MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK

Subject: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 12:35 PM

O.K. The Mudcat Broadcasting System is proposing to do a 11 part series on Folk Music. We figure the budget is about $10 million (residuals, albums, foreign sales, etc. will recoup some of this). It will be a joint Anglo-Ameri-Can-Austra-Celto production.

EPISODE 1?:

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Bert
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 12:50 PM

Episode 1: A discussion of the early collectors with examples of their songs 'as collected' and as they are sung today.

Resources available with interviews with Max, Bruce O, The Smithsonian etc..

Episode 2: folk in the Pop world, with examples and interviews - Lonnie Donnegan - Led Zeppelin and others.

Episode 3: The folk influence on modern songwriters. Style and lyrics and melodies.

Episode 4: Modal music.

Episode 5: A glimpse at a large festival or gathering (FSGW, maybe).

Episode 6: House concerts, with interviews with popular singers such as our Rick.

Episode 7: Bowdlerisation and bawdy songs.

Episode 8: Song circles.

Episode 9: Folk is schools. How folk music is used in the teaching of music.

Episode 10: Folk music for Dancing, Square Dancing, Contra, Irish, French, German - Visits to as many different clubs as possible.

Episode 11: Party time and singalong with (heaven forbid) the words on the screen.

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: MMario
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 01:19 PM

Bert seems to have pretty well covered it all. Except I would like to see something in there about the back and forth transfer of hymn tunes to folk and vice versa

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 01:22 PM

You're not letting Ken Burns anywhere near this, are you?

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Bert
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 01:24 PM

And Peter T is putting up the 'up front' money;-)

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Bert
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 01:26 PM

Oh, and the final part of each episode will be learning and singing a new song.

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: GUEST,Pete Seeger
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 01:39 PM

A bunch of us used to sit around attempting to play this music that the black people were having such success with.I remember at the time I was dabbling with the soprano saxophone.My friend Burl Ives was a student of the flugelhorn,and of course Glen Yarborough was in the early stages of developing a unique clarinet style.We would listen to old recordings of Woody Guthrie and his famous warbling trumpet for hours.

Then one day this funny little Irish guy named O'Connell comes in to a club where we were playing and he's got this odd instrument he invented that looks like a snare drum impaled on a long stick.He chimed in on West Side Blues with this thing and the crowd went wild.I asked him what it was and he said it was a "band-joe", and I began to tinker with it.Well, the rest is history.The boys and I picked up several of these exotic stringed instruments and found their slower,folksy pace matched our slow, folksy demeanors. Pretty soon,everyone was calling this "Folk" music and the name just stuck.

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 01:52 PM

Well Bert...........first, I think you're in BIG trouble with Conrad. Second, are we talking "world" folk? If so, we're already missing a bunch. And what about your authorities? Max doesn't know who Jean is so let's move on. Let's get as many ALIVE people as we can who were/are there.........In the US, get Ricthie,Watson,etc. and also the lesser knowns in branches....Curley Fox is 100, but still tells a good story. Grassers, hillbillies, trads.....Gotta' get Pete of course. And after we're done, where do we go next? The folk musics (plural) of Australia? How about all that stuff we're lumping in Celtic? Lots of people there to talk to.

So do we just play music and have very little talk? Do we bow to history a bit and tell the tales with a music backdrop? No...that's bad........But then again, what's the target audience? Is this really comprehensive? Or do we try to educate and excite as best we can and leave the in-depth stuff to the cd's and books?

Just like Jazz, the area is too broad (and jazz is narrower). Whatever y'all decide, at least 98% will bitch about it unless you call it "The Absolute Origin, Be All and End All of Folk Music of Any Sort" and do 7927 hours on only the Irish........in which case, Conrad will be overjoyed.......as long as 99% of that is orange.

Good Luck.

Spaw

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 02:01 PM

Would not a geographical odyssey be another good approach to some of this music? Or by instrument/grouping/voice? yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 02:08 PM

"a joint Anglo-Ameri-Can-Austra-Celto production."

But not restricting the music to the traditions of those countries I take it?

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Bert
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 02:13 PM

Well it looks like 11 episodes won't cut it. How about two hours every night for the next ten years?

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 02:21 PM

I already have that scheduled on Mudcat!

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 03:09 PM

Episode I: The Folkie Menace
Episode II: The Wrath of Dylan
Episode III: The British Isles Strike Back
Episode IV: Gordo Bordeaux Pumpkin Pie
Episode V: The Search for Bok
Episode VI: The Final Balladeer
Episode VII: The Return of the Folki
Episode VIII: The Next Generation
Episode IX: A New Harp
Episode X: Invasion of the Folk Song Snatchers
Episode XI: The Undiscovered Song

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Morticia
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 03:17 PM

I'd like to look at the sociological angle given half a chance and a budget. I'd be interested in the personal aspect of this, for example, what sort of people like folk music, why do they, what makes them get up and perform in front of a room full of people?
I'd maybe look at various folk clubs and how they vary from country to country,... if they do, in depth interviews with audience members and performers,the unique aspects of a music genre that appears to trancend age, class and nationality in a way that no other form of music can claim.....and why it's regarded as slightly jokey by non-fans.
And perhaps a flying visit to the Mudcat, and a look at it's whys, wherefores and people......actually, we could do a whole series just on that and still not cover all of it!

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Wesley S
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 03:30 PM

How about an episode called " GUITAR STRINGS - Nobody has the guts anymore and why the cat population is out of control". Just an idea.

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: folk1234
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 04:04 PM

Don't forget the "Folk Revival Period" of the fabulous '60s. Many folk purists deride the music of the 60's as being too commercial. However if it wasn't for this perior of popularism, many of the folkies of today would not have been hooked. Just MHO.

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 04:15 PM

Can Wynton Marsalis be in it?

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: sophocleese
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 04:24 PM

Episode 1: what is folk music
Episode 2: defining folk music
Episode 3: more defining folk music
Episode 4: is this folk or not?
Episode 5: towards a comprehensive definition of folk music
Episode 6: which horse said what when?
Episode 7: start playing some folk music already!
Episode 8: why this is not folk music
Episode 9: towards a comprehensive definition of folk music, part II
Episode 10: will somebody please, please, sing a folk song?
Episode 11: The future of folk music

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 05:03 PM

Thank yew, sophocleese! I was just going to jump in and say First Things First, We have to define Folk Music! **BG**

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 11 Jan 01 - 06:54 PM

'Course if the big bucks budget DOESN'T come through, we can just go to the library and take out all the Rainbow Quest shows. I did. T'was fun.

Rick

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 12 Jan 01 - 04:02 AM

Don't neglect: "The kazoo: a socio-economic perspective of the influence of cheap instruments on the musically challenged, with a side discussion on the merits of metal, plastic or rosewood and the role of sink plungers and funnels in auditory enhancement."
(You can tell I see too many PhD titles!)
RtS

Subject: RE: MBS: Mudcat TV Series: FOLK
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 12 Jan 01 - 09:07 AM

As the one-chord-wonder-3-notes-on-a-whistle-and-bad-at-changing-key-when-singing Mudcat member I would like to see the series address the role of the audience and its importance in music (or "If a folkie sings in the wood and there's no one there to hear them, do they make a sound?"). That way I can justifiably feel I'm contributing the seething mass of talented people that there is around here. Kazoos and all!