Popfolk?

Subject: Popfolk?
From: Uncle Tone
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 09:48 AM

OK, Mudcatisti, here's a big one.When does pop become folk?

In my singaround club we sometimes get songs written by the Beatles. Bearing in mind these songs are now some 50 years old, are they now folk?

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 10:20 AM

No they're not folk until they've been through the Folk Process and become part of the community and no longer property of just the writer. Should they be sung at folk Gatherings? Certainly. That's how they become folk.
Joe

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: meself
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 10:45 AM

Don't let the 'performing rights' mob find out, though!

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Stanron
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 11:02 AM

Richard Dyer Bennet made a distinction between 'Folk Singer' and 'Minstrel'. A folk singer took the songs of his specific social group and sang them because he liked them. Someone who took songs from a different culture or social group and resurrected them, which is what he did, was a 'Minstrel'.

So, is the spotty yoof who strums the wrong chords to Wonderwall at the open mike really a folk singer after all?

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 11:47 AM

Oh puh-leez - not another thread on what constitutes "folk". This is a topic that's been hashed and re-hashed here time out of mind - thrashed to within an inch of its life. The same people use the same arguments and counter-srguments, and nothing gets agreed or resolved.

Just enjoy the music...

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 12:22 PM

UT, please have a look for the endless threads that have battled this one out on numerous occasions. If you're a 54-er, pop music that is current can't be folk. If you're not everybody will have a different opinion. Of course pop music can and has become folk but at what point this happens is highly debatable.

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 02:36 AM

Pop song = song written specifically to make money.

Folk song = song written for any other reason than to make money.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: GUEST,Henry Piper of Ottery
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 03:33 AM

Sorry D.H,.....Not entirely True, many folksongs that entered tradition via Broadsheets and similar were very much written to make money !!!

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 05:21 AM

ok then... as a variation on the old bore fest....

how about this instead...

Is it poop or folk...???

eg...

Streets of london
Day trip to Bangor
Matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs
Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?
All Around My Hat
The Floral Dance
Blowin' in the Wind
I Know An Old Lady
Going to the Zoo
My Ding-A-Ling
anything by Mumford and Sons
.. or all those modern hip young female songstresses strumming ukuleles...


etc.. etsc.. etc..


I nominate Where Have All the Flowers Gone? as soooo poop. it can only / must be folk..... 😜

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Uncle Tone
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 07:32 AM

From: meself - PM
Date: 12 Sep 16 - 10:45 AM

Quote: Don't let the 'performing rights' mob find out, though!

That is a point I have often wondered about. I'm really not sure how it works. I presume that if you sing somebody else's composition for money, you should have asked them first and then you owe them something.

Does that include buskers, pub bands, solo guest artists in a folk club?

But in a folk singaround that wouldn't apply surely?

I must admit that I avoid booking guests on to my show if they predominately sing covers. We are fully registered with the PRS and the PPL, but I assume you would only get their tuppence if you are already famous and registered with them too.

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 09:12 AM

Uncle Tone: I remember putting on Gilmore and Roberts at a venue in Sevenoaks a few years back, with a local "folk-rock" band as support.

I was quietly happy that I'd broken even on the evening when I got a letter from the venue with a request that I fill out a list of the sets of both support and main artistes.

The support performed all their own songs, and Katriona and Jamie performed 2 arrangements of trad songs. The rest were their own. I still had to give the venue £36 for the PRS....and since the "take" at the PRS overwhelmingly goes to those who need it least, I felt a bit annoyed that famous musicians would actually be benefitting from these young performers doing their own songs!

And I ended up losing a few quid on the gig.

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 10:06 AM

Hardly surprising in the current political and financial state of the country.

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 12:21 PM

This question can't be answered, for the following reason.

Imagine you somehow had time (and inclination) enough for the following exercise.

You start by picking a song that definitely IS a 'folk song' - a traditional country song from the 17th century, perhaps. This goes at the top of a list.

You then choose a song that definitely IS NOT a 'folk song' - maybe a modern heavy metal track. This goes at the bottom.

You then make a list of all the songs you've ever heard in your life, grading them according to whether they're nearer to one or the other of your 'folkiest' and 'least folkie' songs.

Then, using your best judgement, you decide where, among the countless songs in your massive list, to draw a line: all the songs above the line ARE folk, all the songs below ARE NOT.

But, the 2 songs each side of your line would have virtually the same amount of 'folkiness'. The 25 songs each side of your line would. Anyone could look at that list of 50 songs, 25 above and 25 below your line, and say, "Why on earth is this one folk, but this one isn't?"

And furthermore ... if 99 other people carried out the same exercise, their lists would almost certainly be vastly different from yours. How could we ever decide which (if any) of the 100 lists was the correct one, before we even begin arguing about songs above and below the line?

Problem solved: it's insoluble.

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 12:41 PM

Excellent description, GUEST! Why is your name not on it?

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: GUEST,Bloke in Groucho mask
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 01:20 PM

If it is in a general music genre by listening to it, it is in that genre, and possibly many others.

The tune to a Child ballad was given to both another set of traditional words and simultaneously a hymn by Vaughan Williams. I used the same tune for a punk song back in the late '70s about getting your todger caught in your flies.

The dots look the same on the sheet music for all versions...

Anyway, according to iTunes, Vin Garbutt is country and western. It's all subjective, right, wrong and indifferent.

I'm with Will Fly on this.

I'm calling it the 2016 definition, and repealing the 1954 nonsense because frankly, nobody cares. As Sir Thomas Beecham noted, the English don't appreciate music but they love the noise it makes.

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Andy7
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 02:03 PM

"Excellent description, GUEST! Why is your name not on it?"

Sorry, I'm that Guest at 12.21. I hadn't realised I was logged out!

Andy7

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Sep 16 - 02:07 PM

Must take you to task here, BiGm.

'frankly, nobody cares.'
There are lots of people, collectors, researchers, academics, etc., who do care, and the 54 definition still holds up well for those who are happy to use the 54 definition for at least one meaning of folk music. Most of us are quite happy to accept that there is also a folk music genre that overlaps into other genres. Like I've said before many words in our language have more than one meaning.

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 30 Dec 17 - 10:54 PM

I think, or at least hope, that many of us understand, and care, that "folk" music encompasses many traditions, and many histories.
And also I believe that those who have the ability have a responsibilty to keep the old way of doing things - the roots - alive, and yet also to build on them and so make them relevant, living, today. It shouldn't be too hard. People haven't changed much over the millenia.
How old are the ruins of civilisations. Look at them, and every time you see an old building, or just foundations, with "a bit added on" think
how many times did the conversation "let's build an extension on the house" - "ooh yes! what colour curtains can we have, and can we have a party when it's done" has occurred!

Subject: RE: Popfolk?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 31 Dec 17 - 10:45 AM

A lot of common sense being stated on this thread. It won't last though!