BBC 4 folk program

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 05:59 AM

Point taken Greg. I think you are talking about music and I'm talking about song. There's a continental drift happening I think and the gap between the two is widening.
As to Redmax, I don't get brassed off if the songs are well crafted and the lyrics incorporate the reasons why the wife has left because of the way we live today. If it's flim flam "poor me" it ain't folk, but if it's social comment, using divorce as a vehicle for expression and an evocation of our historical time, then, to me at least, it is.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,redmax
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 05:38 AM

"I get really brassed off when I go to a venue and see a queue of ten guitars lined against a wall and ten expectant singer/songwriters getting up unleashing their ten minute gems about wondering why their wife left them"

Heh heh! My sentiments exactly

I haven't watched the third installment yet. I figured I could tape it then be able to fast-forward the Pogues. Sounds like Jim Moray's worth winding past too

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 03:27 AM

Oh, I don't think I'm really that romantic, wordy. I was not implying that we sgould be looking at making programmes about the actually milkmaids and ploughboys singing their simple rustic ditties. Of course that world is dead. What I was implying is that it would be interesting to look at some of the parallel worlds of folk, not just those strands that lead to Cambridge Folk Festival, Celtic Connections or Guardian journalists. To look, for example, at the dance bands that play the birthdays, weddings, and funerals. Which, round where I live, are mucically and aociologically at least as interesting as the bands inthat operate at spcialist dances and festivals. Again, a good thing would be to take a look at the folk-orientated professional music groups that play more at municpal festivals, or mixed music festivals like Glastonbury, Or consider carnivals and other street events: I have worked, I would guess, in this area in every town and city in the northwest of England(not to mention villages), and also through the rest of the country. That world did not feature on the programme. The history of folk music in theatre since 1960 would also be extremely interesting, not just on stage but more imprtantly in the world of progressive and radical theatre, and site specific celebratory companies. I just think that some of these alternative worlds of folk are just as interesting, just as exciting, and the differences, as well as the overlaps, with "folk-scene" folk are part of what is driving the revival.
In one sentence, the folk revival is bigger, more varied and more thriving than those programmes would have you believe.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 06:56 PM

Greg, you're just an old romantic.It hasn't been like that for getting on for a century. As soon as song became recordable that old world vanished. Outside the tiny world of the traditional folkies no one, certainly not the working class, bothers with it anymore. They never did really. I grew up listening to family gatherings singing old music hall songs and popular ballads, as valid a tradition as any. One of the only places you find communal adaptation these days is on the football terraces, but I don't suppose you think they're quite folk.
Shepherdlass makes a good point about the rest of the country enjoying a folk scene at the time of the revival that was hardly mentioned. I was a part of that and it was hugely exciting, particularly all the new songs that surfaced, recording how our lives were. There were sad ones, political ones, funny ones and all the varieties, it was a building in construction to be lived in, not a period piece preserved by the National Trust.
I think the young people rightly featured in the third programme are buiding something new. Good luck to them and their songs. No doubt the future will stumble on them one day and add them to the National Trust too(songs section).

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 06:40 PM

A evry interesting and thought provoking series, with lots of nice nostalgic clips for those of us who were around at the time. I disagreed profoundly with the general theme of the programmes: metropolitan based, treating the music is if it was an example of evolution from primitive to modern sophistication, dwelling excessively on the writers of new material instead of appreciating the folk-process of communal adaptation, etc etc.
   But it was tremedous fun, and annoyingly idiosyncratic, and good TV. Kathryn Tickell and Eliza Carthy talked the most sense for me, emphasising the role of the folk in folk music, obviously not a dubject of huge interest to the people resposible for the programme. As I have said before, it would be nice to see the BBC to give some hours of time to an alternative view: my own view is that folk music is an ever-rolling stream, and absolutely not an asscent from the primordial slime to the stars of the festival circuit. But, having said that, it was altogether thoroughly worth watching, and fair play to them for making it.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,Bruce Baillie
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 05:55 PM

I agree with Geoff the Duck! Nowt wrong with the White Heather Club, my dear old mum used to think it wor great! I remember watching it as a bored 7 year old and thinking "What a load of old bollocks!" ...and yet, strangely commpelling? maybe it subconciously helped to lay the foundations for my career in folk music, whatever I'd still like to see it again as a piece of history (I missed the programme)I remember as a naieve teenager thinking that the best exponents of Scottish, Irish and English folkmusic were the Corries, the Dubliners and the Spinners... ...then I started going to Folk clubs! you live and learn in life and I dare say some people would still agree with the choice I've just mentioned, nothing wrong with that so don't be so bleeding po - faced and snobbish about what is good and what isn't, 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', so they say, 'one mans meat is another mans poison' it might sound shite to me or you but if someone enjoys it who are you to complain!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: shepherdlass
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 03:17 PM

Re the omission of Alistair Anderson. I think it's something about accounts that deal with a "national" scene - they tend to avoid potential anomalies. Alistair is clearly one such - part of the 60s revival but utterly respectful of source musicians and also willing to mix it up with jazzers and classical players, and to work (like Kathryn Tickell and - another omission - Pauline Cato) in educating future players. Can't fit him neatly into a trend, then.

The NE is one source of these scenes that just don't fit... Birmingham and Liverpool also had very little coverage, and the SW didn't feature much either (shots of festivals excepted). These are among the places where, although the London-based revivalists certainly had considerable influence, they didn't hold complete sway because there was already something happening there. I'm sure this goes for lots of other places too. Just like Jazz Britannia, three episodes weren't really enough to deal with it all, were they? Still glad it was made, though - just look at the debate it's encouraged.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: fat B****rd
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 03:14 PM

If you log on to the BBC TV homepage you can check out the Folk Brittania homepage, it has sound clips and videos !!.
But it still doesn't say who the narrator is !.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 06:40 AM

Sorry, I was thinking of Ian Anderson

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Tootler
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 06:15 AM

Richard Bridge wrote

Has Anderson done so?

Yes, very much so. If you met him, I think you would realise that.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From:
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 04:46 AM

Name of the presenter please, he was tlking to Shane McGowan tha same night, busy man?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Carol
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 04:34 AM

Can anyone answer Mr Red question, who was the narrator, it sounded like Bob Geldof to me, but then I am getting old and having problems with my hearing. I thought the programs were interesting, the last one expecially so, 'cos apparently there are things happening within folk music that to be honest just don't interest me, I'm with the Stallion (I should be so lucky), no the music I love is people gathering and singing to make themselves feel happy, b-- marvellous and we could do with Mr Stallion coming to the Denaby Sing in September!!!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,Hen Harrier
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 10:35 PM

We've just got to keep on lobbying the beeb to put on more progs so that our favourites get a look-in.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 08:10 PM

Has Anderson done so?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Tootler
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 06:36 PM

Also since the programme focused so heavily on the youngsters making their way on the folk scene why no mention of "Folkworks" or the Degree Course at Newcastle University?

Agreed. And not only youngsters.I go to Folkworks classes and participants are of all ages - which gives the lie the Beeb's contention about a generation split. Also why no Alistair Anderson? Yet another glaring omission.

I think Kathryn Tickell hit the nail on the head when she talked about learning her music from people who played the music they knew. That should have been the theme that underpinned the series, the music being passed on from one generation to the next. The political thing was very much overplayed.

But then, Kathryn Tickell and Alistair Anderson - have remained close to their roots so are not part of the London Scene and so don't count!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: stallion
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 03:14 PM

Ricardo, it's been my experience that clubs that are snuffy about who plays only applies to them that they pays. The club singers are the heart and soul of their circle "leading the line" so to speak, the paid guests are there to broaden the colour of event and to mix it up a bit, lest it should ever get boring, also, to bring in fresher songs (not neccessarily new). Me, i just like singing with lots of people I am not a good listener, I have the attention span of a gnat and a memory to suit!
Peter

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 01:31 PM

Compton you're right, he has written some great songs, but he doesn't have the background to front this programme,as he is associated with pop music in most peoples' mind.
Giok

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Compton
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 01:26 PM

My footnote...If "Between the wars" of Billy Bragg's isn't every bit as good as "the times, they are a-changing"...but then I don't want to get into the old sore about what is and what ain't Folk Music.
The collective "Folk Brittania" was all things to all men. The BBC (or independant) Producer was Pants!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,Mad for trad (and a lot of new stuff as well
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 01:16 PM

For the most part these programs should be called Folk Englandia or possibly Folk Londonia. So little of this has been a true reflecion of Britain. And Ian Anderson being enthuesastic about anything or anyone that came from the UK ??? Some mistake surely, was he misquoted, or badly edited ?. Whatever, a court case for defamation of character will surely follow.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 07:41 AM

Such a pity that all the good sense talked by younger performers like Kathryn Tickell, Eliza Carthy, Jon Boden and John Spires was undone by Jim Moray's "it's all right as long as Martin Carthy says so" bollocks(are they now going to malign Carthy as they did MacColl?)
Also since the programme focused so heavily on the youngsters making their way on the folk scene why no mention of "Folkworks" or the Degree Course at Newcastle University?
Nice to see Burl geting a spot though.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: shepherdlass
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 06:59 AM

No objection to singer-songwriters per se. Reckon my CD collection would reduce by at least a third without them! I just don't like it when the less able of them blame their obscurity on a policy of exclusion. You may get examples where this happens, but if they're any good they'll get picked up by other scenes.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 06:40 AM

I think you should distinguish the folk movement and folk music. The folk movement is I think inclusive which is why I get so cross with clubs that refuse to let people they don't think are good enough play, or stop people joining in.

Folk music however is (to summarise) of unknown authorship, and handed down and modified by oral passage. This doesn't mean it is "better" than other types of music. It's just what it is. Other stuff in the style, or using similar instruments, is not folk muisc until it falls within the definition.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: stallion
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 05:27 AM

I read the debate and I am finding it tiresome, seems to me like "folk music" is a broad church. OK I get really brassed off when I go to a venue and see a queue of ten guitars lined against a wall and ten expectant singer/songwriters getting up unleashing their ten minute gems about wondering why their wife left them, that is not to denigrate the plethora of excellent writers and performers on the scene, and, in a civilised world these people should be heard, that is folk music in one sense, it's the music in the community like rap etc.. In another sense it is about people gathering and singing to make them feel happy, it is more about participation, I am of that school, it gives me an immense amount of pleasure to hear a dozen or so voices ringing out from the four corners of the pub or club, the singer songwriter culture is exclusive where the sing around is inclusive and in between all that are ranged the rest!
Peter

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 04:29 AM

Thank you IS.

I have in the interim found some details of Homefires and that was not the festival that looked nice. The second year looked much less "folk" than the first, from the lineup. There was another shown at about the same time, with similar-ish material, that was clearly not an indoor thing. Any suggestions? There seemed to be a lot of young people there.

I too, while admiring Billy Bragg's revolutionary writing, doubt that he has much to do with "folk".

So what is this "acid" or "twisted" scene? I'm pretty sure the program said Roberts was associated with it.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,IS
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 04:15 AM

"I wouldn't have minded finding out more about what they dubbed "acid folk" or "twisted", particularly that young guitarist playing (shock, horror) traditional songs (was the name "Robertson"?),"


Alasdair Roberts, from Glasgow. He sings traditional ballads as well as self-written songs. I don't think he would consider himself part of any kind of 'acid' or 'twisted' folk scene, however.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 04:03 AM

I still believe that such phrases as 'bringing the Tradition up to date' and 'an evolving Tradition' etc., etc. is almost always shorthand for replacing Folk Music with Rock Music - and I will continue to object to this - mainly because I don't like Rock Music and think that there is far too much of it in our culture.
In last night's programme the only person who showed any understanding of what Folk Music is all about was Eliza Carthy. Her comment about Folk songs being created by thousands of singers, over many years, and not being about individual egos was spot on. But then I think that Ms Carthy is one of the few contemporary performers who can claim to be taking the Tradition forwards.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 03:27 AM

I wouldn't have minded finding out more about what they dubbed "acid folk" or "twisted", particularly that young guitarist playing (shock, horror) traditional songs (was the name "Robertson"?), and the idea of musicians returning to the tradition (with an unspoken subtext of "no matter how hard they try to get away") was interesting.

What is this "Homefires" festivaland how typical of it were the clips? (I ask partly because they presented Cambridge as a folk festival, whereas it has been a world music and blues festival for decades)

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,Red
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 08:51 PM

Who was the narrator?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: akenaton
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 08:17 PM

What a load of pish!!

Fawning and scraping over the "young bloods".
Huge egos and very little talent, even the Waterson Carthy cabal have lost the plot. I'm beginning to think that the folk "entertainers" have a definite shelf life, some of the stuff actually made me cringe.

They dont hold a candle to Ewan Maccoll and his group, either in the manner of performance or in songwriting ability.

Maccoll wrote of the political issues that we can only argue about.
About the work songs, songs of the quest for real freedom...not the "freedom" we're offered by the politicians.
His love songs are still some of the best ever written...not just sexual love but also love for his family and his fellow man.

This programme tried to knock Maccoll, but his songs answered the pygmies who would besmirch him.
I've always believed folk music comes from the heart, fires the emotions, renews the spirit....The heart ,emotion and spirit have long gone from the music, times have changed, its now a business.

Don't listen to those who say the music is evolving, the folk music we loved is dead and in its place we have the mindless rubbish shown in the last part of this series....Ake

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: shepherdlass
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 07:00 PM

yes, I suppose worrying whether someone's been 'voted in' doesn't quite fit most definitions of folk music. Anyway, Billy Bragg's involvement in traditional music alongside his own songwriting grows all the time.

Mind you, I was thoroughly depressed by the negativity of the last 15 minutes where a lot of singer-songwriters were given an inordinate amount of space to whinge about how they were being excluded from folk's mainstream. Well, Bob Dylan (or Billy Bragg, or even the lovely Shane M, if you like) was excluded for a while ... but his songs were good enough to stand on their own merit and to enter into the tradition. Can't imagine many of the navel-gazing songs I heard in this section of the programme following the same trajectory.

This is not the comment of a Luddite - there's great stuff out there, with genuine blending of traditional tunes and dance grooves and brilliant songwriting too, the Beeb just favoured the stuff that IS excluded over the stuff that isn't (where were Capercaillie, the Afro Celts, and the late lamented Martyn Bennett?). As for the romanticized Nick Drake/Vashti Bunyan/Beth Orton bits AGAIN ... oh, puhleeese!

And did they REALLY use June Tabor's spoken input without including her singing, or did I just miss that bit?

Oh well, at least there's some folk on telly!

PS Nutty - quite agree. Even the clips from the miners' strike showed the admittedly fantastic Roy Bailey and Leon Rosselson coming 'oop north' to help out. They didn't show Alex Glasgow coming home from Australia to play fundraisers, or Mike Elliott, or Jock Purdon, or ..... Still, I suppose there were a few notable bits (Eliza, Kate Rusby, Gaughan, Kathryn Tickell, Moving Hearts and Lou Killen ) that redressed the SE bias a bit.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: lady penelope
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 06:01 PM

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that new performers had to be 'voted' in as folk artists....... I kinda thought writing and performing in a folk genre did it for you........ silly me.....

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 05:55 PM

Also, I would like to know when, exactly, did Billy Bragg get 'elected' as a folk singer and why does he now appear to be the official media spokesman for British Folk?

That's a good question.

But the main thing that I got out of this programme - of people talking about music - was the music did it far better on it own. TV can just show the bloody music being performed and seems a complete waste of the medium to give yet more time for people that are paid to write about it - often those who have their own magazines to write it it in.

And come to think of it - when the music is talking about folk - is probably the best definition of what folk music is.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 05:52 PM

Billy Bragg was chosen by the family of Woody Guthrie to set some of his lyrics to music, and since that he has been an expert on folk music!
Giok

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 05:40 PM

Tonight's episode had too many rock musicians for my liking. Some of them seemed to have, possibly, got some of their inspiration from folk music (I had to take their word for it - it was hard to tell otherwise). This was a bit like featuring the singing of Shirley Collins on a programme about classical music because she claimed to be very fond of Beethoven!

Also, I would like to know when, exactly, did Billy Bragg get 'elected' as a folk singer and why does he now appear to be the official media spokesman for British Folk?

I think the Beeb is still terrified of Folk Music and still balks at playing any - even on a programme which purports to be about Folk Music!!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 05:34 PM

Pretty good once we got through the Shane barrier.

It was rather a maoist concept of folk music, with the picture of necessary change. It rather neglected the constant thread that keeps bringing the experiments back to the core. Perhaps we need a similar programme covering the same ground with the theme of consistency? Well, we'd enjoy it, anyway. I felt somehow the stress on the same faces in 1960 as in 1990 rather missed the point that many had gone and others had passed through and more had come - those who were fresh in 1960 were now the establishment. A natural progress of life not a stasis.

I couldn't help laughing at Jim Moray's naive attitude. They hadn't liked his piece so they were absolutely horrid..... what a wimp. Yet this was so reminiscent of the 1960s attitudes to Dylan or Al Stewart or later (ok, got to admit it) the Pogues. But the music goes on. It absorbs and widens, perhaps, but stays true to itself at the core. Which is its strength, I firmly believe, and although firmly hidden at times it was there in these programmes.

Ahhh....what a nice moral to end on. More or less what Eliza said anyway.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: nutty
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 05:08 PM

I have to eat my words .... I really enjoyed tonight.
It managed an unbiased look at the many different threads of folk music.
It pulled them together in a coherent way and acknowledged the common
source.

I just have to remember that folk has moved on through two generations since I first became involved, but having said that I'm glad I was there 40 years ago. I've had 40 years of amazing companionship and pleasure and I wouldn't change a thing.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 04:38 PM

Tonight's gets worse

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: fat B****rd
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 02:11 PM

A friend of mine at work was amazed at some of the guitar playing on the programmes and is now the proud owner of a selection of Davy Graham and Leadbelly music. A small benefit ?, I like to think so.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 01:27 PM

You'll be burnt at the stake!
G.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: stallion
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 01:24 PM

Am I the only one to have fallen asleep in a ewan mccoll and peggy seeger gig, told my girl friend to wake me up the snoring was putting them off!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 01:13 PM

The Pogues are to folk what Pope Pius was to contraception.
G

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: nutty
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 12:16 PM

Both programmes seem to have been biased towards what was happening in the South of England and London in particular.
If that had been the case folk music would have died a long time ago.

I started attending folk clubs in 1966 when people would queue for the doors to open and floor singers were rewarded with free entry and free drinks.

Being in the North, my main influences were the High Level Ranters,d Ray, Cilla and Archie Fisher, and the Corries who for my money did as much as McColl in developing and maintaining the tradition.

I'm not sure how much relevance tonights programme is going to have for me. I've never been a great Pogues fan.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,Barnacle
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 04:29 PM

I was just over the moon that anything folky could be seen from the sofa of my front room, albeit I thought I had gone to sleep and woken to a repeat at one point - that was confusing.

However, my main thoughts were something like ... Haven't they all aged - surely more than me!!!!!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 01:56 AM

It's EWAN MACCOLL ffs, not Ewen MacCall.

eric

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 03:32 PM

can I just say that Tom Lewis is after a copy of the programmes - I haven' t worked out how to tape from freeview-can anyone help?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 01:50 PM

I guess their are some folk stalinists about but the majority of folk activity as the level of small active cells of anarchists. They run clubs, singarounds, sessions, dances, morris and other ritual stuff and I suppose that is both the strength and the weakness of it all.

We could all name our favourite folk stalinist and MacColl fitteed the bill more than a bit.

Who was yours?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 01:43 PM

I'm a bit late to this, so excuse me it this posting wanders a bit.

I think the two programmes so far have been good: they haven't named everyone or everything that mattered but how could they? They've taken a few important threads and followed them.

I was taken by the suggestion that the early collections were made with the intention of creating an English concert music as the Germans were too influential: in which case perhaps the basic inspiration came from the likes of Sibelius and Smetana, composers who raided their own folk legacies for national music. The music hall of the period could have been mentioned, too.

There did seem to be too much attention given to the blues origins of US folk, given the time allocated to Bert Lloyd, mention of his Appalachian collecting would have provided needed balance.

The knives were definitely out for Ewen McCall. Although he was given a good hearing, I think there was a little more to be said in favour of his approach. Isn't it right that the songs still existed but without their context? Yes, it was good to hear a "source singer", but surely he wasn't singing the songs in the same way at his age as would have been the case in his youth. Much of what McCall was said to be teaching was only good stage practice (as you might expect from his background). There are those today who claim that traditional songs have to be sung in particular ways: whether their way is better than McCall's I leave to others to decide, but their singlemindedness is equally inspiring/wrongheaded.

I was initially put-off by the programme following appearing to be just a repeat, but have come to feel that it is valuable to see the clips used in the main programme set in full context. Perhaps this should have been made clearer at the start.

I am an unrepentant supporter of both the "soft" face of folk as represented by the Spinners (although personally I would yell for the Blackpool Taverners), and the folk rock of Steeleye Span/Fairport Convention. Both approaches may inhabit the fringes of folkdom, but to me do show a respect for the basic material, and a popular approach to bring it to a wider audience than would ever be gained by purists. It is the people brought by popular acts, in numbers that are whittled down by time and competing interests, that became the audience folk has today.

Performers and fads come and go, the music survives.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 01:43 PM

True enough Richard but it was, is, and if it is to survive it will continue to be a living tradition. And living things evolve according to the environment they inhabit (Darwin C 18somethin)

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 01:27 PM

Folk music is the tradition. Anything else may be excellent, but it is not folk music. Check the definition.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 folk program
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 08:29 AM

The thing is that there are a lot of 'good' performers around in folk clubs, there are also a lot of 'excellent' performers around. In order to stand out from the crowd you either need 'charisma' or a gimmick. Now charisma doesn't come over very well on a CD [see Noel Murphy] but gimmicks can if they're aural, and the same is true of visual gimmicks on TV. It's amazing how far a sexy outfit can get a slightly better than average violinist [see Vanessa Mae].
Many 'folkie' performers have in the past 'dressed up' for the TV cameras, I was looking at some of the photo's in the Strawbs link I posted, and the outfits some of them wore were hilarious, but as they no doubt might say, "Hey it got me noticed" and that's really the name of the game.
We have loads of talented people here on the Cat but not enough of them are getting the bookings or the recognition they deserve.
So I suggest that not being in the right place at the right time, coupled with seeing people you know you are better than getting not very well deserved recognition, is one of the justified causes of the carping attitude that comes from some of us.
How many of us can look at or listen to some new 'discovery' and say I know somebody who can sing/play/dance/whatever better than him/her. Different strokes for different folks added to the fact the 'Life sucks'make this an unfair world, and we just need to get over it.
Giok