The singers club and proscription

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Gealt
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 05:48 AM

The Folk Peeler and His Why Fronts. Sounds like a good one.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 06:08 AM

"Stop telling me what folk music is by definition based on your opinion "
Not based on my opinion Muskie - based on a century of research - with the literature to back it up - stop behaving like an SS storm-trooper with you disgusting ageist taunts (at least not at aimed at Harry CVox and Sam Larner this time) in order to thrust your unqualified opinion down my throat - show us your literature, or #do we just have to take your word for it.
As with all the other bullies on this forum - finished debating with you for fear of wrecking an otherwise interesting thread.
You want a "folk policeman" - go look in the mirror - you're the only one demanding we have to take your word on trust - I've given my arguments.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Vic Smith
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 06:13 AM

"Folk Police?" I always thought that was nominative determinism for P.C Bobby Copper of the West Sussex Constabulary. You want photographic evidence? Here it is!

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 06:43 AM

Thanks Vic - just in the 'nick of time' (pun intended).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Vic Smith
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 06:48 AM

Too much, Jim. Give it arrest!

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 06:57 AM

It's a fair cop guv -I'll come quietly!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 07:38 AM

Well Jim, we may disagree on many things, but we're brothers on folk music......Well said sir(4;41 am)

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Brian Grayson
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 08:32 AM

Oh, dear - does the fun never stop?

I was a regular at the Singers' Club in the 70s, and I don't recall a notice prescribing/proscribing the singers' choice of songs. I recall one glorious occasion when Loudon Wainwright III asked to sing (ah, the days of floor-singers) and did 'Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road' to enthusiastic applause from all present (including Ewan and Peggy)!

By the bye - I was just watching a news item on TV which included a clip of David Bowie singing with his hand to his ear... it doesn't matter what you're singing, it helps acoustically!

My only personal criticism of the present folk scene (sic) is that festivals have grown and eclecticised to the point where I stay away 'cos they're just too bloody big and too bloody loud - but I accept that mine is a minority opinion influenced by my growing geriatric nostalgia for the Good Old Days...

OK - time for my nap. Nurse! Nurse?

Fond regards to Jim, Kevin Shiels and all the others who are keeping up the good work.

Brian

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 08:39 AM

Nice to hear from you again Brian, long time no hear - happy new century - don't forget your medication!!
"but we're brothers on folk music..."
Apologies for misunderstanding you Ake - that old knee-jerk, I'm afraid.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 09:46 AM

LOUDON was not contradicting a club rule was he? the club did not have a rule against the use of song accompaniment either, but it was proscriptive.
remind us again Jim of the club rule? was it singers singing traditional songs from their own back ground? or was it something else, that is proscriptive, however on the positive side it did mean that singers went and tried to find songs from their own background.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 10:44 AM

"remind us again Jim of the club rule?"
I don't know if you're just being obtuse or dishonest Dick.
You've read what Peggy wrote about the policy - you've read what I have written about the policy, you've just been given adescription of how Wainwright was received at The Singers Club - are you really suggesting that we are all lying?
Whatever it is, it is extremely useful as an example of how The Singers Club has ben misrepresented down the years.
When will you get it into your head that there was no "club rule" as to what could and could not be sung there
There was an expectation that the residents stuck to singing songs from their own countries in their own accents because we were opening up and exploring our own national repertoires - it was never at any time a "RULE" and was occasionally ignored without th wrath of god being poured onto our heads - repeating the "rule" myth appears to be openly malicious.
ow - remind me again Dick - are we all lying or what?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 11:08 AM

See? Just because you didn't invent it doesn't make your insistence any the wiser Jim.

Folk is far wider, far more enjoyed and vastly more artistic in scope and flavour than you could ever realise. It took off and diversified about the same time as a bunch of serious buggers with Asbergers Syndrome had decided they knew enough to describe it.

A bit of a bugger really when you try to pigeon hole something which by their own description is dynamic, evolving and reflecting people of the time.

😂😂😂

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 12:12 PM

"evolving" into third rate pop music.....I'll just say it once!

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 12:27 PM

Just been studying some nineteenth century bothy ballads from Aberdeenshire, most of the farm buildings are still there....huge culture summed up in these "comical" songs ...all life is there if you have the inclination to look.
These men had pride...in their work, their "place", even the tightness of the auld fermer boss.

When you look even closer you see that faqrmer an' worker were not really battling each other, but were involved with a titanic struggle to tame the land and raise their families.....all contained in a "spleighter o' comical blethers."

Folk music has always been about real people and real life (Ziggy Stardust nivir visited Eberdeenshire) :0)

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 12:47 PM

I can't help wondering why we're raking this old topic up AGAIN! Talk about 'flogging-a-dead-horse'. Ewan's been dead for over 26 years. In my opinion he did a bloody good job. Let him rest in peace!

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 12:58 PM

"There was an expectation that the residents stuck to singing songs from their own countries in their own accents because we were opening up and exploring our own national repertoires"
OK, Are you stating that it only applied to residents, not to floor singers, all you have to do is say yes or no.
I did not go there so I am trying to find out exactly what happened.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 01:14 PM

Little Sir Echo how do you do?

Sorry about that...

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Effsee
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 02:06 PM

"Ziggy Stardust nivir visited Eberdeenshire"... Aye he did Ake! See:-

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/memories-of-late-legend-before-he-was-starman/

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 02:32 PM

Even when trying to be obnoxious, he wouldn't know a fact from a fart.

Ignore him. He tried to denigrate Bowie. Why? Probably his neutral sexuality persona. The worm used to tell everybody how much he liked Rufus Wainwright till he found out he was gay.

What the flying it has to do with the thread is beyond me. Luckily.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 03:38 PM

Shimrod, if you do not like it you do not have to particpate, the thread is about the singers club and proscription IT is not about MacColl.
MGM Lion, mentioned Isla Cameron, I quote
Up to a point: I don't think that either the pro- or the pre-scription was rigorously or unreasonably enforced. Tho, as I have related before, I recall Ewan threatening Isla Cameron with 50 lashes next time she sang an American song.)
was that at the singers club or elsewhere?was Isla a resident at Singers club or doing a floor spot there?

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 03:59 PM

I have always thought Mr Bowie nothing more than a second rate popsinger a member of the celebrity culture, there are bucketful's of them.....perhaps he would have been more at home in a theatrical setting.
Mr Wainwright is nowhere near his father in talent or song writing ability....his sexual preferences are not of any interest to me.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 05:19 PM

EEsee.....Bit he nivir shawed neeps in 'e freezin' cauld...
       mibee he wis " 'e quine 'it did 'e strip it Inverooorie" :0o

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 06:07 PM

"Shimrod, if you do not like it you do not have to particpate, the thread is about the singers club and proscription IT is not about MacColl."

Of course it is - and you know it!

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 07:20 PM

As ever, your view of musical talent is about as worthy as your view on whole sections of society.

Sick puppy.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 07:35 PM

"I have always thought Mr Bowie nothing more than a second rate popsinger"

What a mindlessly stupid thing to say. If you didn't care for him, that's great. That would be the way to say it. Otherwise, find something else to talk about.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 07:48 PM

Don't.

He might.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 16 - 08:26 PM

Oh God, you're right. Gotta start ignoring those booze guidelines again...

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 12:40 AM

Re Dick 0338pm (et al) -- For sake of accurate fact, so far as I can recall the details of the incident:-

Ewan's affected denunciation of Isla [who was occasionally among the main host-group at the front] for singing an American song (it was 'Red Apple Juice', iirc) took place at Malcolm Nixon's Ballads·&·Blues club when it was at the Princess Louise, c 1957; predecessor of the Singers Club, which I never attended, having by then married & dropped out of the club scene prior to leaving London in 1963. Hope that brings the incident into time-context.

It seemed nevertheless relevant to me to cite as an example of 'proscription' in a club run by some of same personnel as would later constitute the Singers.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 03:34 AM

Thanks,Mike.
I am trying to find out what the true facts are,as you know I was not there.
I think accuracy is important we all know there is a lot of mythology on this subject.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 08:51 AM

Between August, 1978 and March 1979, Pat and I carried out a series of interviews with Ewan, getting him to talk about his approach to singing rather than his life, which was already well covered.
In an effort to get away from subjects here that have already been answered ad nauseum, perhaps it's worth putting some of the discussion that took place here - one can but try!!
The transcripts were used in a talk Pat and I gave at the first 'Ewan MacColl weekend' in Salford.
Jim Carroll

Ewan was very much opposed to the popular idea that the act of traditional singing was a "natural" one and that the singer really did not have to think about what he or she was doing.

1.   I believe that this notion comes from, it really begins in the Romantic Movement.   It begins with that notion of the rude, unlettered hind with a heart of gold and all the rest of it, you know. Basically today I see it as a very reactionary and very bourgeois point of view. I think it stems from a belief that the working class are incapable of doing anything which demands a high level of expertise and a high level of skill, particularly in the creative field.   
And how is it possible then that this body of music that we call folk song and folk music, traditional song, traditional music, whatever you like to call it, how is it possible that this, which has been made by labourers, seamen and all the rest of it, should have, should demand this level of expertise, should demand this high level of craftsmanship on the part of its performers.   "No", they say, "the songs are simple", and all the rest of it.   And that is nonsense, that is utter nonsense.   
To some extent it's the same idea that the nineteenth century English folk song collectors had about the music itself.   "It's embryonic music", they said, and when they didn't actually describe it as embryonic, that is what they meant when they talked about it being simple, "the simple music of unlettered people".   But unlettered there is used as a pejorative term, as though the ability to read and write is all important. The implication being that if you can read and write, then you are going to be a better singer than if you can't read or write, and we know that's nonsense.
It's this snob thing and it's the snob thing which makes them say "you don't need to work at it, you don't need a high level of craftsmanship to perform this.   
The best of folk music in the world, wherever it comes from, whether it's a Joe Heaney or whether it's that young man singing those Azerbaijani songs, is full of the most extraordinary expertise, full of the most extraordinary physical ideas, vocal ideas I mean, I mean physical in the vocal sense.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 09:10 AM

Well, I can't speak for singing, but there's no doubt that traditional Irish music of the instrumental variety is "simple" in a number of respects. Overwhelmingly, it consists of short, regular phrases and is mostly diatonic. Playing it involves much repetition. As much of it was made up on instruments, it mostly sits very easily on those instruments, so that virtuosity is never required. Untutored payers can play the music very well (as can tutored players, of course). I understand from fiddle players that they rarely, if ever, have to go beyond first position. "Simple" may mean easy to play, therefore an inclusive kind of music. I'd take that as a positive, not an insult. But "simple" doesn't mean the same thing as easy to play well. Getting to play well may mean following a different developmental path for traditional musicians than for classically-trained musicians, but that should not imply a less musicianly path. So, while I agree with the sentiment of what MacColl says, I think I detect just a hint of defensiveness. But then I'm no singer. ;-)

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 10:04 AM

"The best of folk music in the world, wherever it comes from, whether it's a Joe Heaney or whether it's that young man singing those Azerbaijani songs, is full of the most extraordinary expertise, full of the most extraordinary physical ideas, vocal ideas I mean, I mean physical in the vocal sense"
I agree with all that, I believe practice is important. Ewan and Peggys idea of vocal warm ups are in my opinion good, good conrol of the voice cannot be achieved without practice,the voice in effect is a musical instrument.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 10:06 AM

Simple, in the song sense, means instinctive and without thought, "free and birdsong" as the early collectors put it.
He elaborated on it in other arguments later.
Don't know what "simple" Irish music you mean - I gave up on the flute and the concertina after years of trying - far from simple.
A good musician if far from repetitious, we spent time recording musicians like Kevin Burke (fiddle), P.J. Crotty (flute), Fergus McTeggart (fiddle), Tom McCarthy (pipes, concertina, whistle and sometimes fiddle) and others talking about how not to make the music repetitious (ie boring).
Quite an education   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 10:15 AM

I didn't mean repetitious in that sense, Jim. Phrases within tunes are repeated, A and B music are repeated and whole tunes are repeated, but for good players they're just the hooks to hang the music on. The use of ornamentation and variation to good effect are part of that "different path" to playing well that I referred to. You won't hear Kevin Burke just repeating tunes verbatim but you might hear beginners doing that, different ends of that path. And I wasn't disagreeing with the quote, just musing.

Try the harmonica, Jim. It's never too late! ;-)

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 10:50 AM

"Try the harmonica, Jim. It's never too late! ;-)"
Been there - done that - didn't even make a fist of that one
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: TheSnail
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 11:38 AM

Jim Carroll
I said I said I stopped randomly visiting clubs when my choice of what would find there was removed from me.

I don't recall the "randomly" before. That's a bit like expecting to randomly visit a restaurant and always get steak and chips. Anyway, it's nonsense. As MacColl's quote shows, this was true before 1961, is true now and has certainly been true all the time in between. One of your favourite lines is "Does what it says on the tin." You have to read beyond "Soup" and check the list of ingredients, check the e-numbers and consider the reputation of the manufacturer. This has always been true.

"Give it a try, you might even enjoy"
I might well - but isn't it a sad state of affairs that I woulfd have to?

You don't have to. There are plenty of clubs where you will here just the sort of music you want, some of which have been going since the sixties and before. Do your research but not just for examples that fit what you want to believe.

There is so much more I'd like to respond to like your latest quote from MacColl but I really haven't got time.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 12:38 PM

I don't recall the "randomly" before.
Not my problem Bryan - that's the way it was - my main club was the Singers and I spent two or three nights per week visiting other clubs.
"Anyway, it's nonsense."
And we were doing so well - no it wasn't any such thing - try not to be so belligerent and we might have a discussion.
MacColl flt that the B and B was moving to commercialism and he did what he said he was going to do - set up a new non-commercial tradition based club -what part of that do you have trouble with?
I came to live music while I was an apprentice - Country and Western - listening to the likes of Jimmy Rodgers (the singing brakeman - not the other one), Hank Williams et al, and attending a C&W club in Liverpool town centre
Along came the Music industry, milked the C & W scene, orchestrated all the songs, used it for a while and spat it out.
I started to go to The Cavern to hear what was then the best of jazz - Colyer, Lyttleton, Barber, Lightfoot... with occasional visits from Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and Donegan
Along comes the Industry again, markets jazz and boom all gone, no more tomorrow.   
Ewan (certainly not alone) and others saw the same thing happening with folk (and was proved very right, given the Folk Boom) and decided to make a stand.
The Singers was presenting good well performed folk songs without compromise until nearly a year after Ewan died - I became one of the long-term beneficiaries of that policy.   
As far as I'm concerned it says "folk" on the tin - I think I know what the word means, no-one has yet given me any reason to doubt what I believe
"There are plenty of clubs where you will here just the sort of music you want,"
There may well but in my experience there are far more who call themselves "folk" who don't.
"Do your research"
Bang - there goes that arrogance again - do you think I haven't - one of the advantages of the net is you don't have to to leave home to check the quality of what's out there - fairly depressing.
On our last three visits to London we have been fairly appalled at what we found - little folk badly performed read from crib-sheets (never saw a mobile phone prompt used before) - as for the new slimline folk scene that used to boast up to fifty clubs a week.
"I'd like to respond to like your latest quote from MacColl but I really haven't got time."
That's a shame!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 12:52 PM

Ach, too defeatist, Jim. At least you can sing, unlike me!

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 01:01 PM

"At least you can sing, unlike me!"
MacColl always argued that, unless there was something physically wrong (quite rare), anybody could sing if they were prepared to put the work in.
Whose being a defeatist now?
There were two brothers came regularly to the Singers, one could sing, the other, both claimed, was "tone deaf"
The latter joined the Singers Workshop - for the crack.
We worked on him for about three months and he reciprocated by listening to advice.
He became a passable singer - bought us all drinks and his brother presented us with a song book for our archive - still have it somewhere.
A definite high point in an otherwise unremarkable career
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 01:50 PM

I hope he wasn't a passable singer BECAUSE he bought you all drinks! I've got a very loud voice and can sing in tune but there's something wrong that I can't put my finger on, and my wife says I pull a funny face when I'm singing - sort of pained, she reckons. I'll have another bash at it when she goes out. I suppose Danny Boy would be out of the question...

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 02:14 PM

"Who call themselves folk"

Therefore folk.

Easy

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 02:25 PM

the last club I visited in London was the cellar upstairs not long ago, IT WAS EXCELLENT, floor singers included tom paley[ who was a regular at the singers club], guests were ken hall and peta webb.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 02:56 PM

"the last club I visited in London was the cellar upstairs not long ago, IT WAS EXCELLENT"
One of the last clubs we visited in London wa The Callar Upstairs - it wasn't, what with its crib sheets and noise from the bar - and it was half empty (or half full, if you prefer)
Then again À chacun son goût
"Easy"
You mean simple - minder, that is.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: TheSnail
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 03:22 PM

Jim, I called a statement you made nonsense on the straightforward grounds that it was. You responded with personal attacks on me calling me belligerent and arrogant. I was going to bite my tongue and try to continue a reasonable debate until I read your latest reply to GSS. For belligerence and arrogance, it takes some beating.
Do as you would be done by and something might be achieved but if you insist on alienating everyone you come in contact with, we are going nowhere.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 03:37 PM

Jim,
Can you explain in what way the Singers Club was not commercial as opposed the the Ballads and Blues Club? I visited the Singers Club on three occasions and had to pay to enter.

Your comment about noise from a bar at the Cellar upstairs (which as far as I know usually operates in a function room and not in the bar) reminds me of one occasion when I visited the Singer's Club. A certain gentleman who was a regular supporter there was somewhat "tired and emotional" and in the middle of a song by Derrol Adams very loudly commented "he's still singing the same _ _ _ ing songs". The same man that I had had to eject from the B&B a number of years earlier for similar disruption. I won't mention his name as I know that you don't like folks dancing on graves.
I don't recall a bar in the basement at St John Street so I guess he oiled up before entering the club as he used to at the Nellie Dean Street.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: Vic Smith
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 04:25 PM

I have been to the Cellar Upstairs club on quite a number of occasions. I found that it was well run, had a high standard of guests and floor singers in an amazingly quiet environment for its location in a busy part of London and was always well attended to full when I have been there. I found their audiences to be attentive and appreciative.
I know the organiser, Sheila Miller, well and know her to be a hard-working, efficient and knowledgeable folk club organiser. I worked with her for decades in organising tours where guests came to both our clubs as well as others of like minded, traditionally oriented clubs. I have nothing but praise and admiration for the way she single-handedly combines all the responsibilities and combines this with a demanding professional career.
I am very unhappy to see her club dismissed in such a disparaging way by someone who apparently only has a passing knowledge of it. If I were to stumble on a night where things were not perfect at a club on an irregular visit, I would not make assumptions that this was always the case.
As a long-term organiser and knowing that things can sometimes go wrong through no fault of the club management, I certainly would not be posting negative comments about it on a public forum.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: TheSnail
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 04:25 PM

Does everybody else know or is it a deep, dark secret? Who is Hootenanny?

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 05:28 PM

There was no bar in the folk club in the" cellar upstairs" when i went there, the material was all folk music, ken hall and peta webb sang american folk music ,they were of a high standard, tom paley was a high standard, there were no crib sheets, I did not sing with a crib sheet either, obviously i cannot comment on my own performance other than to say i played traditional songs, in my usual way.

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 05:30 PM

I have been wondering the same. 'Hootenanny' writes as if we are all going to know who he is, with his first person recollections of clubs he has visited &c [see 3 posts back]; but I know, no more than TheSnail, his actual identity. [But -- a bit of
tu quoque — don't know who TheSnail is either.]

≈M≈
[Michael Grosvenor Myer]

Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Jan 16 - 05:35 PM

I know who The Snail is but it would be unethical to reveal his true identity, one thing I can say is that I have yet to see him eating snails