Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?

Subject: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,LadyDiamond
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 07:36 AM

Hello

Just wondered what you thought about posh people singing folk songs.

To provide context, I am posh in the sense I went to a boarding school, speak rather nicely and buy a lot of smoked salmon. I also love folk music - political songs and all - and don't put on a fake accent when I sing The Dowie Dens of Yarrow. Therefore, more often than not, I sound like a posh bird singing a folk song.

Am I a pariah leeching from the ordinary man and woman? Do I just sound really out of place? If Ewan McColl was alive today, would he run off screaming? Or am I a person who enjoys life and music and doesn't sweat the small stuff? Would love to know.

Must dash now - off to the golf club.

LD

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: BobKnight
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 08:39 AM

If you love singing - sing!!

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,Blandiver (Astray)
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 08:46 AM

Ewan MacColl was pretty posh himself. In fact The Folk Revival is a posh person's game so I'd say you're in good company. Folk Oiks (like me) are exceptions that prove the rule; but we know our place and are quite happy to fling ourselves in the nearest ditch out of deference if not outright authenticity...

'I say, you chaps - anyone for a spot of the old folk dancing? Or should we proceed direct to the jolly old incest, what?'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuqhEix8lGY

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 08:46 AM

Yes. Her Majesty has a keen interest in the culture of the lower orders and could have pursued a career as a professional folksinger if her duties had not decreed this path was not open to her.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 08:47 AM

and clogdancer.....

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 09:23 AM

Didn't they release a bit of film recently of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret doing a bit of improvised folk dancing?

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Airymouse
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 09:40 AM

Rich, well educated and urban people can and do sing folk songs. Nellie Galt's songs are recorded in the Library of Congress. Her Mulberry Hill, for example, clearly meets any reasonable requirement to be a folk song. Old Nellie lived in Louisville KY and she took voice and piano lessons. I learned a song, "Cosy Mosey," which is a really interesting version of The Cutty Wren that came from Scotland, but had spent 5 generations in Pennsylvania, from a teacher at Duke University. My father went to a boarding school, Andover, and got a degree in chemistry from Harvard, and I promise you that he knew old folk tales and folk songs.
I know Rick Ward's Jobal Hunter, but I can't sing it with his North Carolina accent and style, and I concede that it loses something in the translation. It is a good thing to preserve the old ways of singing ; e.g.,Elizabeth Laprelle, but not all old songs were sung in a peculiar style. My wife's grandfather sang a version of The State of Arkansas, and I don't think I sing it significantly differently from the way he did.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 09:41 AM

Found it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRBb_PltQ0o

(it's a bit slow to start, but the dancing bit is near the end, about the last 20 seconds)

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 09:42 AM

What's the point of the video? They must be posh because their shirts aren't plaid?

Lady Diamond, BobKnight basically said it all: "If you love singing, sing!"

There are many kinds of folksong in this world. If a song appeals to you, and if you don't feel uncomfortable singing it, then it's good that you sing it. Your instincts will tell you which songs to avoid.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 10:19 AM

"They must be posh because their shirts aren't plaid?"

No, they must be posh because they're princesses. The point of it is that they are enjoying dancing. (Singing wouldn't work as it is a very old film and there isn't any sound.)

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 10:32 AM

Just sing in your natural voice. Don't try and pretty it up, but don't try to yokelise it either.

Blandiver. Did nobody bother to tell the posters of that video that the opening dance was rapper sword, not Morris?

BTW. Anybody know who the lady violinist was. I can't help thinking it's Maude Karpeles, except that I never heard she played she played the violin.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Acorn4
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 10:40 AM

Really looking to the royal Christmas release of "All Around One's Hat"!

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,Bignige
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 10:43 AM

Let me think, eh no no still don't give a shit.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,Bignige
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 10:48 AM

Come think of it, quite a few Folkies who become popular do end up reasonably well off. So may be we should introduce a cap (maybe similar to the Bankers Bonus cap), that excludes any artist as soon as they start to earn good money.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: mayomick
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 10:54 AM

Whatever your accent, you stop being posh when you're singing folk songs.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 11:00 AM

There's way of singing you sometimes come across in which the song is just a vehicle for the singer singing notes, and that tends be in what can be called a posh voice. But you can get decidedly non posh singers who fall into the same trap.

The point is the song not the singer, and if you put that first it doesn't matter how posh your voice is.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Jason Xion Wang
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 11:05 AM

I don't know what the word "posh" means but I think anyone can sing folk songs.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Musket
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 11:08 AM

If MacColl were alive today, I'd run off screaming... Despite him being a songwriting hero of mine. Don't worry, MacColl's offshore account where most of his royalties went proved a bit of an embarrassment when their Calum let it slip...

There are some people who think folk is something to do with working class struggle etc. Well, it certainly has, like protest and Elizabethan tunes for royalty to dance to, become part of what is now called the folk tradition. So have many other styles. Most old traditional lyrics are class neutral, being about "sporting and playing" or yearning for past experiences. Cecil Sharpe and co wanted traditional tunes to delight guests sfter dinner when the ladies retired to the drawing room. Posh?

A club I go to fairly regularly is stuffed with £3k plus guitars and the car park makes my BMW look down market.

In fact, going back thirty odd years, in a town with over three thousand miners, there were two of us regularly attending folk clubs to my knowledge. Mostly, it was teachers, social workers, accountants etc. Fairly posh from my perspective...

That's a thought. Hey Al! Back then, I was the bit of rough and you were the posh git!

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 11:11 AM

"Ewan MacColl was pretty posh himself."
No he wasn't
His parents were Scots, higlaand and lowland, with broad accents
His accent started working class Salford and ended up neutral, but with a good command of a range of accents
Dessribing that a "posh" is absurd - but don't let that get in the way of a bit of grave-dancing, after all, he's only been dead for a quarter of a century!
Describing the revival as "posh" is as silly as it gets
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 11:14 AM

i'm sure anyone can enjoy any type of music they like, and if that includes singing it -why not? (however, i do take exception to david cam***n attending a gillian welch gig) but i don't think the upper classes can create good art- their role is to buy and sell it. i don't know why this is. usually musicians lose some or most of their creative edge when they have made enough money to be comfortably off.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 11:23 AM

Looking at the audience and many performers of BBC4 folk awards shows,

why wouldn't it be a reasonable assumption that the modern 21st century folk music 'industry'
is run by and for a 'traditional' bohemian dopey twat looking upper middle class cultural elite...?????

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 11:38 AM

Pretty sure that the original OP was put up just to start another endless and pointless bit of sniping.

However,for what it is worth, in the early days of the Ballads and Blues Club in London Rory and Alex McEwen (cousins to HRH) were regular performers at the club alongside Ewan & Peggy. They used to sing Blind Gary Davis songs among others.

Somebody said he didn't know what POSH was. It's an abbreviation for "Portside out, starboard home". Cabin choice for wealthy folks when cruising.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:19 PM

John Jacob Niles was pretty posh - yet very successful, wasn't he?
Was there anyone posher than Peter Peers.

folksongs haven't been ringfenced, anyone can have a go.

as far as i'm concerned Musket, you're still a barmaid's idea of a gentleman. the offshore account is the sort of thrifty measure that any Lincolnshire shopkeepers daughter would have taken.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,Bignige
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:22 PM

But only to and from India

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:29 PM

A while back there was a documentary on TV(?) about The Critics Group and EMcC...This included Charles Parker(?) singing "The Strawberry Roan". Unfortunately, his upper class accent did nothing for the song at all. This may be because he was trying to sing an american song.His plummy voice rendition almost made me fall off my stool laughing!

I would say therefore that it depends upon how 'posh/upper class/Eton/Harrow/Roedean'your speaking accent is and that you should perhaps, if necessary, choose your material accordingly. Otherwise....just sing and do the songs justice.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:33 PM

Why would someone ask such an absurd question..unless it is designed to stir up the nutters. I see that some have stirred already.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Musket
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:34 PM

In which case, why did so many barmaids tell me to piss off? You can't blame me for trying. They were lovely, and got more lovely with each pint. Even that tatooed one in The Masons' in Mansfield.

Achmelvich.. A bit confused here about you objecting to someone enjoying a concert?

Back to the subject. Plenty of footage abound with Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten and various sopranos working their way through traditional folk songs. Even posher than me, and I'm so posh, I shout "I'm arriving dear!"

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:44 PM

you should have kept trying, she used to have a set of felt tips to let you fill in the tatoos after the lock in.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:48 PM

What a fucking stupid question.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:50 PM

Aren't there any money-counting shanties? Laments that the Bank of England's prime rate isn't what it was? Seasonal songs to welcome the annual dividend?

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:50 PM

*winces* No, posh is not an acronym. That particular tale has been debunked so many times (like Ship High In Transit or For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge), I'm always surprised it continues to survive. If you want to know the origin of a word (look it up, frankly!) always be suspicious of an acronymic explanation; they're mostly backronyms. Acronyms are a very modern obsession; they really only began to be used as shorthand from about WWI onwards (Ack-ack, Toc H are early versions).

Posh most likely derives from Romany, although it's not certain (the OED gives a more nebulous origin, for example). According to Partridge's dikker of slang, posh is money, specifically a low value coin such as a halfpenny, and reckons it's recorded as early as the mid 19thC. It gives a second definition of "a dandy", which is the OED origin, but that only dates to the end of the 19thC. Essentially, if you'd got a bit of "posh", you'd got a bit of money. "Port out..." was first recroded only as late as 1935, and it wasn't associated with P&O until 1937 (the '35 mention claimed it to be a US shipping term).

As for posh folk singing folk songs, surely the key word here is folk? Posh folk are folk too, so why shouldn't they sing folk! ;-)

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Bert
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:54 PM

During the early part of the Twentieth Century the banner of folk music was carried by the posh people who were running The EFDSS.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 01:56 PM

Speaking of golf, last night I watched Reba while I had baked beans, applesauce, and water for dinner. And it was all good.

Thank you Mary Wheeler for singing folk songs back to roustabouts to confirm that you had them right. Thank you Bascom Lunsford and Emmet Kennedy and your peers for singing folk songs; without you I'd know less about songs like "Been In The Pen So Long"/"Alberta Let Your Hair Hang Low" and "Poor Boy Long Ways From Home" in their historical contexts. Thank you golf player for finding the time to drop by.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 02:47 PM

"Aren't there any money-counting shanties?"

Well, GK Chesterton came up with this stirring ditty:

"There's a run upon the Bank –
Stand away!
For the Manager's a crank and the Secretary drank,
And the Upper Tooting Bank
Turns to bay!

Stand close: there is a run
On the Bank.
Of our ship, our royal one, let the ringing
Legend run,
That she fired with every gun
Ere she sank."

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,Rich A
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 02:50 PM

I sing folk songs and I get out of the bath to have a shit, I must be posh! Am I still allowed?

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Gurney
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 02:59 PM

Obviously the early collectors of folk music thought so. They published sheet music.
How many 'folk' can read that?
Or afford to buy it.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 03:10 PM

... and sheet music was probably even worse than Izal...???

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Gurney
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 03:25 PM

I don't know. Izal is pretty good for writing apologies on.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 10:02 PM

I skipped a few letters. I thought the thread title was, "Can Polish People Sing Folk Songs?" Being married to a Polish maiden, I have to say I'm undecided as of now. She thinks she's an alto, but she's not sure yet....

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 10:45 PM

I believe this will answer your question, Joe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlIIQ_gA_jA

The answer is yes.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 11:01 PM

As far as I know, Pete Seeger had a pretty posh upbringing and went to a boarding school in Connecticut, so you can just keep singing!

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Nov 14 - 11:01 PM

Oh, I love polkas! So, now the question is, "Can Posh People Perform Polish Polkas Properly?"

OK, sorry. I'll leave voluntarily....

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 03:15 AM

With reference to the YouTube clip mentioned above. I am pretty certain that the fiddle-player is not Maud Karpeles. However, one of the dancers does resemble a youthful Douglas Kennedy. So it might be that the fiddler is his wife, who was Maud's sister.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 03:22 AM

Anyone can sing anything they want to, but Peter Pears sounded absurd singing folk songs.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 03:29 AM

Kathleen Ferrier could.
And bawdy songs.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 03:48 AM

Kathleen Ferrier had a 'posh'sounding singing voice but was not really 'posh' - daughter of a village schoolmaster, left school at 14 to work on a GPO switchboard, married a local bank branch manager (not a wealthy city banker) - she had a wonderful voice but her feet were firmly on the ground.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 06:00 AM

This might help. It applies to the Blues but there's a folkie parallel in there ;-)

HOW TO PLAY AND SING THE BLUES

1. Most Blues begin with: "Woke up this morning..."

2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues unless you stick
something nasty in the next line like "I got a good woman with the
meanest face in town."

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it.
Then find something that rhymes, sort of: "Got a good woman with the meanest
face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got
teeth like alligator, and she weigh 500 pound."

4. The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a
ditch. There ain't no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues
don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or SUVs. Most Blues transportation is a
Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor
pools
ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the blues
lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults
sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the
electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or anyplace
in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical
depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still great places
to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues anyplace that don't get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the Blues. A woman with male
pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg 'cause you were skiing is not the
blues. Breaking your leg 'cause a alligator be chomping on it is.

9. You can't have no Blues in a office or a shopping mall. The lighting
is wrong. Go out to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

Bad places for the Blues:
a. Nordstrom's
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League colleges
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you
happen to be an old ethnic person, and you slept in it.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues?

Yes, if:
a. you older than dirt
b. you blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied

No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a 401K or trust fund

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods
cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly white people also got a
leg up on the blues.

14. If you ask for water and your darlin' give you gasoline, it's the Blues.
Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. nasty black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Chardonnay
c. Snapple
d. Slim Fast

15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues
death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die.
So
are the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken-down
cot.
You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while
getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

18. Persons with names like Amber, Jennifer, Tiffany, Debbie, and
Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

19. Make your own Blues name Starter Kit:
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, etc..)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
Examples: Blind Lime Jefferson, Jackleg Lemon Johnson.

20. No matter how tragic your life, if you own a computer you cannot sing
the blues

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 06:17 AM

musket - no, i'm not confused. i may be irrational and probably am unfair but.....i saw gillian welch and dave rawlings a couple of years ago in manchester - one of the best gigs i ever saw. then a few days later i read about cameron and his wife going to the london gig. irrespective of whether this was for political or photo-op type purposes or whether they have a genuine liking for the music, it just made me feel a bit sick. childish too, nae doubt but we can all be irrational at times and let personal feelings for repulsive individuals over-ride our otherwise, easy going and tolerant nature.

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: Musket
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 06:46 AM

Glad you thought it irrational. The only people who shouldn't be allowed to enjoy music are those who think others shouldn't be allowed to enjoy it.

Even then, they can tap their feet discretely...

Subject: RE: Can Posh People Sing Folk Songs?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 07:16 AM

Baron Frederick Van Pallandt and wife Nina from Denmark had folksy hits with "Listen to The Ocean" and "Sipping Cider Through A Straw " in Britain in the 60s ; I guess that they were "posh" but Jimmy Miller ( McColl ) NEVER !!