What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 03:48 PM

Howard, Bounty,
You're wasting your time repeating this over and over. It will never sink in!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 03:57 PM

Either I've been very lucky or you've been very unlucky, Al. I've never heard a rubbish version of Blackwaterside; I've heard three or four truly brilliant ones, though.

Musket:

I had been playing folk for over 30 years

How did you know? What is 'playing folk' as far as you're concerned? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with singing folksongs.

(I'd been playing folk for five years when I discovered traditional songs. I really resent having had to wait five years.)

That said, I disagree slightly with Jim, inasmuch as I think the 'acoustic night'/'open mic' type of folk club is an institution in its own right - lots of people go to that kind of FC and know, by and large, what to expect. And they're fun, if you like that kind of thing. It's just that it's an institution with little or no connection to traditional music, and generally with an attitude to your actual folksongs somewhere between indifference and outright hostility - and I think that's a damn shame.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 07:30 PM

probably the outright hostility comes from listening to all the rubbish versions of blackwaterside that you never get to hear....

i'm not really sure what you expect from ordinary people. i think many of the brilliant trad musicians i have heard would do a brilliant spot most places. i'm not sure a proper roots singer like Walter Pardon, or Fred Jordan could do one - which i suspect is what jim is going on about. and that is a weakness - buthere again -they don't welcome us into their strongholds.

i think that very ornate style of singing that Sean Canon used to do might have a thin time of it. but Sean was a great performer -he could play guitar and fiddle. i can't imagine him getting wrongfooted.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 11:51 PM

Sean is a great performer with a versatile repertoire, Fred jordan was a great performer too but very different from Walter Pardon, Walter was a good enough singer, but he was not an extrovert performer, and outside the cloistered area of folk clubs or folk festivals was not in my opinion able to hold an audience, he tended to mumble,and his poresentation was imo not good
as a traditional style singer or tradtional singer[ or however he should be described] he was not[imo] in the same class as phil tanner. fred jordan clearly loved performing, for walter it appeared to me it was an ordeal, he reminded me of a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 03:12 AM

Jim Carroll - Date: 10 Sep 14 - 09:07 AM

Another extremely good post that clearly "sets out his stall", belief and opinion.

Bounty Hound and Howard it would appear that you are clearly, and possibly deliberately, missing the points that Jim Carroll is making.

I have always loved history and I have always loved songs that told a story. History is not always and only written by the victors, in terms of any struggle be it social, political or national you will find that it is normally the "losing side" that writes the songs and poems. While various regimes and interests made attempts to censor and destroy written works that did not accord to the winners side - nobody could censor the songs which were passed from community to community and from one generation to the next by performance and repetition. While the songs may be heavily slanted, they do provide a perspective and perception dealing as they do with particular events and aspects of any given time. As such they are important, because they detail where we have come from, they described life as it was then.

Various contributors to this thread who have been shouting down the definition of "Folk Music", as detailed by Jim, go wittering on about "old geezers with waistbands up to their armpits", "finger in ear", etc, etc. To them I would say that their songs have lasted and have carried forward through centuries of time. One night in what you call your "Folk Club" just try one evening where no-one who is going to sing is allowed any accompaniment - then see how well "your song" stands. Because most of the "Folk Songs" described by Jim as being an essential and vital part of our heritage were working songs, and if you are working you are using both your hands, there were no "working tunes" the tunes so well carried forward and taught now in various University courses (The ones churning out all those "youngster bands" you see performing at various festivals up and down the country) were composed in what little leisure time the "folk" had in those days. While there are University Courses that cater for musicians who want to study Folk Music, I don't know if there are any that specifically cover songs and cater for singers. For them or anyone interested all they have are "Folk Clubs" that offer "Hits from the 50s Nights". Hearing a poor rendition of a "traditional song" might be bad Big Al, but having to listen to one poor rendition of Buddy Holly after another is unbearable. The "anybody can sing and anybody can have a go attitude" in most Folk Clubs is excruciating but apparently vital as it makes the "performer" who is "less crap" feel good as he/she picks up their guitar to give the assembled company a "less crap" version of Dylan or the Beatles.

As for Shanties/Chanty's or what ever you want to call them now. As far as the British ones went, the piano and the Victorian parlour killed them off, to the extent that today all these so-called Shanty groups if they sang one no sailor would ever recognise it as such, they certainly could not work to them.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 03:43 AM

"If "most people" didn't have this wider understanding of the word, your complaint that it devalues the real meaning of 'folk' wouldn't matter"
Yes it would Howard - the devaluation of the term has done much to prevent folk music being taken seriously in Britain.
If the performers are not going to understand what the music they are performing is enough to be able to define it, how the hell are outsiders going to come to it.
The Irish crowd took the stance that if you want to put traditional music on a firm footing you have to be clear about what you are promoting.
"You're wasting your time repeating this over and over. It will never sink in!"
Never thought I'd read this from a researcher Steve - as you rightly say, sad indeed.
Singing has some way to go here, but one of the exciting things that has happened is that when a singer or musician dies, some towns have honoured them with a singing week-end or even a school.
This town hosted the fortieth annual week-long traditional music school dedicated to piper Willie Clancy, who passed away at the beginning of 1973.
Joe Heaney in remembered with a singing weekend in his native Carna.
In a couple of weeks time, the Frank Harte weekend is taking place in Dublin.
Clare has the Cooley/Collins weekend in Gort in December and there are rumours that the Mrs Crotty weekend is to be revived - that part of Clare also has the Mrs Galvin weekend.
Seamus Ennis, Mary Anne Carolan and Geordie Hanna are singers remembered with singing weekends.
Some of these events not only honoured the singers and musicians but they have proved a fair source of income for some of the rural towns struggling with the results of the Irish banker's shenanigans which brought about the death of the Celtic tiger.
Some time ago I wrote a letter to the Living Tradition magazine lamenting the poor health of folk music in Britain ("Where Have All the Folk Songs Gone")
I received a fair amount of stick in return, including a particularly sarcastic one from the firm-of-solicitors sounding folk group, Coope Boyes and Simpson, which suggested that I must have had a lot of my time on my hands in the long, cold winter nights in Miltown Malbay, puttig together such a letter.
We have weekly wall to wall traditional music throughout those cold winter nights - I wonder if C. B and S. are in the position to make the same claim!
If we survive the present downturn in the economy, traditional music will have played a large part of us doing so.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 03:54 AM

Should be very interested to read that Living Tradition letter, Jim. Any chance of your copying it here?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 04:17 AM

Phil. How did I know I was playing folk?

Mainly because the advertising said folk club, or folk festival. People turn up to listen on the basis that they will hear folk and I have yet had anybody complain that it doesn't sound like gangsta rap or opera, as that is what they expected.

Granted, my rendition of Blackwaterside attracts the occasional boo, but we can't all be Bert.

zzzzz

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 04:53 AM

"Singing has some way to go here, but one of the exciting things that has happened is that when a singer or musician dies, some towns have honoured them with a singing week-end or even a school."
in the case of castleisland they have erected a statue, to padraig o keefe, if he came back he would laugh as when he was alive he was only allowed in ONE pub in the town,
The reality is that the honouring is to some extent a tactic to encourage tourists to stop, ALBEIT providing trad music is a very pleasant way of doing it.
coope boyes and simpson are a very well respected uk singing group, not a firm of solicitors.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 05:51 AM

"Should be very interested to read that Living Tradition letter, Jim"
Thanks for your interest Mike - (letter below)
It was a somewhat cranky response to an article by Karl Dallas - a man whose early contributions to folk I very much admired.
The responses were a mixture of depressing, conformation of what I believed and a couple of extremely heartening ones, one from Peggy and another from an American whose name escapes me but who, I belive, is a contributor to this forum.
Pegggy's was particularly interesting as she goes into the origins of The Singer's Club's "sing songs from your own background" policy   
Will did them out if tyou can't find them on the Living Tradition website archive.
Terribus
Your input is much appreciated - nce not to be at each orther's throats for a change.
"The reality is that the honouring is to some extent a tactic to encourage tourists to stop,"
The reality is that Castleisland has a fine annual traditional music festival dedicated to Padraig O'Keefe where it is possible to hear some of the best of Irish music and singing.
Credit where credit is due
Jim Carroll

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FOLK SONGS GONE?
A combination of the article on Peter Bellamy by the "re¬invented" Fred/Karl Dallas and the "Is Folk Dying" debate in your letter pages, has brought on an uncontrollable attack of deja vu in us. Having long given up attending folk clubs regularly, we couldn't say if what now passes for 'folk" is dying, all we can tell you is why we stopped going to clubs.
In this present bout of soul-searching, as in earlier ones, we feel the real issues are being missed. In the past, (remember the "Crap Begets Crap" debate in the pages of Folk Review?) the problems that clubs were having were put down to bad organisers and noisy audiences; now, it seems, passive smoking is the culprit (LivingTradition, Opinion, Sept/Oct).
Thirty odd years ago, inspired by Ewan MacColl, such radio programmes as the still unsurpassed "Song Carriers", and the Caedmon "Folk Songs of Britain" records, we, like many other enthusiasts at that time, developed our interest in song by listening to Joe Heaney, John Strachan, Elizabeth Cronin, Harry Cox and all the other fine traditional singers captured by the BBC's mopping-up campaign of the Fifties. It was to these singers that the best of the revivalists were going, both for the songs and their styles. It was possible then to go out at least once a week and hear good traditional songs well sung.
Things were by no means perfect. You had (and still have) the "near enough for folk" brigade, the singing pullovers and, of course, a proliferation of mid-Atlantic accents, but there was enough good singing around to make it an exciting time. The rot really started to set in with the mini-choirs: The Young Tradition, The Watersons and their clones who specialised in reducing the songs to doleful dirges, ironing out the subtleties of the melodies to fit tedious harmonies, while relegating the words to a poor second.
There were also the aspiring Segovias with their tricksy accompaniments and peculiar phrasing, turning the songs into elaborate pieces of music, again pushing the words into the background. A low point was reached with the coming of the electric squad with their barrages of sound equipment turning the songs into an unmusical soup. Then it became almost impossiblE to follow the words.
It is true that those dedicated to traditional song continued to plough the furrow but, following the inescapable scientific law that crap tends to float, the genetically modified product began to take over. This downward spiral can be charted through the pages of the folk magazines, a number of them edited by Karl Dallas. Entertaining and informative ones like Dallas's Folk Music (first issue November 1963), carried good, interesting, wide-ranging articles by MacColl, Lloyd, Charles Parker, Stephen Sedley, etc. (oh, and the mysterious Jack Speedwell). Alongside this were: Sing, Spin, Garland, Ballads & Songs, the sadly short-lived Tradition, and a host of others, all adding to a healthy, lively debate.
These publications continued in various guises, each one not quite so good as its forerunner, until the appearance of what was probably the longest running of them all, Folk Review, a somewhat show-biz production with the occasional interesting piece. The least said one of Dallas's later efforts, Folk News, the better; (Punk v. Folk -come off it, Karl).
A few clubs resisted what they saw to be the downward slide. Some did this with strict, somewhat antiquarian attitudes: no contemporary songs and no instruments. Others, recognising the need for new songs and the advantages of accompaniment so long as it did not interfere with the narrative nature of the tradition, attempted to set standards with selective guest and resident policies and tightly controlled floor singer spots; (this latter aimed avoiding the mistakes of some of the dreadful, anything goes, singaround clubs that were to be found all over the place).
Foremost of the policy clubs, was Ewan MacCoil's Singers Club in London.
It has become extremely difficult to discuss rationally the work of MacCoil and his attempts to promote traditional song through the Singers Club; the opening up of the industrial, London and ballad repertoires; the feature evenings; his study sessions with The Critics Group; the numerous seminars; the hundreds of traditional songs and ballads he made available through his records and books, not to mention his vast output as a songwriter. His failure to commit any of his ideas to print has left the field open for the knockers and snideswipers (Dallas, Harker, et all) to distort and misrepresent his theories, sometimes through genuine ignorance, a commodity to be found in abundance in the revival.
More often than not, however, these attacks have been carried out in a spirit of sheer vindictiveness, made in retaliation to MacCoil's political and artistic stance. These distortions are amply represented in Dave Harker's One For The Money", where The Critics Group is portrayed as some sort of secret society from which it was necessary to smuggle out 'surreptitious" recordings, even though virtually all Group meetings were recorded and were available to anybody genuinely interested in the work. (Incidentally, if Dallas did attend any Critics Group meetings, he kept remarkably quiet, as there is no trace of him on the recordings. And he must have fallen asleep during the discussion on the effect of Lloyd's smile on his singing. In fact, the position of the mouth, as in a smile, alters the tone produced. Try it.) Writers like Harker have managed to reduce any potential debate on MacCoIl's work to the 'Jimmy Miller" level; (shades of Monty Python's Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson sketch where an artist is prevented from discussing his art by an interviewer who is more interested in his nickname than his painting).
Included in the anti-MacCoil camp was a fundamentalist fringe specialising in rumours that he didn't write his songs but stole them from traditional singers, despite lack of any evidence to support such a theory. It was, of course a compliment to MacCoil's songwriting skills. In the magazine, Folk Scene, December 1965 issue, Ian Campbell wrote:
"If the folk song revival were to consist merely of the reverent re-¬exhibition of songs hallowed by time, it would be a futile and sterile exercise. To make sense, the revival must produce new songs and, presumably, to be valid, they must show the influence, in form at least, of the tradition. MacCoIl demonstrated years ago that it is possible to create vital, contemporary songs within the traditional frameworks."
Unfortunately, most of the contemporary songwriters who find favour among the folk club audiences, show little interest in, or concern for, traditional song forms. The idiom in which they most commonly compose is that of the pop songs, no matter how un-pop their lyrics. This is a pity because, with contemporary "folk songs" continually growing in popularity, the eventual result will be that the folk song revival, and the clubs, will lose all contact with folk songs."
(Very far sighted, 34 years ago!)

Briefly, MacCoIl's argument was a simple one: folk song is an art form and, like any other artistic endeavour, it is necessary to master certain skills in order to do the songs justice. To this end, he devised a series of voice and relaxation exercises, based largely on his theatre work, so that a singer was equipped to handle the whole spectrum of the traditional repertoire from big ballads to street songs. (MacCoil was co-founder, not, as Dallas puts it, "graduate of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop" also a playwright long before he was known as a singer, earning tributes from George Bernard Shaw and Sean OCasey - well documented facts, Karl.) He also devised methods of helping singers to analyse, understand and interpret the songs.
These ideas went down like lead balloons with most folkies to whom taking singing seriously and enjoying it, was a contradiction in terms. They appeared to believe that singers like Sheila McGregor, Jeannie Robertson and Joe Heaney took in their singing abilities with their mother's milk and never found it
necessary to work on them.
The term "finger-in-the-ear" became one of abuse, even though cupping the hand over the ear in order to stay in tune without the guidance of an instrument, is an age-old device used by singers from Bucharest to Belfast and found in woodcut illustrations of street ballad-sellers throughout the ages.
The ascendancy of the "anything goes", non-policy club not only affected performance of traditional song but led to a situation where it was, and is, possible to spend an evening at a folk club without hearing a folk song. The traditional repertoire: the ballads, sea songs, cornkisters, bawdry, songs of working life and love, were replaced by Victorian tear¬jerkers, music hall ditties, pop songs of the past and those dreary, all-round-the-year carols.
We should say that our experiences have been largely confined to English clubs (mainly around London) and festivals. However, if the pages of Living Tradition are anything to go by, we have no reason to think that the situation is very different elsewhere. We know from the excellent Folk Songs of North-East Scotland CD that there are still good singers around but, oh dear, when we received our freebie CD Celtic Connections with our subscription, we nearly demanded our money back.
Since we moved out of England last year, we have noticed that Ireland does not have a strong club scene. There are a large number of extremely skillful singers who are to be found at sessions and at the numerous singing festivals but, even here, the cracks are beginning to show.
Collectors like Tom Munnelly have unearthed a treasure-trove of songs and ballads in both English and Irish from a relatively large number of traditional singers who were still to be found until fairly recently. Unfortunately, many of the younger singers have chosen to ignore the narrative repertoire in preference to the long, slow, highly ornamented, lyrical pieces, very beautiful but, taken in bulk, the listener is often left with a feeling of having waded through a field of syrup. Many singers seem unwilling to ring the changes with a mixture of light and heavy, slow or fast, serious or comic songs, as did, say, CoIm Keane or Elizabeth Cronin. Even with these reservations, there is a higher standard of performance of music and song in Ireland and, interestingly, debate than we found in England. (Can you imagine a TV programme in the UK based on the question: "Has the Tradition Sold Out?" as was recently presented by RTE?)
So, how do things stand at present? In England, at least, we appear to have the remnants of a folk song revival where folk songs are relegated to second place, traditional material having been jettisoned in favour of a mish¬mash of mediocrity. Singers who previously confined their repertoires to the tradition, have moved away, some to the more lucrative pastures of "Over the Rainbow" and "Blue Suede Shoes".
It appears to us that perhaps it is time to take a hard look back to where we started out to see how far away from the tradition we have moved and if the direction taken is a worthwhile one. Does what is performed now in folk clubs have anything in common with the singing of, for instance, Harry Cox, Walter Pardon, Jessie Murray or Phil Tanner? We would suggest it has not. Experimentation has replaced commitment

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 06:36 AM

Bounty Hound and Howard it would appear that you are clearly, and possibly deliberately, missing the points that Jim Carroll is making.

Terribus, I can't of course speak for Howard, although I suspect his answer may well be the same.

I am in no way missing the points that Jim is making. In fact if you read earlier in the thread, you'll find me expressing admiration and respect for the work Jim has done over the years. Without the likes of Jim the tradition may well have been lost.

But, my issue is Jim's refusal to acknowledge that the process continues, and that new 'folk' music is being created today. It may be that the 'process' is different and songs are being shared in a different way, and it is easy to establish authorship and a definitive version of those songs, but of course society and technology has changed enormously in the last 60 years, Those new 'folk' songs are every bit as valid as traditional songs passed through an oral tradition, and as I've said several times, if a new song is influenced by, or shows respect to the tradition, then it has every right to be called 'Folk music'

I've asked Jim more than once to 'define' those new songs that I happily call folk, but he's declined to give a clear answer, (although he has acknowledged the value of such songs) instead stating that they are songs in the 'style' of, and then stating that folk is not a style, but a process, and a song cannot be 'folk' unless it has been through that process.

What might be helpful would be to hear a concise definition from Jim of those songs I would call new folk music.

It seems to me that it is merely a romantic notion that only songs that have gone through the 'oral' process can be folk, so perhaps it would also be useful to have a concise statement from Jim as to why he thinks that transmission by the technology we now have available (which he in part embraces, otherwise we would not be having this debate!) is less valid than oral transmission.

John

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 07:21 AM

"What might be helpful would be to hear a concise definition from Jim of those songs I would call new folk music."
You have been given a list of writers who make new songs - whether they fall into the category of 'new folk music' is a matter of debat.
Tell you what.
Write a song and give it to one of your workmates who isn't a folkie.
If you come back in a year or so's time to find that he has learned it and is singing it and has passed it on to his mates, who, in their turn have done likewise..... to the extent that your song has been accepted and sung by a significant number of people, and even maybe has been adapted into numerous versions and has reached the situation where you are no longer its owner...... then you might, just might have the makings of a folk song on your hands.
Please report back
" he's declined to give a clear answer"
I have never declined - can't say any clearer than a song that has been made using traditional forms - doesn't make it a folk song without the above happening though
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:03 AM

"If you come back in a year or so's time to find that he has learned it and is singing it and has passed it on to his mates, who, in their turn have done likewise..... to the extent that your song has been accepted and sung by a significant number of people, and even maybe has been adapted into numerous versions and has reached the situation where you are no longer its owner...... then you might, just might have the makings of a folk song on your hands.
Please report backIf you come back in a year or so's time to find that he has learned it and is singing it and has passed it on to his mates, who, in their turn have done likewise..... to the extent that your song has been accepted and sung by a significant number of people, and even maybe has been adapted into numerous versions and has reached the situation where you are no longer its owner...... then you might, just might have the makings of a folk song on your hands.
Please report back"
pretty much what i said earlier in the discussion,which is particulrly funny , because Jim tried to make out i had nothing of worth to say on the subject
here is the post
Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Good Soldier Schweik - PM
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 12:21 PM

sometimes the new song has to take its time, but it gets picked up and sung, examples of this in ireland are.. fiddlers green and song for ireland and caledonia, all songs written by english or scottish people, but songs that mean something to people outside the uk folk revival and are assumed to be tradtional.





2
2

2

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:05 AM

'If you come back in a year or so's time to find that he has learned it and is singing it and has passed it on to his mates, who, in their turn have done likewise..... to the extent that your song has been accepted and sung by a significant number of people, and even maybe has been adapted into numerous versions and has reached the situation where you are no longer its owner...... then you might, just might have the makings of a folk song on your hands.'

Ah, that's cleared that up then, it is just the romantic notion that a song has to be passed around 'orally' that makes it folk music!

Jim, if you joined us in the 21st century, you might just find that the process you describe above is still happening, the ONLY difference is that the transmission is by modern methods!

John

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:15 AM

I don't think I am missing Jim's points, in fact I agree with most of them. What I am disagreeing with is his insistence that 'folk' should mean only traditional music, although I even sympathise with that. However he can't turn back the clock. 'Folk' has had a much wider meaning than this for decades, and 'folk clubs' have always included a much wider range of music.

A lot of this is down to the mid-60s period when 'folk' was briefly fashionable. Of course this was mainly modern American folk - the Dylans, Simon and Garfunkles etc and those influenced by them. I have previously suggested that this sort of folk is perhaps a lot closer to its roots in the American tradition than it is to our own, and in that context it is perhaps less of a leap to include it within the 'folk' umbrella, however much it may jar alongside the traditions of the British Isles. However the usage probably started even before then. The word means what usage tells us it means, and for most people, including most enthusiasts and certainly the general public, it encompasses more than traditional music. That's just how it is.

As the letter Jim quotes indicates, this is not a new argument and has been going on for decades. What it fails to take account of is that folk clubs of any description are first and foremost where people go for entertainment, not academic study. It is entertainment of a particular sort and I entirely agree with the notion that it should be centred around traditional song, but again it depends on the tastes and interests of the individuals involved in each individual club.

I sympathise with Jim's disappointment when a folk club fails to present any traditional songs. Such a club wouldn't be to my liking either. Nevertheless in most cases what they provide is what most people expect from a folk club.

I am more optimistic about the future of traditional music than he is. There are a lot of young people getting involved and among them there is considerable enthusiasm for traditional music. Moreover, while they sometimes have their own take in it which might be a shock to us older people, they are often far more aware, and respectful, of the tradition then I was at their age. When I first began visiting folk clubs in the early 1970s there was an unspoken assumption that (apart from a couple of survivals like the Coppers and Fred Jordan) traditional folk singers had died out with Cecil Sharp. It was some years before I became aware of the hotbed of traditional music just up the road from me in Suffolk. Young musicians now are much better informed and have far more resources to refer to.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:17 AM

"experimentation has replaced committment" another incorrect statement, from someone who appears to be out of touch with the uk folk scene. check out Stings writings about tyneside and the wilson familys singing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkcqtRyGsKg Sting and The Wilson Family - Ballad of the Great Eastern
In 18 hundred and 59, the engineer Brunel,, Would build the greatest ship afloat, and rule the ocean's swell., Nineteen thousand tons of steel they us...
Sting and The Wilson Family - Show Some Respect
Show some respect on this deck for the dear departed,, Gather ye's round let's be bound by the work we started,, Save all your strength for the length...
Sting and The Wilson Family - Hadaway
Ah, ye've gotta be joking, yr tekkin' the piss,, I'd have to be stupid to go on wi' this,, I wasn't born yesterday, or even last week,, It's someone w...
Sting, Brian Johnson and The Wilson Family - Sky Hooks and Tartan Paint
Me first day in the shipyard, the gaffer says to me,, "I want ye to go to the store lad and get a few things, ye see?, Now here's a list, can ye read ...
Sting, Jimmy Nail, The Wilson Family and Rachel Unthank - What Have We Got?
Good people give ear to me story,, Pay attention, and none of your lip,, For I've brought you five lads and their daddy,, Intending to build ye's a sh...
Sting, Brian Johnson, Jimmy Nail, The Wilson Family and Jo Lawry - Shipyard
Ah, me name is Jackie White and I'm foreman of the yard,, And ye don't mess with Jackie on this quayside., Why I'm as hard as iron plate, woe betide y...
Sting, Tony Kadleck, Marcus Rojas, Chris Komer, Jeff Kievit, The Wilson Family, Mike Davis, Richard Harris and Bob Carlisle - The Last Ship (Reprise)
Aye, the footmen are frantic in their indignation,, You see, "The Queen's took a taxi herself to the station!", Where the porters, surprised by her la...
Sting, Tony Kadleck, Marcus Rojas, Chris Komer, Jeff Kievit, The Wilson Family, Mike Davis, Richard Harris and Bob Carlisle - The Last Ship
It's all there in the gospels, the Magdalene girl, Comes to pay her respects, but her mind is awhirl., When she finds the tomb empty, the stone had be...

    1

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:22 AM

> this sort of folk is perhaps a lot closer to its roots in the American tradition than it is to our own

Only insofar as it was influenced by the blues (most of which, by the '54 def, is not "folk") and Woody Guthrie (ditto).

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:02 AM

There's nothing 'romantic' about the stress on oral transmission and adoption of songs by ordinary people, BH - that's a bit like saying that you can learn karate from a book, and learning with a sensei is an old-fashioned and 'romantic' notion.

Oral transmission of songs sung by ordinary people is - or was - a distinct social process. Traditional songs are - by and large - songs that have come out of that process.

Society changes; nobody's going to walk five miles into town if they can get the bus. The 'folk process' started to die out, in Britain at least, as soon as the mechanical reproduction of music reached a mass level, and now it's pretty much extinct.

It strikes me that your argument is the romantic one - you're starting from the position that the folk process must still be alive and fitting the evidence to that conclusion. When Jim draws a line under the folk process - it flourished in certain conditions, those conditions aren't there any more, the folk process has more or less died out - he's being a hard-headed realist.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:04 AM

"What it fails to take account of is that folk clubs of any description are first and foremost where people go for entertainment, not academic study. "
I've never challenged that Howard, I know it to be the case, if for no other reason that this is why I became involved in the first place - God bless the Liverpool Spinners.
Where academic study came into the picture was in that work that went into amassing and making available the body of work on which the revival was given a basis - By Sharp and his cronies, The Library of Congress, and later, by the B.B.C. collecting project.
It was the results of that which drew us into the unique music we/they/I call(ed) 'folk'
When that base dwindled to the point of almost non-existence, the term 'folk' became meaningless on the club scene.
If the Royal Opera House began presenting 'Starlight Express' and 'Cats' as opera because Aida wasn't putting enough bums on seats, how much integrity would it be left with - I'm sure there would be a team of officianados (and accountants) ready to argue that because opera is largely sung narrative, both of these could be regarded as "new opera".
I agree with you totally that much of this can be traced back to the folk boom, but even Dylan, a somewhat shrewd businessman, drew a line in the sand and moved on "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" - sadly, many of his followers didn't.
Some of what Dylan and his ilk were producing in the early days could be traced back to folk forms '50s rock nights' most certainly cannot.   
"a song has to be passed around 'orally' that makes it folk music"
That has never been an argument and it isn't here.
I've always been aware that prnt has played a part in the transmission of the songs, in the latter days, an essential one.
How the songs are passed on is immaterial, all the other points I outlined about them being taken up up to the point that they no longer belong to any particular individual is the bit you have either missed or ignored.
"Jim, if you joined us in the 21st century, you might just find that the process you describe above is still happening"
It may be happening among the folkie Freemasons, but it is not happening among the folk, who have become passive recipients of their culture.
What they receive will never belong to them - especially when it comes with a little (c).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:05 AM

Jim Carroll
I'm asking what Bryan believes I should be allowed to expect from a club that calls itself 'folk' - if anything

I don't see why I should answer that. It is pretty much what I've been asking you with no satisfactory response. Howard has given a good answer which you have, in your usual style, brushed aside.

I said that nobody goes to a folk club waving a copy of '54 demanding that they adhere to what it says, me, least of all.

I came into this discussion when you said -
Walk into a folk club and you your probably be told "Piss off, we don't need a definition" - and quite likely be asked to leave, judging by the way some of these discussions end up.
I need a fairly solid definition for whet we choose to do
So, what is that "fairly solid definition"? It just seems to be whatever Jim Carroll approves of.

"My point is that the state of folk clubs in the UK is not as you describe it."
Seems it is Bryan - just thumbed though lists of English Clubs - nearly all monthly where they used to be weekly
Moving the goalposts? Your contention has been that there is little or no traditional or traditional style music or song to be heard and that it has been displaced by modern pop and everything from heavy metal (really?) to music hall (Walter Pardon sang music hall songs.). That is not my experience.

couldn't find many more than half a dozen in the London area that remotely lived up to the description 'folk'
How hard did you look? You reckon the Court Sessions closed last year despite the fact that it is still running.

isn't yours monthly?
No and it wouldn't have been hard for you to check. Why let the facts get in the way? Lewes Saturday Folk Club. We are weekly, run about 15 all-day workshops and ballad forums a year and have started trying out Singing for Beginners workshops. Most of our residents run other sessions and singarounds outside the formal club environment and most are performers in their own right. We help run a small festival. We keep ourselves fairly busy.

There's nothing subjective about this - one of the great arguments in the past has been "I know a folk song when I hear one"
Wonderful. Redefining "subjective" before your very eyes.

(Who the $*!&# are Leiber and Stoller or Otis Blackwell?)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:22 AM

Very many thanks, Jim, for letting us see your interesting letter from 15 years ago [I estimate from internal refs to 34 years &c]. Still valid and thought-provoking, indeed.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:25 AM

"The oral tradition".

A friend wanted the words to Bonny Bunch of Roses recently. I cut and pasted the words into an email and included an MP3 of me singing it. 1954 never saw that one coming...

Mind you, my niece complained a while back that her daughter. "Face booked" from upstairs to say when she would be ready for her tea.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:37 AM

" I've been asking you with no satisfactory response. "
I've responded through these discussion - that you find them unsatisfactory is unfortunate.
I expect to here the songs I have been listening to for the last half century alongside new songs created using the forms used to create the songs I have become used to.
I should be able to select the music I hear by what it sounds like, not by what somebody chooses to call it, whatever it might sound like.
Your following point should have been answered by what I have just written.
My impression of what is happening today came from a quick thumb through was is on offer today - much reduced, very little tradition-based and including everything I wrote.
Yes - Walter Pardon did sing music-hall songs - and parlour ballads and early 20th century pop songs, but never (in my hearing) in a folk club and whenever we broached the subject, he filled tape after tape explaining the difference between the songs he sang - I've put some of what he had to say up on this forum and I'm happy to send anybody a copy of the article Pat and I wrote on how Walter regarded his songs ("Walter Pardon, A Simple Countryman? ((question mark essential)).
"How hard did you look? "
Hard enough - now and the last time we visited London.
I understood that Court Sessions closed when Dave East fell ill - would be delighted to know this is not the case.
"Why let the facts get in the way"
Unnecessary Brian, though I doubt if you'll have the Mudcat stalker on your back for being insulting!
I made a mistake - my apologies.
I've always believed your club to be worthy of respect - it's you own expressed attitude that has undermined that opinion
Jim Carroll
"(Who the $*!&# are Leiber and Stoller or Otis Blackwell?)"
Elvis's source of material - look 'em up

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:44 AM

On the matter of whether other methods of transmission than purely the 'oral' element have a part to play in the folk process, I reproduce here FWIW a contribution of mine to an old thread about a children's song & its transmission from 5 years ago, which I think might have some bearing on this aspect of the topic

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Origins: Black Cat Piddled in the White Cat's Eye
From: MGM·Lion - PM
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:46 AM
BTW — we recently had a long thread on what was the Folk Process, or whether it even existed. Well, isn't this an example of the way it can work?
Consider - I learned a children's song in 1956 from a friend who remembered it from his early E London days. Two years later it took the fancy of Sandy Paton who became a friend while he was visiting London. Exactly 40 years later he posted it, most courteously attributed to me, as part of a thread about its tune. This thread got refreshed 10 years later, & the words caught the eye of Joy in Australia, who started this thread about it, ref-ing Sandy's 11-yr-old post. I saw this & revealed myself as Sandy's acknowledged source, & named my source;, which brought a response from Hootenanny, who comes from the same part of London, with a recognisable variant of the same song.
I mean, the Folk Process might not work quite as it did when Kidson & Gavin Greig, Sharp & the Hammonds, Moeran & RVW, were all at work. But doesn't this show that modern means of communication, like The Web e.g., have their part to play also?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:04 AM

A friend wanted the words to Bonny Bunch of Roses recently. I cut and pasted the words into an email and included an MP3 of me singing it. 1954 never saw that one coming...

That's what I'd do too. Like I said, society's changed - & the folk process has largely stopped.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:13 AM

'Oral transmission of songs sung by ordinary people is - or was - a distinct social process. Traditional songs are - by and large - songs that have come out of that process.'

Phil, I totally agree with that statement, but the purpose of this 'debate' is to establish whether it is possible to have a NEW folk song. The 'folk process' continues, but as I pointed out, and you in part acknowledged, society and technology have changed, the 'process' has not died, but continues in a different way, so I stand by what I said earlier, that the notion that a song can ONLY be a folk song if it was the subject of oral transmission is an outdated romantic notion!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:23 AM

Jim saying that Walter Pardon knew music hall songs but apparently never sung them in folk clubs (debatable) reminds me that Tom and Bertha Brown used to do a comedy song of mine





In folk clubs

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:26 AM

yes. it is possible, i believe dirty old town, fiddlers green caledonia are all examples, songs that the general public in ireland and england regularly mistake for tradational.
jim, stop this crap about stalking, that is in fact flaming on your part.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:58 AM

the 'process' has not died, but continues in a different way

I don't know why you say this, other than that you want to believe it. Do you live in a world where ordinary people sing while they work and sing around the fire (or around the piano) when they get home? I don't. That's the society in which the folk process flourished, just as a society with horse-drawn transport is the society in which blacksmiths made a living.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:07 AM

"apparently never sung them in folk clubs (debatable)"
Debate away - lots of the older generation of singers sang music hall songs, Fred Jordan springs to mind - no information on what they called them - have you?
The 'folk process' continues,"
Repeating this as often as you like doesn't make it in any way a fact until you produce evidence that it is happening.
Writing new songs is certainly still happening - to become folk songs they have to be claimed by 'the folk' and not the folkie greenhouse horticulturalists (c) - (just copyrighted this term - please don't use it without paying the P.R.S. boyos!)
"can ONLY be a folk song if it was the subject of oral transmission is an outdated romantic notion"
You are on your own on this one - it has long been acknowledge that this is not the case and you are the only one I have heard to suggest it in a long time.
"the folk process has largely stopped."
Yes it has, that's why folk songs are no longer being made - the machinery went bust.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:07 AM

No, Phil. But they sing at football matches. Children still use songs & chants for playground games -- many based on creative variants of some of the ads they have seen while watching telly instead of singing round the fire or the piano. Various aspects of folklore & its transmission persist. Some few of their products might well enter a tradition orally. New processes don't always drive out older ones. Often they coexist.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:29 AM

Like the unexplained desire to name whatever non-Classical song one likes a "folksong," many people want very much to believe that a "folk process" of transmission and *creative alteration* is still going strong.

Except for a few minor genres like rugby songs and marching cadences, this is obviously not true. Media culture and copyright enforcement are inherently inimical to the "folk process." The small alterations made by singers in clubs and elsewhere are generally so trivial that they attract little interest.

Part of the reason is that the attitudes expressed in traditional songs no longer resonate. Has anybody significantly revised or extended, say, "Bonnie Bunch of Roses" in a way that would interest a 21st century "collector"? (Songs in tradition anyway were usually shortened rather than extended; improvement frequently came from abridgment.)

The "folk process" now applies more meaningfully to folk tunes, but even there most people seem to be learning them mainly from the same books and recordings and struggling to "get it right."

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:33 AM

Jim Carroll
I expect to here the songs I have been listening to for the last half century alongside new songs created using the forms used to create the songs I have become used to.
That isn't a hard definition, Jim. You can't expect every club in the country to have their own mini Jim Carroll sitting in the corner issuing his stamp of approval. I'm afraid that some of them have Musket or Big Al sitting in the corner. What gives your voice more authority than theirs?

I should be able to select the music I hear by what it sounds like, not by what somebody chooses to call it,
Perhaps you should, but you can't. As Howard has patiently pointed out to you "folk music" has had a far wider and less well defined meaning to the majority of people who use it than you would like. This has been true for a very long time, quite possibly since before 1954. I'm afraid you can't reshape the world to how you want it to be. The Singers Club and Court Sessions, despite not saying in their names what they did, lived on their reputations. ake a little time and find out the reputations of clubs you might visit. Sometimes you have to go beyond SOUP and read the list of ingredients on the tin and ask for other people's opinions.

My impression of what is happening today came from a quick thumb through was is on offer today - much reduced, very little tradition-based and including everything I wrote.
I would have given up bothering but this intrigues me. Are you actually saying that a venue in London that describes itself as a folk club is offering heavy metal as part of the mix? Could you give me a reference?

but never (in my hearing) in a folk club
So folk clubs (back then) weren't really reflecting what traditional singers did?

I doubt if you'll have the Mudcat stalker on your back for being insulting!
Arrogant little prat.

I've always believed your club to be worthy of respect - it's you own expressed attitude that has undermined that opinion
We'll just have to wait and see what affect that has on attendance figures. My only attitude expressed in this thread is that your contention that traditional and traditional form music has been largely driven out of UK folk clubs does not accord with my own experience and that, as someone deeply involved with folk music in the UK now (not 14 and more years ago) I am in a better position to know than you. Why that should make the Lewes Saturday Folk Club any less worthy of respect, I don't know.

In forty years,I have never, ever, not once, at all heard anyone sing an Elvis song in a folk club of any sort size or description. Ever.

Dammit! I really have got things to do.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:36 AM

Just like to say, I once heard Fred Jordan sing The Fields of Athenry.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:39 AM

'I don't know why you say this, other than that you want to believe it. Do you live in a world where ordinary people sing while they work and sing around the fire (or around the piano) when they get home? I don't. That's the society in which the folk process flourished, just as a society with horse-drawn transport is the society in which blacksmiths made a living.'

Phil, I do believe it, because I see it happening, as I've explained previously, the difference is the way the process works in our technology driven society, new folk songs are being created, but shared in different ways, so the process does continue.

And Jim, I was not going to come back to you again, but must on this one, '"can ONLY be a folk song if it was the subject of oral transmission is an outdated romantic notion"
You are on your own on this one - it has long been acknowledge that this is not the case and you are the only one I have heard to suggest it in a long time.' so is this an acknowledgement that there can be new folk songs, and that they do not have to go through the process of oral transmission to qualify as such? Havn't you been telling us all along that a song has to go through 'the process' to be a 'folk' song? Yet now you very clearly say this is not the case!

However, I'm confused, as you then seem to contradict yourself in the very next statement '"the folk process has largely stopped."
Yes it has, that's why folk songs are no longer being made - the machinery went bust.

Can't have it both ways!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 12:03 PM

I remember Fred Jordan being asked far more regularly for his "pregnant pause" rendition of grandfather's clock than any dirge about cutting reeds or other agricultural ballad.

Jim. You end up arguing against your own bloody comments. At least be consistent!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 12:20 PM

"so is this an acknowledgement that there can be new folk songs,"
Why - your train of logic totally escapes me?
What has oral and written transmission have to do with the creation of folk songs - which concerns acceptance and re-distribution?
Songs that were both orally and literally (on broadsides and ballad sheets) remained and became folk songs because the folk embraced them claimed them as part of their culture and identity.
Part of that acceptance was the remaking of them in order to adapt them to their own circumstances.
Unfortunately, literacy also helped freeze the songs in the form they were first received - this is one of the problems in discussing the effects of literacy on folk songs - nothing is as easy as it first appears.
"That isn't a hard definition, Jim. You can't expect every club in the country to have their own mini Jim Carroll sitting in the corner issuing his stamp of approval."
No I don't Bryan - I do wish you would stop misinterpreting what I have said over and over again.
Not too long ago we could go to a folk song know we would hear a song that fell within a limited range of styles of composition based on folk forms - this was a generally accepted expectation which can be heard on productions like Voice of the People, Folk Songs of Britain, and the vast majority of the Ealy Topic output.
This is no longer the case - is this what YOU are in favour of?
" a folk club is offering heavy metal as part of the mix"
Didn't say London but yes - a Scots club has offered just that.
Is the aggressive way you conduct yourself here what the punters have tpo put up at Lewes?   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 01:38 PM

"Is the aggressive way you conduct yourself here what the punters have to put up at Lewes?"
yet again a post from someone who sees aggression where there is none, and then makes a slur upon a LEWES folk club organiser.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 02:22 PM

"yet again a post from someone who sees aggression w"
We are in the middle of an argument in which neith of us is being particularly polite to one another
As I was told by teachers when I was a child "speak when you are being spoken to and mind you own business - nobody is talking to you
Back off and stop stalking - you are becoming creepy.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 02:27 PM

Jim Carroll
Is the aggressive way you conduct yourself here what the punters have tpo put up at Lewes?

You never come to our club so the need never arises. If you did and behaved as you do on here, you would certainly be asked to leave.

Don't worry. You've got Teribus on your side.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 02:38 PM

"Not too long ago we could go to a folk club and know we would hear a song that fell within a limited range of styles of composition based on folk forms"

That makes me think you were either remarkably lucky in the types of clubs you visited or were, perhaps unconsciously, selective. In my own area I could expect to hear a very wide range of styles. However in those days there were plenty of clubs to choose from, and I could go to those which were to my taste and ignore the others. Nowadays with far fewer clubs about it is perhaps more difficult to find a club to one's taste.That doesn't mean the others were being dishonest in describing themselves as folk clubs. You got to know which ones to visit, or avoid, by their reputations.

Honesty doesn't always work. One club in my area started up with the intention of breaking down barriers, so it called itself a 'music club'. On the opening night among the usual suspects from the local folk clubs there were a couple of unfamiliar, and better-dressed, women. As the first performer stood up with his acoustic guitar one of them said, "Oh my God, it's a FOLK club!" and they both left.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 02:49 PM

" If you did and behaved as you do on here, you would certainly be asked to leave."
You mean speak my mind - that seems to have sorted that one out
"Don't worry. You've got Teribus on your side."
And you have the Mudcat stalker on yours - making us both safe and warm
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 04:38 PM

Which side are you on?
Which side are you on ?

The Traddies rant and tear their hair
And shout 1954!
But if they care so much for music
They'd see they're a fucking bore

Which side are you on ?
Which side are you on?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 05:01 PM

Jim, I'm still confused, as indeed you appear to be!

'"so is this an acknowledgement that there can be new folk songs,"
Why - your train of logic totally escapes me?
What has oral and written transmission have to do with the creation of folk songs - which concerns acceptance and re-distribution?

So, you've just said very clearly that to be 'accepted' as a 'folk' song, a song has to be transmitted and re-distributed orally, in which case, surely oral transmission has everything to do with the creation of a 'folk' song, but then when I paraphrase what you've said about oral transmission, you come out the the blinding statement 'You are on your own on this one - it has long been acknowledge that this is not the case and you are the only one I have heard to suggest it in a long time. and then in the very next line, tell us that the 'folk process' has stopped.

Is it any wonder that certain people have become irritated if you can't be consistent with your own arguments?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 05:08 PM

We get used to it..,

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 07:11 PM

It all depends where you're starting from.

If you want to have a good night out listening to (and singing) a wide variety of songs sung by amateurs - some of them familiar, some less so, some brilliant, some mediocre - then a 'folk club' of the kind Musket has been going to all these years will be right up your street. And fair enough - it's a free country.

If, on the other hand, you want to listen to (and sing) traditional songs and new songs in traditional forms, you're going to have to be very selective indeed in your choice of club.

To me this whole argument hinges on whether you think that's a bad thing - which in turn hinges on how much you care about traditional songs surviving in performance.

Having said that, I make no apology for saying without qualification that it is a damn shame that folk clubs have drifted so far from their roots in traditional song. I know it's one opinion among many, but it's my opinion, and as such I believe it to be correct.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 12:00 AM

"Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?"
.,,.
Why, the fucking boring traddies' side, to be sure. Folk is folk is folk, as Gertrude Stein didn't say...

Sorry if you're bored; but this is a folk & blues thread, dontchano. If you don't want to be bored, I understand there are lots of porn sites easily clickable covering all tastes & perversions...

Regards from the ranting, hair-tearing

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 02:45 AM

Somehow Michael, I doubt I would search for pictures of you on a porn site..

The folk clubs I used to know were where my love of traditional music was, in luvvie language Michael understands, awakened. I too regret the demise of the more concert orientated club and I certainly don't call a collection of people with songbooks singing three chord Paxton folk clubs. That said, I enjoy popping out to a few locally. I am sure there would be a drift to the bar before I got less than half way through Famous Flower of Serving Men, yet if you sing Dylan's Percy's Song, about the same time taken, you get cheered...

Yet what I do know is that the idea of categorising and demanding led to the demise of the popular clubs, not the introduction of different takes on tradition or contemporary songs and styles.

That is my beef. Not winding up for windup sake as Michael and Jim feel, but pricking the bubble of pomposity. Folk is indeed folk.

This isn't M&S folk.
This is subjective folk.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 03:08 AM

No I don't really feel wound up. See your points, in the main. I think there's a lot of misremembering. I can recall few clubs even from my early scene days in the 50s which were all traditional -- indeed, as oldies among us will recall, Roy Harris et al in Nottingham had to advertise the fact that contemp wasn't welcome in the very name of their club, NTMC - the TM standing for Traditional Music. Likewise the early festivals -- I was at the first Cambridge, 1965, and reviewed many of the subsequent ones for Cambridge Evening News, The Guardian &c, from 70s on; very mixed content: especially from the later 80s onwards, where the traditional was performed, on suffrance as it felt, in a separate marginalised small tent called "The Traditional Stage" -- true, as I live & breathe! I ended my review of the last I went to "I shan't go again", and didn't.

In the mainly traditional Cambridge Crofters Club, otoh, despite Ian's suggestion above of unacceptability of any such a procedure, I once won gratifying applause some time in the 1970s for a 10-minute-+ version of Rosie Anderson; one of my happier memories of yore.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 03:40 AM

clap - i bet they broke out the champagne when you finished that one Mike!

i just want to add my thanks to Jim for his industry in replying to all these various attacks on his position, which is after all his opinion which he he is entitled too.

i can't imagine Roy Harris himself being unfriendly to anybody who sang anything at one of his evenings. he is a very friendly charming person.
i gave up on cambridge after one visit in 1974. three days without having a civilised shit....!