to listen as i got the gist from this thread

no Harvey Andrews ? Jeremy Taylor ? Roy Bailey ? Richard Thommo

This prog lacks any folking credability

no breezy ?