Are all folkies over fifty?

Subject: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: cobber
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 05:15 AM

I went to see Roy Bailey recently in Adelaide (South Australia). It was a brilliant night but looking round the audience, I was one of the young ones and I'm 55. Where have all the young folkies gone or are we destined like most dinosaurs to die out?

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST,oldie folkie
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 05:25 AM

yes it would seem that this is the case but at my local folk club the average age is about 40. The younger ones seem to want to perform the music rather than listen.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: cobber
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 05:31 AM

I agree. There's some great young performers around. Back when I was playing, part of the attraction was playing to people our own age. We wouldn't dream of playing to our mother's friends etc. Maybe, like then there are venues that attract different age groups.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 06:26 AM

I go to two folk clubs in SW London on a regular basis and the audience and performers are all over 45, most are older. There are a couple of clubs which have one or two young, teen & 20's, performers, but they all seem to play self-penned acoustic, pop inluenced stuff rather than folk. Some older folkies drag, and I do mean drag, along their kids, but personally I feel sorry for kids who can't find somewhere of their own making to go to. If you want to see younger performers & audience you have to go to the festivals. We in my local clubs all seem to have moved on together in a time capsule set c 1970! :~)

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 06:30 AM

I ran a folk concert series that sold out almost every concert for over twenty years. But gradually, my audience retired and moved south, or got too old to want to drive at night. The youngsters who were in their thirties were getting into their fifties by then, and the audience kept getting smaller until I started losing money on every concert. Even sure-fire sell outs of the past were drawing thirty or forty people. I finally had to end the series. It had become a private party for a small circle of friends.

Meanwhile, the next town over, there was a coffee house that was flourishing. The place was packed, and most of the performers were young. And most of the audience was performers. They had an open mike night, and people would sign up for their two songs until the list was getting close to twenty. They were there with friends or family who came to hear them. Many of them left as soon as they did their two songs. In a way, I thought it was humorous... a room packed with young performers all hoping to be discovered by young performers hoping to be discovered. And they called the music folk music, because it wasn't electric. But, you could go a whole night without hearing a song more than three years old. A couple of times I went and did traditional stuff, and I WAS a dinosaur. People were politely dissinterested.

Meanwhile, down at the Center Of The Arts, they ran a folk concert series of contemporary songwriters. I met the many who ran it and mentioned that I had run a concert series of traditional folk music and he said, "I HATE traditional folk music." His choices for performers made that obvious.

Life moves on...

Jerry

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: alanabit
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 07:53 AM

It is the same story everywhere and one which makes me wonder if folk music has any future at all. If it does, it looks as if it will not be preserved by folk clubs (much as I like them), or coffee houses or by any concert series.
I was talking about this to Marion when she was here a few days ago. My feeling is that the social context in which folk music was made no longer exists - and I will accept many definitions of folk music. For me rugby songs are folk songs. Some hymns are folk songs. Daft songs sung in the back of a bus are folk songs. Songs passed around at sing alongs (if there are any more) in Cockney pubs are folk songs and in fact any songs which are passed on directly are folk songs.
There is a very great resistance to live music per se. I went to try to set up a gig in a venue where I had previously packed the place with one of my bands. The disc jockey who was running the place looked at me with bored contempt. He regarded musicians as morons who were too stupid to operate a record player. That was where "real" music came from as far as he was concerned. His disco brought people in whereas live music only drove people out.
Young people grow up with a huge amount of expensively advertised, technically perfectly recorded sound. The pop vidoes they watch rarely hold a shot for more than a few seconds, because they are taught not to concentrate any longer. What part of their culture involves singing and playing to each other and exchanging songs?
It is not only folk music which is attracting a smaller audience - indeed almost no audience at all. The number of gigs available to blues, country and rock and roll bands is also diminishing.
I think that to have any prospect of long time survival, folk music has to be part of people's culture - and that does not mean just practised in near secret by eccentric batches of people over fifty. I was not surprised when someone recently said that being a fan of English folk made him feel lonely. It is no longer a living tradition and has not been so in my lifetime. You can not go into a pub in any English town I have lived in and expect to find a group of people playing traditional English music. The same is true in Germany. If you found a group of Germans playing "traditional German music" in a pub for fun, they would be looked upon as very eccentric indeed. Oddly enough, were the same musicians to be playing "Irish folk" everything would seem natural! That is probably because Ireland is one of the few countries in Western Europe which is still developing and preserving (you can't have one without the other) its folk culture.
Most fans of folk music are over fifty because folk music is no longer a tradition in our society, but an eccentric revival which is now dying out.
That should put the cat among the pigeons. The floor is now yours, ladies and gentlemen!

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST,leo
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 07:59 AM

well, i can safely i'm not 55 or anywhere over that, being three-quarters through my seventeenth year and very much a folkie. i also happen to know quite a few others around my age who are doing the same sort of thing, though i did have to go to a music course to find them. anyway i wouldn't worry. it'll come back - if there was a "revival" in the 60s then i'm sure there'll be another yet! we just have to wait till the record companies relinquish their grip on the general public.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 08:03 AM

Well those of us over 50 may wish that young people would gather and sing traditional songs(or develop new ones)..but there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. When they are good and ready to, they will, and we probably won't be invited.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Naemanson
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 09:08 AM

Fear not! The kids are out there and they are playing and listening to folk music. When I was in Ventura California last month I met a young lady who loves to finger pick Irish music on her baby Taylor. Our local coffeehouse regualrly features younger performers AND AUDIENCE MEMBERS. Concert audiences include younger members too.

I'd say you need to look at what the competition is doing. If you have a folk club performances competing with live modern rock you might see fewer young audience members. This doesn't mean that the youngsters don't like folk music. It just means they like to hang out with members of their own age group.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 09:17 AM

This is a depressing thread but I think it contains many truths. Young people today are so used to slick, technically perfect, overproduced music and yes, DJ's and canned music have taken over at many venues. I have a friend who played locally in pop music for several years - he was judged on how closely what he did sounded like what people had heard on the radio. I've also had the experiece that Jerry had - a folk venue where when you mention "traditional" the door gets slammed in your face (in the case it was the telephone receiver). I used to live in Germany during the 1970's and there was still German folk music around. Most especially at Festivals and things like that it was heard and enjoyed (and danced to!). I came to know many of the German folk songs and so I was overjoyed when, a couple of years ago, the company I was working for sent me to a trade show in Munich during Oktoberfest. I was so looking forward to hearing the old German folk songs again and singing along. Alas, the
"theme song" seemed to be "Heyyyyy Baby - I wanna know if you'll be my girl..." closely followed by "Country Roads" (a song I have come to absolutely despise). I sat next to a couple with their teenaged son one evening and asked them what happened to the old German songs. They said you don't hear them anymore and that they missed them too. The son remarked that he thought this was a good thing, because "international" music brought people together. Most of the stuff I was hearing wasn't "international" it was American and very bland generic junk it was.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 09:30 AM

Actually, this is a problem that doesn't exist in the Celtic traditional music communities, or the newgrass/bluegrass or zydeco or Cajun music communities, so sometimes I do have to wonder about those who claim no young people are into traditional/folk music.
Traditional music is more popular than it has ever been, especially among young people. Of course it isn't mainstream. Of course young people are changing the music, electrifying it, etc and making it relevant to their generation.

What is depressing is sitting around listening to old farts complain that no one wants to attend/belong to their elitist twee folk clubs. It is just that attitude that resulted in the lot of you digging your own graves quite some time ago.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Midchuck
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 09:48 AM

It is not surprising that a great proportion of confirmed folkies are from the generation that was in high school and college during the Great Folk Scare (defined as the period beginning with the release of the Kingston Trio's first album, and ending with Bob Dylan's appearance on stage at the '65 Newport festival with a Fender electric guitar). Everyone fixates for life to some extent on the things they were into at that point in life. I, personally had some success in brainwashing my children, however. We do some songs of my daughter's authorship, and they're well received, and my son helps out on bass and/or lead guitar whenever he's around.

Besides, think of the people just a little younger, who were in high school and college during the peak years of Disco. F***ed up for their whole lives! We were lucky....

Peter.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 10:12 AM

Please put the caveat on the post that you are speaking for yourself Peter. Not all of us are musically stuck in high school, applauding our memories.

I am just a tad younger than the Kingston Trio generation (that was my older siblings time). The consumer/radio music I listened to was Fairport, Pentangle, Bothy Band, Arlo Guthrie, Dylan, the Band, Poco, New Riders, Doc Watson, along with the rock, pop, blues, soul, R & B of the day. Over the years, my musical tastes, NOT THE FOLK SCARE/KINGSTON TRIO types, led me to deeper explorations of a lot of traditional music. And classical music. And roots music. And blues music.

The whole folk club phenomena was largely an English one, which never really caught on outside a few spots in mainland Britain, and a few clubs in the US, mostly on the east coast. Having no experience with New Zealand or Australia, I can't speak for the popularity of the folk club set there. But the folk club community was never any more "authentic" traditional in it's day than Branson is now, so I don't see what the tragedy is of folk clubs going the way of the dinosaur. IMO, they bloody well deserve to go out that way. Give me a pub session, a festival, or intimate gatherings in someone's home over a folk club any day of the week.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Midchuck
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 10:32 AM

Like, Dude, I said, like, "...to some extent.."

I listen to as much '70s and early '80s (but not contemporary) commercial country, as '60s folk. Last night I put on a "Waylon Jennings' Greatest Hits" CD while doing the dishes, and cried in the dishwater. And some of the more progressive bluegrass, and the better contemporary cowboy music, etc. ad infinitum.

But I run into an awful lot of people who are stuck in high school or college. And like it that way.

P.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST,croc
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 10:54 AM

What has 100 legs and four teeth?
The front row at a Mississippi Bluegrass festival...

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 11:05 AM

I'll tell you this much -- often it is a case of not knowing what they're missing. On two occasions recently Ihad a chance to play for -- and sing with -- younger people who hadn't heard much or any folk music. They discovered they really, really liked it. They had such a good time they had say thanks four times, which is unusual at that age -- 14 to 18. They'd just never been to a live hoot, I guess.

A

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 11:14 AM

I listen to some contemporary country, and love it, just not the faux patriotric crap. The Dixie Chicks. Allison Kraus. Ricky Skaggs. Lots of Rounder Records stuff. Beausoleil. Balfa Bros. Evangeline Playboys. Katy Moffat. Roseanne Cash. Carrie Newcomer. Rosie Flores. I have a special place in my heart for cowpunk acts like Mary Prankster or the Flaming Chihuahuas.

Problem with archaic English (and a good number of Celtic) folk types is they are much too self-important about THEIR music being so so sacred, and the fact they have absolutely no joie de vivre about contemporary music. At the end of the day, their beloved music is still ONLY MUSIC. Because they love it does not raise it to a level of cultural importance equivalent to war and peace, world hunger, or the cure for cancer or AIDs.

Same can be said about musicians and music consumers who only listen to/perform oldies/nostalgia music, radio and cable TV stations, etc. I see no difference between those who flock to the Grand Ole Opry and watch the Great American Country station, and what I call the Anglo Celtic Faux Folk movement, which remains stuck in the music equivalent of a Cecil Sharpeville Theme Park mindset.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 11:21 AM

I can only speak about American old time music of the southern mountains. Not sure if that qualifies as folk.

Around here, we don't get many people significantly under fifty at concerts, but I see lots of people in that category at places like Clifftop. Can't explain it.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Midchuck
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 11:36 AM

I can only speak about American old time music... we don't get many people significantly under fifty at concerts, but I see lots of people in that category at places like Clifftop. Can't explain it.

Isn't part of that the residual effect of OBWTFAT?

P.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 11:37 AM

Hey Russ. I think the way people come together to celebrate music has changed since the 60s, and that the festival/camp out thing is just the way the contemporary musicians and music fans want it. It started out as a sort of Woodstock effect, but it is in no way limited to the rock music genre anymore.

At festivals, be they the camp out and outdoor music sort, or in pubs with people staying in hostels and B & Bs, there are much fewer barriers between stage and audience, and everyone is welcome to and can particpate in the music, no matter how bad they are (except among the elitist type festivals, held more for the benefit of the "stars" than the music community at large).

This change hasn't just happened with folk music though. Many music genres are this way, from rock to country to punk to Old Time, you name it. This is the way young people want to come together to witness and experience the music. And festivals now combine arts and culture with the festivals too, giving people music, art, food, dance, theatre, etc all in one festival. Or maybe it is a food sort of festival, with music acts.

I think it's great. Festivals are a lot of fun. It is something you can do with a group of friends, to help keep costs down. Young people like the free spritied aspect of the festival, because they can party their brains out round the clock with like minded people. I steer clear of the party crowd nowadays, but I still love going to festivals. But there is no way I would limit myself only to folk festivals, or even just to music festivals. The world is just too rich and full of wonderful things to stuck in the same old, same old, IMO.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 11:49 AM

From the playaholic point of view none of this is vaguely relevant and age is irrelevant.

I have heard and played with all ages, and every one of them share one thing - they have to play - audiences are merely accidents of location and IMHO irrelevant to weaving the music of the people.

Look, Folk music - records > therfore clubs > ta dah tad dah - is/was a handy place to meet and share. Ther'e gone so what?

I often think that after the first record of commercial folk got airplay the "folk music" venue was born; before that day there was no such a thing, except for granny walluping out Knees Up Mother Brown down at the local on Poppy Day eve ... what ever.

In fact, I cannot recall even 1 morris day when I was a kid at school in the UK, yup we did do Maypole stuff but that is not the same as an entire Morris side complete with sticks and a band, much less would we have the slightest idea what a 'Mummer' was.

It was only in the 60's that anybody took notice, after a few smart record execs in the US figured out how to take our money with Urban kids doing Pseudofolk on record.

Guest seems to think that one needs a peer circle to make music, phew - what a bibful a bull. I wonder who would be so brave to play over some of the great old timers I have had the luck to hear?

In fact in my celtic days I used listen to a few folks who were at least twice my age and learned most of what I know in that tradition; later as a matter of education I had to learn again from older folks in the US who taught me most of what I now know.

Performing acoustic original folk like music can be entertaining for a while, but there is no equal to a great night at the boozer with singing and some tunez, who cares who or what the musical instruments are, not me. I have done it on Electric Guitar, Accordion, Harmonica, Fiddles and Guitars, joined in with Piano Bass and Drums + mics etc.

To me Folk music is what is popular in my local ... you can keep the weenie spiolt coffee house twits and their upper class choruses.

As ever

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 12:36 PM

"Guest seems to think that one needs a peer circle to make music, phew - what a bibful a bull."

No, guest doesn't think any such thing.

But guest does realize that most young people (age is the subject at hand, in case you hadn't noticed) want social interaction with their peers more than they want to pledge allegiance to a particular way of performing music, especially when that particular way of music is intolerantly dictated to them by anal older adults with no tolerance for youthful innovation.

Music draws young people together because it is fun and full of joy and a sense of camraderie. It usually does not make them want to make an exclusive sort of music with older adults, until they are older, usually in their mid to late twenties. The reason for this is largely because their first interest isn't the music, but each other. Frankly, I'm with the young people on this one.   They are absolutely right to value their social relationships more than a night listening to a gifted musician, no matter how good, or how rare the musician and their music might be.

It is wonderful when young people freely choose to seek out the latter sort of musical experience. But I think the "old folkie" mindset is just a rigid way of thinking about and viewing the world, which has little to do with music anyway.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST,eliza C
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 12:39 PM

hi there,
I am ancient but I've had a lot of work done.
xec

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Ely
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 12:52 PM

GUEST, russ--If newgrass and contemporary county qualify, American mountain music definitely qualifies.

I'm 25 and I guess I've been a "folkie" all my life (my parents are "Folk Scare" era and were still very much interested in the music during the 1970's and 1980's when I was a kid). I played in a square dance band in college; an honest-to-God, all-acoustic, no-frills, Midwestern square dance band. The Midwest is the place to be for American dancing and music; we didn't get a LOT of young people, but there were some and there certainly are plenty of events.

Texas has a pretty good followings in the Cajun and Mexican traditions but it's "Anglo" component is weaker--most of the young people here are into some sort of country/rock fusion. A lot of it is great music, but it's not what you'd call "folk".

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:07 PM

Well, to be fair, young people are always interested in dance music. And it is inherently difficult to dance to Anglo and Anglo American ballads and sea shanties.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:19 PM

The young folks around here seem to be pretty strong as individuals, and in it for the music. We've had a very VERY small number show up on their own and hang around with the old farts. It's important to note that the old farts around here tend to welcome them and respect them as fellow music-lovers. Other young folks may come and bring their friends. They can socialise anywhere, but they like the music and stay.

The young people who come to our sessions aren't primarily concerned with socialising or they wouldn't have fun playing music for 5 hours a week with a bunch of geezers.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:24 PM

Not to worry. I think Guest/Leo and others above are right. The young 'uns are out there and coming on strong. Sometimes all it takes is one enthusiastic person to pump it up. In Juneau, Alaska, for instance, one schoolteacher, Belle Mickelson, has made a tremendous difference. Belle teaches math in the middle schools, as it happens, but she uses music for everything from counting to theory, and when they as a class do exceptionally well they are rewarded with music.

At the festival that just ended, at least 30 youngsters that she has taught in this last year performed on stage, from different schools, in different numbers, playing mandolin, guitar, banjo and fiddle and singing songs of old as well as contemporary, and later they jammed in the halls with the old 'uns. It was great fun. And not an electric plug in the bunch.

Oh, yeah. They be fine.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: denise:^)
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:24 PM

Not even close to 50 yet...

Sorry to blow your theory!

Denise:^)

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:26 PM

Actually, the fact that lots of young people dont play folk music or have access to it does bother me. and I spend a large chunk of my life trying to do something about it. But the fact that they dont go to folk clubs doesnt bother me in the least. Folk clubs are no longer a place to go to hear where you can expect to hear folk music, and as has been repeatedly said, why should teenagers wnt to hang out with fifty year olds.
When I was a lad I went to find older people who knew old songs in country pubs, because I was interested. I didnt go out and seek fifty year old people practising their song-writing. Why would that interest a teenager? It didnt interest me, anyway.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:47 PM

Well, if the songwriters were the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Woody Guthrie, I'd have been plenty interested in seeking them out in my youth. I never encountered any of the "greats" but I did end up sitting across a table from Steve Goodman, a great songwriter who, thank god, didn't limit himself to singing "old songs" to appease Brit and Brit loving "folk music" purists.

If all folks sang was "old songs" we'd run out of music pretty damn quick, methinks.

I just don't get this disparagement of songwriters by you Britfolkers. But then, I've never been the jealous, green-eyed monster type. I think bad Brit songwriters end up singing "folk songs" because they don't have to be embarrassed by their own ineptitude when it comes to songwriting. They can pick and choose the best stuff to make themselves look like better musicians than they really are.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: alanabit
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:53 PM

That's fair enough Greg. My question is, are there still old blokes out there in the country pubs who know folk songs? I wonder if you did not just catch the tail end of a way of life which was disappearing along with memories like "Cider With Rosie". Do people in the new professions get together and sing songs? What songs could we expect to hear from a group of Systems Analysts or Food Technicians?

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Shonagh
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 02:12 PM

Yeah, i spose its quite true to say that most of the young folkies my age are much more interested in performing and there are some totally fantastic players and singers out there! Saying that though, alot of my mates like going to festivals, and not only just musicky ones but dance festivals (aye, traditional not like raves! euuughhhh!imagine me at a rave!!)yeah anyway, i dont actually have a clue what i was goin to say after this but i'll be interested in where this goes.....

Shona (17 and 10months!)

PS. No where near 50!

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Santa
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 02:14 PM

I don't know about anyone else, but the only places I can go to to get folk music regularly are the local folk clubs. That's where I find out about the festivals etc. I really do not understand this knocking - if you don't like your nearest club go to another. My local club does a mix of traditional, established singer/songwriters, new kids on the block....

When I was young - ahhh - I used to like singer/songwriters and thought traditional music boring (not counting the geordie stuff where I came from, of course!), then I moved to Lancashire and fell in with large numbers of active folkies, singing new and old. Nowadays I prefer the traditional. I suggest that this is because they are the songs that have lasted, the tat have fallen by the wayside. Go hear a new singer songwriter and you get the tat alongside the good stuff!

Not that there aren't good songs coming. Of course there are.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 02:51 PM

"Folkies" are over around-50. They come from an era. They became known as folkies.

Younger people who like folk music would just go by another name. "Young folkers" somehow doesn't seem quite nice...

Younger people who like folk music are all around us..... they just think of themselves differently than we fogies oops I mean folkies. I guess no one has tagged them with a groupname yet.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: michaelr
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 03:25 PM

See this thread.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 04:25 PM

Of course I would have gone out to meet Gershwin or Cole Porter or whatever, I'd have been thrilled. I said I wouldnt have interested, as a teenager, going to watch fifty-year olds practising song-writing. Practising as in practising scales or golf-swings, not as in a doctor practising. I might of course have missed something: i'm just saying I know I would not, as a teenager, have been interested in what tends to go in in folk clubs nowadays. I was interested in folk clubs then, and I was interested in old codgers who knew folksongs in pubs.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST,angel
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 04:46 PM

Here in the Shetlands there is an incredible amount of musical talent among youngsters which is nurtured in a very supportive environment. Alot of young people get the training, and may well leave it for many years, or play different styles, but once the seed has been planted, they often come back to it in later years. I'm only 24, and I came back a few years ago. It isn't the same culture here as I found in folk clubs and the like in London, older people learn and play with older people to a much greater extent because the stronger community (and often family) ties seem to make the whole thing alot more integrated.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST,angel
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 04:48 PM

sorry, I meant to say younger and older people play together!

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 06:15 PM

Got another 28 years til Im 50!!!

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 06:30 PM

"Old codgers in country pubs who know some folksongs" - that sounds like me and the people I tend to hang out with.

Back in the Sixties in England there weren't too many old codgers around, because in most places the idea of making music yourself and singing old songs had been almost drummed out of society. That's what was meant by referring to it as a revival. And though it's escaped from the spotlight, it's never died out, so there are now a couple of generations around, as well as the young ones.

The sessions and the festivals tend to be where the action is these days, rather than the clubs (with some exceptions), but from what I've seen, there's no shortage of young people, playing music or listening to it, or dancing. There are also a fair number of older people - but then most people in this country are older people anyway, so that's what you'd expect anyway.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 06:48 PM

"Back in the 60's in England there weren't too many old codgers around". You're quite right, McGrath, but there were some. You will remember the folk club we used to frequent in the 60's, the Heritage in Oxford, where we all used to happily bawl out the Nightingale( "and they kissed so sweet and comforting, as they clung to each other"). Quite an anthem in the English clubs at the time. Well, what was interesting is that Aubrey Cantwell, the guy that song was collected from, was at the time living not ten miles from the pub we had the folk club in. And Aubrey used to sing it in his pub at home. Interesting parallel universe. Not quite sure what the connection is to this thread(none, I think),,,but intriguing huh? And I was interested, because I went out to Standlake and recorded him singing it. A treasured possession, that tape.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 08:38 PM

Midchuck

OBWTFAT?
Anyway, we worked hard to brainwash our daughter. We dragged her to festivals, concerts, workshops, jams, for years. She tried to escape, but she is now a kick-butt fiddler and backup guitar player of the gods.

GUEST,
Actually festivals have been around forever. What seems to change is the audience. Clifftop is quite new. Been going less than 20 years. But the WV State Folk Festival at Glenville has been around since 1950 and Galax is older than that.

What we geezers have seen is the following pattern. Many many years ago the festivals were full of kids, us. As we got older most of the kids at the festivals were ours. As our children grew up and started having lives and interests of their own, they stopped coming to our festivals. For a while kids were very rare at festivals and we assumed that interest in the music would die with us. But now the kids are back. Some of them are our kids returned like the prodigal son, but many are strangers. They're teens (and even younger) and 20 somethings who have sort of appeared out of nowhere. We're happy but mystified.

Ely,
I'm pretty generous in my definition of folk, but on Mudcat it sometimes pays to be reticent in order to avoid definitional fire-fights.

With your background you're a perfect example of the sort of "kid" (with all due respect. To me anybody under 30 is a "kid") I am NOT surprised to see at places like Clifftop. What surprises me are the people your age and younger who don't share the blessings of your parents' enlightened views on child-rearing. Where did they come from?

alanabit,
"are there still old blokes out there in the country pubs who know folk songs"
In the states, definitely yes. Melvin Wine (WV fiddler), who died this year would've been 94 this April. Our own Jean Ritchie is still going strong.
What's really interesting is watching the people who as kids learned from the old blokes many years ago assume the old bloke mantle. Not all are willing to admit that yes, now they're the old folks.

Shonagh
"there are some totally fantastic players and singers out there"
Got that right. They'll be kicking geezer butts in contests for years to come.

WYSIWYG,
You're right. The young people I know who are into old time music don't think of themselves as folkies. But if I remember correctly, once I made the move to old time music decades ago, I stopped thinking of myself as a folkie.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 08:41 PM

Happy days. But the thing is that the old codgers around these days include a fair number who are essentially the same sort. People who learnt their songs from listening to other people singing them, and have some they learned as kids and have been carrying around in their heads or their notebooks.

As far back as Cecil Sharpe people were always saying they were collecting the last remnants from the last generation of real folksingers. And then another generation turns up, who end up looking and sounding not that different.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: mikey
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 08:49 PM

I'm a guilty over fifty also and I don't mind being stuck in high school in some ways. Three of my four kids love most of the folk music and trad celtic I listen to and buy their own cd's or 'borrow' mine. More often than not the 'borrow' arrangement turns out to be a permanent one though. Not a bad thing at all as far as I'm concerned.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Naemanson
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 09:51 PM

"...most young people (age is the subject at hand, in case you hadn't noticed) want social interaction with their peers more than they want to pledge allegiance to a particular way of performing music, especially when that particular way of music is intolerantly dictated to them by anal older adults with no tolerance for youthful innovation."

You get that from Kate Rusby? Or John McCusker? Or any of a number of other young performers?

"I think bad Brit songwriters end up singing "folk songs" because they don't have to be embarrassed by their own ineptitude when it comes to songwriting."

I was getting worked up over what GUEST was saying. Then he made the above general statement and I realized he is only expressing his own inner frustrations and bigoted attitude.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 10:06 PM

Most folkies are over fifty, but there are always some younger ones coming along, and you'll meet some of them at the folk festivals. Folk never dies. It just gets completely ignored by the commercial music industry, that's all.

Sort of like being ignored by the rich village idiot who lives in the town mansion and performs human sacrifices on the weekends...

- LH

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: Midchuck
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 10:27 PM

Midchuck

OBWTFAT?

Sorry. Acronym from the Flatpick list. Forgot everyone didn't know it.

Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? With gratuitous interjection.

P.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: sharyn
Date: 20 Apr 03 - 12:40 AM

Well, I've got five years to go to fifty, six to get over it. I am one of the youngest in my community, but I know a fifteen-year-old who sings sea shanties and a thirty-year-old who is a fine traditional-style singer. My former fiddle teacher, Laura Risk, was nineteen when I met her. There seems to be more family participation in the local (San Francisco) Scottish music community than in the Irish or "folk music" community (generally offshoots of the San Francisco Folk Music Club). Why this is so, I don't know. Unfortunately for me I love Scots ballads but find most Scottish dance tunes boring.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Apr 03 - 02:58 AM

What IS folk music? This is driving me crazy. I know a person shouldn't make comments on the Mudcat without knowing the answer to that question. But I'm still confused. Can someone enlighten me? I'll bet this question's been asked a bazillion times on the Mudcat, but not by me. I'm dying to know.

Subject: RE: Are all folkies over fifty?
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Apr 03 - 03:05 AM

No, I am not rising to the question posed by DUEST. Start a new thread!!