When Does it Get to Be Folk?

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 04:11 AM

John - I read through your 100 most recorded songs post with great interest, counted up and reckoned I still play over half of them, and quite a few I've recorded as solos on YouTube. That's a quasi-jazz background for you...

It seems to be some people over here in the UK who get hung up on the 1954 tradition, rather than our friends in the US. The borders between different styles of popular music in the US seem much more fluid, and the attitude much more relaxed.

What I say is, if the 1954 definition fits your idea of what you want to play and sing, then go to it. If it doesn't, then go to it anyway. As my great-grandmother from Kildare used to say, "Have what you will - and pay for it."

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 04:35 AM

the difference is I guess, that they've never had what we had in the 1960's - a healthy folkscene where anyone could get up and do a floorspot. in those days as a teenager I would have a twiddle on someone's guitar in the interval - and people would be quite concerned that I wasn't getting up there and giving it a bash.

then came the 1970's when the traddie gauleiters started deciding who was folk music and who wasn't. and all this 1954 bollocks kicked in.

in the states I get the feeling apart from out west, it was always if not a spectator sport - certainly a performance with great expectations game. the revival never belonged to the people in the same way as it did over here. perhaps that was something the skiffle era gave us.

we had a revolution and a schism. god knows what they had - the memory of Greenwich village and central park seems very dear to them. but I don't think they had that time when there was afolk club in every hamlet and several in every town where anyone could get up and sing.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 05:02 AM

correction that should Washington square - not central park

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 05:03 AM

One of the interesting things about the recently shown 1984 documentary about the Everly Brothers was how, in the mining area that their family lived in, families and communities played and sang together and made music together - in church, in bars, at dances and in the home. It was just embedded in the community - with lots of home-grown talented singers and musicians. There wouldn't have been a need for "folk clubs" in that environment - and the music performed ranged from the traditional to the composed. Just music - without tags.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: IanC
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 07:28 AM

Sorry, I've started looking at this thread quite late ...

About WWI (above), I don't think it's too surprising that there is no sign of popular war-oriented songs.

These are US charts and the USA was not involved in WWI at all until April 1917. Even after that, there was no really significant battlefield presence by US forces until the spring of 1918, so they were only really there for 6 months.

Total US troop deaths in WWI, by the way, amounted to 110,000 of which 43,000 were due to the flu epidemic (this killed 675,000 people in the USA during 1918/19).

There don't seem to be any songs about that either.

Ian

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 10:34 AM

John, I believe you posted the wrong question right at the start of this thread. YOu are posing an Irrelevant When.

Don't ask When a song gets to be folk, ask How. I would say that a song gets to be folk:

1. If it has a melody people can easily remember.

2. If it has repetition, such as a verse/refrain form

3. If it uses simple chords. Am, not A7aug6dim

4. If it deals with timeless events. Love, birth, death, beer.
Not sportscars, texting or computers.
==========
Once I was having a spat with the DH about another relative. I said, "Your sister said he only calls when he wants money," and the DH huffed himself up and demanded,

"WHEN did she say that?" Right then I realized that when she said it didn't matter a bit. That's when I conceived the idea of the Irrelevant When.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 11:59 AM

your comments rang a bell with me. I looked up what Eddie Condon was playing around that time at his first gigs

keep the home fires burning, over there, how you gonna keep them down on the farm now that they've seen paree, Tiperary, Rose of no man's land, til we meet again, pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, liberty bell its time to ring again, oh how I hate to get up in the morning.

ref; we called it music by eddie condon

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 12:22 PM

Ian C, on 19 Feb 14, I posted the WW1 songs from 1917 that made the U. S. Billboard and were popular for several weeks.
They number 11. Five of the top 10 Billboard listing are war or patriot oriented, and 9 of the top 20.

This seems, to me, to be a goodly proportion.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Bert
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 01:39 PM

Very meaningful comments Leenia. We need a LIKE button here on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 03:42 PM

Leenia says: John, I believe you posted the wrong question right at the start of this thread

That was deliberate, since I wanted to avoid immediately starting another debate about "what is folk."

With the list now up here for everyone to see, that discussion is appropriate enough now that all the "evidence" is there for everyone to see, but could have stopped the whole thread if begun too quickly. Several have already noted that there is a significant difference between "what is folk" for one side of the sea and "what is folk" for those of us in the US, and that was really the puzzle I hoped would discussed - although not the only useful one to be welcomed

DO NOTE, once more, that the lists posted are ONLY THE SONGS THAT GOT TO "NUMBER ONE" ON THE CHARTS. The book does provide "all of the songs that were on the charts," The organization (or lack of it) for the book didn't present a realistic prospect of extracting more useful and more complete information from that section, or from the "Artists" section, for posting here.

The TABLE OF CONTENTS (slightly edited) for the book might be helpful:

CONTENTS
Introduction / Researching the Charts / Chart Synopsis /Chronology of Milestones in Popular Music History 1877-1954 (Approx 10 not very interesting pages)

THE ARTISTS (Approx 460 pages)
An alphabetical listing by artist of every record to make America's popular music charts from 1890 through 1954

THE SONGS (Approx 200 pages)
An alphabetical listing by song title of every record to make America's popular music charts from 1890 through 1954

THE ACHIEVEMENTS (beginning page 621)
The Top 100 Artists 1890-1954 (beginning page 623)
The Top 10 Artists By Decade (beginning page 625)
Top Artist Achievements [Most Charted Records; Most #1 Records; Longest Chart Careers] (page 626)
The Top 100 Hits 1890-1954 (page 627)
The Top 10 Hits By Decade (page 629)
The Biggest-Selling Records 1890-1954 (page 631)
The Most-Recorded Songs (Pre-1955) (page 632)
The Best-Selling Sheet Music Songs 1890-1954 (page 634)
The Academy Award-Winning Songs (page 635)
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame (page 636)
Billboard Disc Jockey Polls: All-Time Favorite Records, All-Time Favorite Songs (page 638)
Billboard College Surveys: Favorite Bands and Band Singers (page 640)
The #1 Hits (Listed Chronologically) 1890-1954 642

The last entry, The #1 Hits, is the main one posted here, and even that one looked shorter (and simpler) than it turned out to be.

The main two sections of the book, The Artists and The Songs, are listed alphabetically without regard to when the artist/song hit the charts. Organizing information from these two would have been a very large task that I'm not prepared to take on immediately.

Most of the other sections are perhaps short enough to post, if someone wants to pose an applicable (IMO) question, although I can't promise instant response.

John

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: JennieG
Date: 20 Feb 14 - 04:40 PM

Some folk festivals in Oz have a "Rock 'n' Roll Night", when well known performers get up on stage with a backing band and perform the songs of their youth.....I once saw Eric Bogle sing 'Heartbreak Hotel' and have a great time doing it.....and they are always great fun concerts. Rob Willis, a well known and respected music and folklore collector, once said to me "rock music is our folk music"; he was talking about a generational thing (we're of a similar age, we were teenagers in the 60s) but he's right, you know.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 01:28 PM

It gets to be 'folk' when a song or tune is introduced as 'traditional' or 'an old folk song'............

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Feb 14 - 01:39 PM

When people play or sing songs they like, not knowing, or having forgotten, and not caring about the source.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Bert
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 02:40 AM

Yes Q, that is about what I do.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 10:45 AM

John, I know what you mean. Here at the Mudcat there are far more arguers than players, that's for sure.

Q, I was going to say that, but words failed me. You expressed it better.

Cute story: Last year my sis-in-law asked me to demonstrate the dulcimer for her sophisticated friends. I was both wary and leery; they were looking at me as if I were some mysterious animal that had just emerged from a burrow. But I felt that I should oblige my sis-in-law, so I played a couple of things. My husband suggested 'My Grandfather's Clock,' and they all denied ever having heard of it.

I thought to myself, "Television generation..." but started playing. When I got to the chorus, they all chimed in! They knew it, they just didn't know they knew it. All ended well, and I think we can say that that 1850's parlor song is now a folk song.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 01:19 PM

But, Q ~~ I always know, and remember, and care about the source of any song I sing -- folk or otherwise. Isn't that allowed? Does that prevent its being folk, if that is what it is?


Everybody seems to be sycophantically going on about what a great insight that is of yours. But ~~ sorry to be the ☠ at the feast ~~ it seems great nonsense to me.

~M~

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: Bert
Date: 22 Feb 14 - 03:12 PM

That is allowed ~M~. There are many definitions that are appropriate for a particular song, singer or local environment. That is why there are always these long arguments.

It is not that the 1954 definition is wrong, just that some of us think that it is incomplete. It also suffers from the fact that some researchers, like Bruce Olsen, have found earlier published versions of many folk songs which once would have met the 1954 criteria.

Another indication that a song may be headed in the direction of Folk, is when a member of the audience requests it. It means that a song is memorable enough at that location that somebody wants to hear it again.

Subject: RE: When Does it Get to Be Folk?
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Nov 15 - 08:05 PM

Will Fly's post about an documentary on the Everly Brothers struck a chord with me. Myself, I arrived in the world with the television generation. I had relatives two generations back, however, who recalled life without cinema or television, and precious little radio. These elders remembered being part of a community in which it was rare to go out and attend something like theater, a concert, or any unruly combination thereof. They remembered when families stayed at home and entertained themselves and each other. Music was a big part of this, although it was not limited expressly to music. And there were no gramophones or record players then. Sorry if this sounds like a digression. But it does make one reflect.