Tedious old standards - revival due?

Subject: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Snuffy
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 09:00 AM

Before the Cat crash there was a thread which asked if anyone still sang "that tedious old standard", 'The Foggy Foggy Dew'. And a few folks wrote in to say yes.

Are there any other songs which were done do death in the 50s/60s so you never wanted to hear them again, but after 20-30 years might be ready for a comeback?

F'rinstance 'Where Have All The Flowers Gone' was sung by at least three people (including me) at Bedworth Folk Festival this weekend. Haven't heard anyone do it for years, but it seems to have more relevance after 9/11.

And if we all continue to refuse to sing 'Wild Rover' and 'Fields of Athenry', will someone "rediscover" them in 30 years time?

What would you bring back?

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 09:32 AM

Back in the late Pleistocene Era my brother's ten (count 'em, ten!) kids insisted on, lobbied for, begged for me to sing Froggy Went A-Courtin' (among others), so much so that I couldn't stand it any more, and stopped singing it for probably thirty years.

Only recently I resumed singing it, this time with distinctive voice qualities for Froggy, Miss Mouse, and Uncle Rat, and I've been singing it quite a bit on Paltalk and at open mikes.

I don't expect EVER to rehabilitate The Streets of Laredo, however.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 09:53 AM

Marrie's Bloody Wedding..........I Hate it..hope never to hear it again.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: CharlieA
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 10:01 AM

Its a shame that none of the younger generation of singers are not told of there seniors hatreds for certain songs - when we go ahead and learn them and are then derided for singing them after discovering them on a tape and liking them (fields of athenry several years back) I can understand that a song can be done to death but if we've never heard it (due to it's unpopularity) we don't know! this aint a dig - it's more a kinda appologie/advice or something- maybe i'm just rambling now... maybe i should stop *g* Cxxx

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Lanfranc
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 10:22 AM

As a tedious old standard, myself, I frequently revive songs that others have shunned and put aside. "There was an old lady" goes down well, often to a virgin audience, as does "The Runaway Train".

I have also dusted off songs by people like Donovan, Nina and Frederik, John D Loudermilk and John Sebastian that no-one seems to sing these days.

The important thing, to my mind, is to enjoy singing a song, whatever its origin, and communicate that enjoyment to the audience. It is possible to take a hackneyed song and freshen it up so that the audience hears it anew, it just takes a little effort.

The bane of many sessions is the singer with a limited repertoire who sings the same couple of songs every time you hear them. They are not attempting to entertain, they're just on an ego trip. They should save it for bathtime!

Alan

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 10:31 AM

Interesting thread Snuffy and even more interesting is the perspective. Who is it that actually confers the term "tedious old standard" on any given song? Are there any tunes that have been honoured with the same description?

Moans about what is to be played, and down-right refusal to play or sing any particular song, in my experience, have mainly come from musicians who have got tired of playing/accompanying it. "Folk Clubs" are also places where I have noticed certain songs consigned to distant memory. They do themselves and the music a great dis-service, when in fact all they are enforcing is their own personal opinion. One, well established and well supported club I used to go to, has almost foundered completely because one faction steered what was, and what was not, acceptable.

"...if we all continue to refuse to sing 'Wild Rover' and 'Fields of Athenry', will someone "rediscover" them in 30 years time?" No need - Thank god for "non-folk club" pub gigs. If you are a singer and you refuse to sing songs - then more fool you, and the others who follow that lead. "Wild Rover" has been around for nearly 150 years - in the English language it is one of the best known songs in existence after "Happy Birthday To You", "Auld Lang Syne" and "Danny Boy". "Fields of Athenry" has only been around for 12-13 years - but it's adoption by Celtic Football Club's supporters means that it doesn't have to rely on "folk elitists" to maintain it within the realms of public knowledge.

Taking another of the titles you mentioned as an example, the song "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" - sang three times in the course of one Festival (performed by different artists?) - how was it received? Did the audience sing along with it?

I envy a good singer the following: They do not need anything other than their own voice to carry an audience or to win a crowd. They can impart more tangible feeling and emotion into a song than a "musician" ever can into a tune. They don't have to pack away the gear and lug instruments about with them afterwards.

You ask - "What would you bring back?" - Nothing, I wouldn't dump it in the first place.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: GUEST,Fiver
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 11:14 AM

This is very funny, since I was listening to a vinyl recording (remember them?) of "Froggy Went a Courting" a few days back and had trouble imagining how it could be popular with today's college crowd--

As to "GUEST-Observer" you make a nice case, but for me, my act goes over better if I enjoy the songs I am playing--

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 12:41 PM

Many years ago, I was in a workshop at the North Country Folk Festival in Ironwood, Michigan. The title of the Workshop was Songs We All Know But Are Too Hip To Sing. I thought it was a great idea.. perfect for puncturing the puffed-up in all of us. I thought that I've Been Working On The Railroad deserved a better fate than to be left on the shelf of the un-hip. But, the greatest moment for me was when my friend Jerry Rau sang ABCDEFG. Only Jerry has the modesty to sing with no concern of what people think of him. Another time, I heard Jerry do a concert where he asked people for requests, and got requests like On Top Of Old Smokey, and Shanendoah(sp?) The audience was clearly un-hip. too. But, they all sang along, and when Jerry couldn't think of any other verses, someone from the audience would add one.

And then, there are all the tired old songs from the 60's revival like The Cuckoo that almost everyone stopped singing because they were so over-familiar. Now, the younger musician coming up have never heard them. There's a lesson here. We have all these great traditional songs because people didn't worry about whether they'd been sung too much.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 02:58 PM

Well, I'm still gonna sing "Handful of Songs" no matter HOW well known it gets!

Rick

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 03:11 PM

Bravo Jerry, what you said is right on the button.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 03:28 PM

I've been trying to learn Pleasant and Delightful, but everywhere I go, I hear that song has been sung to death...

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Francy
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 03:31 PM

I go to church once every three months...Just to sing and I did Handful Of Songs last Sunday along with Never Grow Old. Hads a great time.....Frank of Toledo

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: GUEST,cdkrueger
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 03:41 PM

I was at a session a few months ago, and a lady was there who was celebrating her 90th birthday. I asked her if there was something she wanted to hear--and she asked for "Danny Boy." The other musicians griped about it, which irritated me. I sang, and when I was finished, she had tears in her eyes, and thanked me--she said "Nobody ever sings it any more, and it is my favorite song."

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 04:11 PM

Hi, Rick:

I was talking about songs that have been done to death... not ones that most people haven't heard...

Jerry

Apparently Frank of Toledo has...

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Willa
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 04:32 PM

Fields of Athenry is sung regularly at Nellie's. CharlieA is right; to fresh ears, many 'tedious old standards' will sound fresh. When I started singing, quite recently, I found songs I liked, often unaware that they'd been 'done to death'

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 04:53 PM

No song is ever done to death- just wait a generation. Locally, some never disappear. Streets of Laredo (Cowboy's Lament) LIVES!
Every graduate of the University of Texas stands to attention when "I've bin wukin' on de railroad" is played ("The Eyes of Texas" to them).
Jerry, "The Cookoo?" Honestly, I can't recall that title. Maybe I know it under another name (or maybe I just closed my ears).

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: lamarca
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 05:11 PM

I first started singing (in public) in about 1985. I'd hear a great song on a recording, think it was wonderful and learn it. Then I'd go to the FSGW Getaway or other music weekend frequented by people who had discovered folk music in the 50's or 60's and I would sing these beautiful songs that were fresh and new to me. Inevitably, there would be someone who would say dismissively, "Oh, Joan Baez did that 20 years ago" or "That's not the way Ewan MacColl sang it!" I almost quit singing; I was shy, and it felt that a criticism of songs that I loved was a criticism of me for loving them. It was hard for me to hear the other people who were saying "Oh, I haven't heard that in years - what a great song!"

There's a reason that some of these songs are or once were "overdone" - it's usually because they're beautiful, funny or timelessly appealing in some way. Now, when I hear someone doing "The Rolling Mills of New Jersey" for the 10,000th time, I wince - but keep my mouth shut... (at least most of the time)

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 05:21 PM

we once had for a topic at out monthly "Open Sing",

"OH, NO...not again!" songs you are tired of

just to remind ourselves what the songs were that often get abused & overdone...it was an eye-opener what various folks chose...

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: lamarca
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 05:38 PM

Gee, Bill - do you still boycott "Lovely Agnes"...?

I think that for me, the songs that I get tired of rapidly are the recently written ones; like top-40 tunes on the radio, folk sessions have "hits" that get done over and over when they are first written. Some that got done a lot here were the aforementioned "Rolling Mills", "Waltzing with Bears", "Lovely Agnes" and "Mary Ellen Carter". It seems that humorous songs are the ones most susceptible to abuse; there seems to be a personality division between people who enjoy hearing the same joke over and over and join in on the punch lines, and people who think something's funny one or two times, then find it tiresome.

I don't feel the same way about older written or traditional songs - there are lots of different versions around, and even the ones written in this century have gone through some winnowing so that mostly the "keepers" are what you still hear - Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, early Tom Paxton, to name a few.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 05:42 PM

The Cuckoo is one of those songs that's hard to find in the database because nobody's quite sure how to spell it. A search for "pretty bird" or "sings as she flies" will bring up a number of versions. Worried Man Blues is another that had been sung too often - maybe it's time to sing it again. Maybe it's time to look at the traditional songs that were recorded (and damaged?) by the commercial folkies of the 60's. Maybe it's time to bring them back to life. "Hangman/Maid Freed from the Gallows" might be another one that got tedious, but could be resurrected.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 06:04 PM

A friend once said to me, "You know, sometimes we can be just too sophisticated!"

Mary (who likes Danny Boy)

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 06:23 PM

Right on, Mary!

Yeah, I've been wrestling with this one, too. And I've come to a conclusion.

When I first started singing folk songs, most of us learned the songs we knew from recordings, and there were not that many available. Mostly Burl Ives and Richard Dyer-Bennet, and a very few others. Gradually more records came out, we discovered various song collections like those of Carl Sandburg and the Lomaxes, and our repertoires expanded. But the first songs we learned were always the nucleus.

Then the Great Folk Scare came along and everybody got so bloody sophisticated. It began to happen more and more often that when someone sang something like Barbara Allen or Lord Randal or John Henry or any of a number of "standard" folk songs (usually songs as recorded by BI or RD-B or Josh White), there were those who would roll their eyes and moan, "Oh, NO! Not that again!" Generally it was not audience members, but other recently converted "folkies," those who considered the Kingston Trio and The Limeliters as "source singers," who pulled this stuff. But I guess self-appointed pompous-ass censorship is still going on.

My conclusion? I like all these old songs and I will sing them. I fact, I've often toyed with the idea of doing a concert composed entirely of songs that nobody sings anymore — songs that used to (and sometimes still do) make people roll their eyes and moan. The concert title or theme would be "Oh, no! Not that again!"

They are good songs. Some of them lasted for hundreds of years before we came along, and they deserve to keep on going. That's why I have decided to go ahead and sing them, despite the writhing of the super-sophisticates. I've been sort of out of it recently and not knowing that The Fields of Athenry had reached its "sell by" date, I learned it. I like it. I plan to sing it. And if this makes anybody gag, then they can just step outside until I'm through.

"Joan Baez did that twenty years ago? Interesting. I just did it now." Or. "That's not the way Ewan MacColl sings it? Well, that's the way I sing it."

If you like it, sing it! Unless you're singing to a bunch of self-inflated stuffed shirts, I think you'll get a pretty good response from any audience composed of real people.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 06:26 PM

I agree with lamarca...the really tedious ones are certain humorous songs that are great done 'once in awhile'...but NOT twice a week. I am sort of famous for a couple in these hyar parts, and there are certain people who will NOT let me get thru a sing without requesting them...I do try to limit them to once or twice a year now.

A really great song is always welcome, as long as it is well done and not totally done 'to death'. Problem is, there IS a divergence of opinion about which songs are 'great. IMHO, Tom Lewis' song about "walking inland...carrying an oar" does not qualify as 'great'...a good song once in awhile...but JEEZ!....and some 'serious' songs are pretty syrupy & pretentious. I truly am weary of "The Mary Ellen Carter" and "Come Day, Go Day"...they just don't wear well.

What's that? I have offended your basic tastes & sensibilities? Those are timless classics?...well....gosh....you mean we DON'T all agree?

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 06:37 PM

Don, you made several points there! I think it's interesting at Mudcat to see where somebody is "coming from" when they talk about various songs. Like you said, so many people get there songs from various recordings. Others from playing gigs and at festivals. Me, mostly piano books and the internet.

But just last night, I went back to my Irish Songbook (Clancy Bros.) and saw "I Once Loved a Lass" , "Leaving of Liverpool" , "The Parting Glass" ... songs that I never really appreciated until PalTalk! You just really have to hear Jon Freeman sing "I Once Loved a Lass." And Dave (the ancient mariner) sing "Leaving of Liverpool." Then I'll always think of Big Mick when I hear "The Parting Glass." And then, Nynia singing Carrickfergus...

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Snuffy
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 06:41 PM

Great replies from everyone. I particularly liked the idea of "Songs We All Know But Are Too Hip To Sing".

There's quite a lot of these older songs that I love to sing, and will sing them in the pub, or at family occasions (where the Wild Rover is regarded as "my" song), but I still sometimes feel a bit awkward wheeling them out in front of "real" folkies.

There are times when I just go ahead anyway. Now, where can I get a Burl Ives songbook? :-)

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Deckman
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 07:16 PM

Well said Don ... I couldn't agree more. Besides, I happen to think that MY version of "Streets of laredo", using BOTH melodies is quite good ... but what do I know? At my age of 164, I enjoy singing what I darned well enjoy singing. If you don't enjoy it ... Oh well, this is my house. CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 07:47 PM

Oh, that old cuckoo!

Sumer is icumen in,
Loud sing cuckoo
Groweth seed and bloweth mead
And springeth the wood now,
Sing cuckoo!

Ewe bleateth after lamb,
Cow loweth after calf,
Bullock starteth, buck farteth*,
Merry sing cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo!
Well singest thou cuckoo,
Nor cease thou never now!

Sing cuckoo now, sing cuckoo!
Sing cuckoo, sing cuckoo now!

*Be so kind as to provideth sound effecks.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 08:11 PM

Hey, THAT's not the cuckoo song I'm thinking of. Guess mine isn't the one everybody's tired of....

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 08:18 PM

Hi Jerry. Everyone who's come to see me play in the last six years must think it's done to death....but you know, they still ask for it EVERY TIME. They Know all the words too, so it's gettin' around.

One 'old chestnut' that I've been singing lately is "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream".

Rick

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 08:57 PM

Nothing revives an over-familiar song like singing it to an under-familiar tune -- for example, the way Jean Redpath sings "Auld Lang Syne."

And Mary Black breathed new life into "The Holy Ground" by slowing down the tempo. It sounded like a whole new song.

What is needed is a litte creativity, a little interpretation. And if creativity fails you, try research.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 09:01 PM

This thread is proving its own point. Several songs that have been mentioned as having been done to death, I've never even heard of, let alone heard. Part of that's because we've done different songs to death over here in Amurica than you folks have done to death in the British Aisles. I did a concert recently where I just sat down with a piece of paper at my side and started playing the song that still feel new to me... most of them traditional, and many of them off the Anthology of American Folk music. I figured that if anyone else was going to have a good time listening to me, I'd darn well better do songs that I have a good time singing.

There's another puffed-up attitude that I've heard in folk crowds. I still remember singing the Jean Ritchie song, Blue Diamond Mines at a folk gathering, and someone getting really angry with me. She said, "Why are YOU singing that song?" I always get confused when someone asks such odd questions, so I just answered honestly, "Because I like it., why?" The woman answered, "I do that song!, where did YOU hear it?" I told her that I heard it on a Jean Ritchie recording, and she seemed really irritated that Jean recorded the song. Never mind that Jean wrote it. This woman had taken it as hers.

As Steve Martin would say, "Well excuuuuuuuuuuse me!"

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Giac
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 09:03 PM

Seems a lot of what is being "done to death," is being done-in regionally. Many of the songs mentioned as "old standards," are new to me. But those mentioned as coming from The Weavers, Burl Ives, etc., are well-loved and still done occasionally here.

On the other hand, (go ahead and organize a lynch mob), I cannot find the tune for Waltzing With Bears. I've never heard WWB. I have the lyrics, thanks to Mudcat, and I know my little friends would love it, but search though I might, I cannot find the tune. I haven't asked for help here because it has been so criticized that I fear for my cyber life.

I still like St. James Infirmary (or Locke Hospital) and sing it in friends' kitchens. And, I still like Joshua Fit Da Battle ... when sung by many voices to a variety of instruments.

Tedium, I think, is a matter of perspective. But I'm all in favor of another folk "scare." Let's drag 'em all out.

"There is a house in New ..."

Mary

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: SINSULL
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 09:21 PM

Take a look at the thread "Singarounds: who not to follow". There is hope.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 09:41 PM

Talk about old standards! The thread, The origins of John Henry, has been revived again. This may be the only song, touching wood, through which a stake should be driven and on which the lid firmly should be screwed in place. Or will it, like Dracula, rise again?

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 10:06 PM

This thread is proving its own point. Several songs that have been mentioned as having been done to death, I've never even heard of, let alone heard.

Bingo! There is a huge number of songs that we used to consider as "basic repertoire" that nobody much sings anymore, except when some of us old far—old fogies get together. They're great songs. They're the ones we fell in love with; the ones we wanted to sing. So we learned them, then bought guitars, banjos, etc., and learned to accompany them. They're the reason we became interested in folk music in the first place.

Then along come the "hipper-than-thou" types to piddle in the punch bowl. Granted, there are some songs, usually the humorous songs, that need to be set on a shelf for awhile (by now everybody knows the punch line), or sentimental songs that, if done too frequently, can lose their emotional impact and should be given a rest — but not tossed in the wastebasket, for Pete's sake! But after a decent interval, haul 'em out again. Give younger singers a chance to hear them and judge for themselves.

NEWS FLASH: Folk music is not "Your Hit Parade." These songs don't die out after two weeks. Many of them have been around awhile (some for many centuries in one version or another), and, given a chance, they'll be around a long time from now.

Let's hear it for the old songs. Let's hear the old songs!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 10:10 PM

Jeez, Dicho! John Henry? That's a solid, time-honored piece of American folklore. If you don't like to sing it, then don't. But get a grip!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 10:23 PM

The Cuckoo I love, and still sing is probably the same one you know, Joe.. recorded by Clarence Ashley. In the early 60's, people were walking Anthology of American Folk Music collections. I know that I was (and still am.) At the time, with so few re-issues, that was the ONE source of traditional music. You can knock the "Folk Scare" all you want, but it was because whie buck boys like the Kingston Trio sold a lot of records,they inadvertently created a hunger for the real thing, and an astonishing wealth of great early recordings were re-issued.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 10:57 PM

Gee, and I always felt that "tired old standards" referred to the singers, not the songs. A year or so back, I (and the whole damn audience) listened raptly to Do Watson singing "I Gave My Love a Cherry". Just gorgeous. And fresh!

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 11:28 PM

Jerry, looks like you could make up a program with only Cuckoo songs. In addition to the one in the DT, there are:
The Cuckoo
Now the Sun is in the west,
Sinking behind the trees,
And the cuckoo, welcome guest,
Gently woos the evening breeze.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
Gently woos the evening breeze.
Etc. and so forth

Cuckoo Song
Oh, hear the cuckoo call,
Oh, hear him calling now!
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
I hear your call, I hear your call,
Hear the cuckoo call.
Oh hear, how he's calling now!
and so forth

And the Ballad Index mentions the original of the one in the DT (I think, used by Lomax and Ritchie) as being recorded by Herd in 1769. (The cuckoo is a pretty bird, She sings as she flies (see verse 4 of The Cuckoo 4 in the DT).
I'm sure that there are many others. OH-OH!! I just heard a shot! Poor Cuckoo!

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 11:30 PM

Forgot to mention I found the two quoted in Levy.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: GUEST,Fiver
Date: 28 Nov 01 - 04:29 PM

There used to be an old man that played guitar at a flea market in Northern California(it's been a while, so I don't remember which one) had all the songs he knew painted on a big sign for people to choose. None of this "Fields of Athenry" stuff,--he had"I've Been Workin on the Railroad" and "Down in the Valley". "The Old Grey Mare" and "Pop Goes the Weasel" and everything like that--He always drew a big crowd and people loved it and sang along--folksongs no self-respecting folkie would even consider--

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 28 Nov 01 - 05:32 PM

The first time I met Bill Jones she was running a singaround at Redditch festival - someone sang "Plaisirs d'amour", and she said it was a nice song she hadn't heard before....

The good songs have lasted because they're good songs, but constant repetition can dull the appetite. A friend of mine described the Bonny Light Horseman as the Wild Rover of the 1980s. Every so often I sing songs I learnt in the 1960s and 70s because they're right for the occasion - like Spencer the Rover on 5 November, when I've a reason to remember, or Dido, Bendigo in October. Or the Cuckoo she's a pretty bird, she sings as she flies - because it's the first song I sang in a folk club..... or April morning because it's April or the Bold Fisherman because it's May etc, etc etc.

Pleasant and delightful I learnt at Sidmouth festival in about 1968 to sing in the final night's procession to the seafront. The acid test is whether you can resist the sound effect after "The ring from her finger she instantly drew".

I think Waltzing with bears was introduced to England by Bob Walser. It's great fun to sing - occasionally.

You can go to a strange place where you don't know any of the people, but you walk into a singaround and you'll find people singing songs you know. Kitty

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Lanfranc
Date: 28 Nov 01 - 07:16 PM

"There is a house in New Orleans...."

I recently went back to Leadbelly's version, which is totally different to the one popularised by the Animals.

It works well, especially when played on a 12-string.

Songs for the Month - another thread needed here, methinks!

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Nov 01 - 07:57 PM

NOBODY did those old songs better or with more people wanting to join in the Scotland's Alex Campbell.

I absolutely hated "Dancing With Bears" until I heard Jim Ringer do it 90 sheets to the wind like bar song. It was wonderful and I felt like it was the first time I ever heard it done right.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Nov 01 - 07:59 PM

sorry for the typos.

And Alex was always several sheets to the wind too.

Both great men were killed by the grog.

Art

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: kendall
Date: 28 Nov 01 - 08:07 PM

Henry Martin and My Pretty Quadroon.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: jaze
Date: 28 Nov 01 - 08:39 PM

This thread reminds me of something Emmylou Harris said to Nancy Griffith re: her "Other Voices, Other Rooms" cd. That old songs need new voices to sing them to keep them alive. It's so true. If you're tired of a song, leave it alone for a while. Then dust it off and sing it somewhere it's never been sung before. A whole new audience could be hearing a great old song for the first time. I love it when I hear a new version of a song that never made an impression on me before and suddenly I'm playing it like 50 times. Raglan Road by Joan Osborne/Cheiftans is an example. An old chestnut I'd like to hear done again? 500 Miles.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: jaze
Date: 29 Nov 01 - 06:32 PM

Another example is Connie Dover's version of "Shenandoah" I've heard many versions of this song(many of them quite good) but she brings something new to an old standard and brings it back to life.

Subject: RE: Tedious old standards - revival due?
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 29 Nov 01 - 10:13 PM

I thought I'd never want to hear "Home On The Range" again until I heard Dave Swan sing it - the familiar first verse and the almost extinct second verse. Absolutely beautiful.

-chanteyranger