Worst singing accent.

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Worst singing accent.

24 Dec 03 - 05:38 AM (#1079065)
Subject: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Tunesmith

Got to be Elton John! Everytime I hear him, I want to burst out laughing. Interestingly, the first time I heard Elton sing, I said to myself, "This guy's been listening to Jose Feliciano", which makes Elton a copy of a copy because Jose, himself, wasn't singing in his natural accent i.e. when he spoke - back in the late 60s - he had a pronounced latin accent.

p.s. the similarity in their voices becomes very apparent when Jose sings an Elton John composition.

24 Dec 03 - 09:28 AM (#1079171)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Uncle_DaveO

Robert Zimmerman. Uhh, I think he goes by some other name.....

Dave Oesterreich

24 Dec 03 - 09:44 AM (#1079184)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

Sans doubt... Madonna. I cringe when I hear her put-on English accent (both speaking AND singing...)

Beccy
P.S. Why do retailers think we'd rather hear schlock pop than oh, say, Beethoven or some classical Christmas music??? I'd wager you that there'd be less hostility in the stores if people were hearing a little less "Like a Virgin" and a little more "Virgin Holy, Virgin Lowly"...

24 Dec 03 - 09:48 AM (#1079187)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,KB

Robbie Williams: perpertrator of "We were there for summer tree men"

24 Dec 03 - 12:10 PM (#1079265)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Folkiedave

Douglas Oates.

Dave
www.collectorsfolk.co.uk

24 Dec 03 - 12:25 PM (#1079277)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson

Anything Cockney sounding like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

24 Dec 03 - 05:00 PM (#1079356)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Joybell

1. Any male singer, who doesn't come from the UK, who puts his hand over one ear and does A L Lloyd/Ewan McColl. Singers who actually have a similiar normal accent or a sore ear excepted.
2. Female singers who sing with fake "soul" very, very slowly.

24 Dec 03 - 08:18 PM (#1079443)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Strupag

Funny that you mention Ewan McColl, Joybell, because he had quite an English accent in normal life but his Scots accent, used when he was singing, was pretty awful.
Not that I would say anything against his songs!

24 Dec 03 - 08:29 PM (#1079450)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: mooman

...almost certainly me!

Peace

moo

25 Dec 03 - 09:27 AM (#1079659)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Bernard

Yup - Reg Dwight (Elton John!) and Robert Zimmerman (Dylan) are top of my list, too...

I also have an intense dislike for the 'traditional english folk voice' - very nasal, with heavily distorted vowels! I'd better not cite any examples, though...!!

25 Dec 03 - 11:43 AM (#1079717)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: McGrath of Harlow

Is Madonna supposed to be talking in some kind of English accent?

I imagine all the English pop singers who put on "American" when they sing are about as authentic.

Ewan MacColl's speaking accent was pretty similar to his singing accent. Sort of hovering in between Lacashire and Lanarkshire.

25 Dec 03 - 06:52 PM (#1079896)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Little Robyn

The Proclaimers, especially when they sang "Arm on ma wee"!!!
Robyn

25 Dec 03 - 09:11 PM (#1079944)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,M'Grath of Altcar

On "Fields of Gold" Sting sings in an obnoxious Geordie / Jamaican / Irish accent. Nice song though.

25 Dec 03 - 09:27 PM (#1079950)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

Many of the modern Country & Western singers that use that drawn out fake southern accent.

Just one example is Reba McIntire.

I have a deep like for older country music but a deep dislike for the "new" singers like the Tobi Kieth, Tim McGraw, "Deewhite yokum" etc. just about all of them.

26 Dec 03 - 08:34 AM (#1080205)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Maryrrf

I was completely agree with Guest above about modern Country and Western and Reba McIntire in particular. It really grates on me the way she deliberately draws those vowels out.

26 Dec 03 - 01:48 PM (#1080327)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Walking Eagle

I think that I just dislike any accent that isn't honest to the singer. Just sing like you are supposed to. Although, I do like trained opera singers.

W.E.

26 Dec 03 - 04:57 PM (#1080424)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Joybell

I agree. Opera is part of theatre. So is a music hall turn or an item within a musical play. The difference is, I think, that if you are performing AS YOURSELF and telling a story or making a comment -AS YOURSELF, then it is inappropriate to use a fake accent.

Of course your choice of material may influence the way you present a song. There may be words within a song that are not part of your usual speech. You can still use your normal accent though.
I sing with my husband whose accent is very different from mine and we have an unspoken rule that if I'm singing harmony I do alter my accent slightly on some words so as to blend in. He does the same if he's doing the harmony. Otherwise we both sing true to our normal accents.

26 Dec 03 - 05:47 PM (#1080444)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: PoppaGator

An hour or two ago, I posted a comment to the "Best Singing Accent" thread that included responses to several aguments put forth here in the "Worst Singing Accent" thread.

Sorry that I can't seem to keep the distinction straight -- must be a result of coming to work dead tired on the day after Christmas, with little else to do except surf the net and hang out at Mudcat.

I have no objection to a certain degree of consciously put-on accent, appropriate to the genre of song one is singing. As a New Jersey-born white blues singer (who can now usually pass for a native New Orleanian), I have to believe that! Of course, some do a better job than others of finding an appropriate vocal personna for their efforts.

Another half hour or so I can go home and go to sleep. Bye!

26 Dec 03 - 06:12 PM (#1080455)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Cllr

Sting is originally from up north anyway and the beatles sang with an american accent to make themselves sound more hip.
Worst accent is not so much when an accent is faked but when it is either faked badly or they move around during the song. IMHO Cllr

26 Dec 03 - 06:13 PM (#1080456)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Mary Humphreys

What makes me cringe are people who speak in broad regional English accents when introducing songs - I love that - then they go into 'Mid-atlantic' accents to sing the songs. Yuk!
Naming no names of course.

26 Dec 03 - 06:20 PM (#1080461)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Maryrrf

What is "mid atlantic"?

26 Dec 03 - 06:23 PM (#1080466)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Cllr

He he he, MH I think I know who you mean if not I know someone exactly like you describe. Cllr

27 Dec 03 - 03:52 PM (#1080575)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,yum yum

sorry, it has to be Johnny Cash!
BUT in his favour I will say...
he makes flat notes sound, ok!

27 Dec 03 - 03:56 PM (#1080577)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Dave the Gnome

No-one, but no-one will ever beat Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins I'm afraid. Just no contest.

Not my opinion. Simple fact of life;-)

Cheers

DtG

27 Dec 03 - 05:03 PM (#1080622)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Frank

"Funny that you mention Ewan McColl, Joybell, because he had quite an English accent in normal life but his Scots accent, used when he was singing, was pretty awful.
Not that I would say anything against his songs!"

As I understand it, Ewan McColl (nee Jimmy Miller)isn't Scottish.
When you hear many Eastern American singers affect an American Southern country accent, that's not convincing either but many do put the songs across in an effective manner.

Yesterday I heard the three Italian tenors, Pavarotti, Domingo and ? (can't remember his name) sing in English some American pop Christmas songs. The quality of their voices overrode the
peculiar accents for me.

Sometimes a bad accent doesn't get in the way of a good performance.

Frank

27 Dec 03 - 06:03 PM (#1080642)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Joybell

I rather think that it's not singers with a distictive accent that's the problem, nor singers who are not using their usual launguage. For me it's the fact that when a stlye gets popular so many other singers suddenly take it up with variable results. Some get away with it but many don't.
Just had a wonderful thought. Wouldn't it be something if the funny accents of the Three Tenors singing in English became popular. We could all do it in the folk clubs. Make a nice change. Three Tenors wouldn't mind. They're famous enough to take it. Going off to practice right now. Joy

27 Dec 03 - 10:14 PM (#1080750)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Janice in NJ

In the USA "Mid-Atlantic" means the states on the Eastern Seaboard that are south of New England, but north of Washington, DC. In other words, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. Does "Mid-Atlantic" also mean something in the UK?

28 Dec 03 - 06:04 AM (#1080843)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Snuffy

Janice,
In UK it meads from the middle of the Atlantic - i.e a Brit trying (badly)to sound American.

28 Dec 03 - 12:44 PM (#1080978)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,DD

While I find it annoying, I would not say that Reba has a "fake drawn out southern accent{". I don't believe there is ANYTHING fake about it. Have you EVER heard her speak?

28 Dec 03 - 04:34 PM (#1081093)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Cruiser

Yes, I have heard Reba speak. I think she cultivates that southern accent in her speech and song, with some exaggeration, for effect.

I was 'borned', as they sometimes say, in the great South. I have deliberately made an attempt to 'shed' myself of the accent I learned as a child. People still recognize the vestiges of that dialect with some of the words I use. Some of my dialect is ingrained and probably can not be completely eliminated. I could cultivate my southern pronunciations to make a song like "Y'all Come", for effect, by drawling the "Yaw", but chose not to do so. I must admit that the following phraseology "don't" quite have the same effect as Y'all:

"You all come, you all come, you all come to see us now and then…"

I don't 'sang' it that way neither. That reminds me of another 'sanger' that I can't listen to: John Anderson and his song "Swingin'" where he sangs "and we wuz swangin', swangin'"

I admit to liking, and sometimes using, nonstandard English such as the stuff my grandfather (and some Mudcatters have) used. Examples like: Yourn, hisn, hern, ourn, and theirn. These substandard vulgar forms of pronouns are humorous when used as parodies or in written style reflecting hillbilly dialects documented in books like the Foxfire series. Shucks, sum of muh kinfok cum frum dem deep dark hollers down yunner in Tennossay.

I also like the many novelty songs where nonstandard English and accent are used to great effect.

'Life Gits Tee-Jus Don't It' and 'Down On The Farm' by Walter Brennan (and more of his tunes).

'Wildwood Weed' by Jim Stafford

I spent tuh rayst of that day an most of that nite a'tryin' ta find my brother Bill,
Caught up with em 'bout sex o'clock tuh nayxt mornin', naykid, swangin' on the windmill
He sayed he flew up 'air,
I had tah fly up an git em down,
He wuz 'bout haff crazy

Y'all come back now, hear?

'Mr. Custer' by Larry Verne.

Look at them bushes out there
They's a'movin' and they's a injun behint ever one
They's a redskin a'waitin' out there, a'fixin' to take my hair

Most of the mainstream (not novelty) modern country music, with its exaggerated, fake-accented enunciation, is just not what I care to listen to. I usually turn the radio dial when I happen on it. C&W music before the mid- 1970's is some of my favorite.

29 Dec 03 - 07:04 AM (#1081414)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Morticia

Loreena McKennit doing a Scots/Irish accent....why she feels she needs to is beyond me but it is awful beyond words

29 Dec 03 - 10:17 AM (#1081497)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Peg

thanks for reminding me that Jim Stafford was one of my favorite entertainers for a long time.

29 Dec 03 - 01:06 PM (#1081614)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The O'Meara

Jim Stafford, yes! "Blackwater Hattie lived back in the swamp..." Great!

Worst accent was any number of groups, South Korean, Cambodian, Phillipino, touring Vietnam during the war courtesy of the USO. Memorable tunes were "Lollin' onna Liver", "We Gotta Git Otta dis Prace", and the unforgettable "Come on Baby Righrt my Fire". (They were appreciated, though.)

O'Meara

29 Dec 03 - 01:30 PM (#1081625)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Cruiser

Another Gem from that great crazyman Stafford about a phone number he got from a phone booth wall:

"Lucille! me and you gotta' altogether different idea 'bout A Real Good Time"

From the Album: Jim Stafford 1974 PolyGram Records, Inc.

I'm a'lisnun' tah tuh record rite now.

29 Dec 03 - 07:47 PM (#1081944)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Compton

Totally but totally agree with Dave the Gnome ...and the winner Must be Dick Van Dyke...Mary Poppins..No Contest!!!!

29 Dec 03 - 10:49 PM (#1082076)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: CraigS

I can't help thinking of Mick Jagger and Ian Matthews sounding South American! OTOH, PJ Proby (the Halifax UK answer to Johnny Burnette) was 'orribly American. Bob Dylan doesn't have an accent, he is accentuated - and entitled to be so. The Proclaimers are singing with their honest Edinburgh (where sex are for trash) accents, which I find simultaneously endearing and irritating. Me myself I get up peoples' noses in seconds if I'm not trying ...

30 Dec 03 - 11:16 AM (#1082386)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Roberto

Guest Frank (27.12.03) writes that Ewan MacColl had an awful Scottish accent (and was not Scottish, again this prejudice). This verdict amazes me. Is such an opinion widespread? I'm Italian, and I can't judge very well Scottish accents, but Ewan MacColl's seems to me appropriate, and his voice and singing of the highest quality. I'd really like to read other Mudcatters' views. Roberto

30 Dec 03 - 05:33 PM (#1082708)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: PageOfCups

Second place: Pavarotti singing "O Holy Night" in English. He sounds like 1930's stage Eye-tal-yun. [shudder]

First place: Dick van Dyke in "Mary Poppins." Thanks *so* much for reminding me, guys. I'd managed to block it out of my memory - 'til now.

PoC
(who likes Reba's accent, FWIW)

30 Dec 03 - 10:03 PM (#1082896)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Sam L

"Transatlantic" is a stylized pseudo-British/American that many actors and performers trained in, less common now.

Pop music is theatrical, and a song is theatrical in the basic sense of mixing arts. I don't mind a singer singing in the accent of a barnyard animal if it sounds good. It's a non-issue to me. Just bcause you learned an accent where you grew up doesn't make it real or natural, just handy--it just disposes you to be convincing with it, and you don't need to explain why you use it, to most people.

30 Dec 03 - 11:13 PM (#1082939)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: YorkshireYankee

In UK it meads from the middle of the Atlantic - i.e a Brit trying (badly)to sound American.

Or vice-versa...

It can also refer to the accent that results when a Yank transplants to England (or vice-versa).

As a friend of mine (English fellow now a US resident) put it:
"Americans think I sound English; English people think I sound American."

In my own case, my American friends/family tell me I've picked up an English accent; my (English) husband assures me that this is most definitely NOT the case (although he does say that my Yank accent becomes much more pronounced when I'm talking on the phone to someone in the US).

I'd love to be able to "pass"... say more than a sentence or two without prompting the question "Where are you from?" (I keep practising the phrase "I'm a Yorkshire lass, me," but so far, it's a sure-fire way to get a laugh...!)

Cheers,

YY

31 Dec 03 - 12:58 PM (#1083282)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Strupag

It was me that said that Euan MacColl had an awful Scot's singing accent and I'll stand by that.
Jim MacLean, in an other thread agrees with me.
This is taking nothing away from the fact that I admire the man greatly.
When singing an old Scots ballad the man had an accent which reminded me of Scotty in Startrek.
Can't say any more as I am heading off to try and catch a ferry to Raasay for New Year. With the current gale here I have my doubts if it will be running but I'm off to join the queue

Happy new Year

Andy Mitchell

31 Dec 03 - 01:18 PM (#1083295)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Roberto

Still not satisfied. Is Ewan MacColl's an awful Scots' singing accent in Geordie (Will ye gang tae the Hielands my bonny bonny love), Sir Patrick Spens, Friendless Mary, Jamie Raeburn, etc? As I admitted before, it may be difficult for me to judge being Italian, but I've listened to many Scots singers, from John Strachan to Jeannie Robertson, from McEwen to Jimmy MacBeath, etc, and I just can't hear this awful accent in Ewan MacColl's singing. Andy, I wish somebody, expert in Scots' accents, would say something clear against your verdict, but in the meantime I hope you could catch your ferry, reach your destination, have a happy new year and don't lay half ower, half ower frae Aberdour. Best wishes. Roberto

07 Feb 05 - 03:53 PM (#1401835)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Jimmy Hill

I have some sympathy for fake accents, being from Yorkshire. In my native tongue, the vowels are so short that there's nothing to build the notes around. You cannot really sing consonants because almost by definition they are stopping the flow of air, so all depends on lengthening the vowels to form the notes. We dont have long vowels where I come from, so there's little choice but to fake it. Imagine Geoff Boycott singing and you get the picture. My observation is that people tend to sing the song as they heard it: if it was Gaughan they copy Gaughan's nasal, aggressive sound; but would (try to) sing Marvin Gaye like Marvin Gaye.

07 Feb 05 - 04:03 PM (#1401841)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: *Laura*

Folkiedave - sorry - I think I gotta agree with you on that one!

xLx

07 Feb 05 - 04:14 PM (#1401852)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Teresa

Hmmm, I don't want to get into a judgmental thing here, so I'm going to say carefully that the accent that surprised me most was the difference in Iris DeMent's speaking and singing voice. I expected her to have a high, nasal, heavily accented speaking voice, and she doesn't. At least, her speaking "accent" is flatter than her singing one.

It's interesting how some singers sound the same when they are singing or speaking, and others sound totally different in each case.

Teresa

07 Feb 05 - 04:30 PM (#1401864)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Once Famous

Anything warbling and Celtic.

yecchhhhhh.

I'll take hillbilly any day over that.

07 Feb 05 - 06:46 PM (#1401988)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Hull on earth

I know this will sound awful to traddies, but,as a true traddy for many years, can I now admit that I have never been a fan of Mike Waterson's voice. There I've finally said it. Sorry.

Lal, Norma, Liza, however I will always love.

07 Feb 05 - 06:58 PM (#1402003)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Teresa

I'll admit, too, that my friend and I, though we both adore the Watersons, we call them the Bleatersons. :)

Teresa

07 Feb 05 - 08:27 PM (#1402081)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Ebbie

Reba McEntire's vocal style, not accent, is what irritates me. She came by her Oklahoma accent honestly. But those vocal curlicues..! Raht tarring to the ear.

07 Feb 05 - 08:52 PM (#1402099)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Once Famous

Don't knock Reba. She is enjoyed in trailer courts all over this great land.

07 Feb 05 - 08:59 PM (#1402101)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Ebbie

I'm not putting her down, nor do I see any reason for anyone else to- I'm a friend of a friend of her family, and from what I hear she is a better person than some I know.

07 Feb 05 - 09:23 PM (#1402109)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: jaze

Does anyone in England speak like DVD in Mary Poppins? He sounded so... English at the time!

08 Feb 05 - 12:05 AM (#1402189)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,DavidfromSydney

I must admit I'm always intrigued how Richard Thompson can speak with a middle class north-London accent, and sing as though he came from Durham.

When I first saw Mary Poppins as a kid I thought Dick Van Dyke just had a funny accent, like most Americans. He certainly didn't soumd remotely English

David

08 Feb 05 - 12:17 AM (#1402195)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Melani

Me, whenever I've learned a song from somebody Scottish or Irish. I try to moderate it, but it just sorta comes out that way. Or any of us at the Renaissance Faire, trying to speak BFA (Basic Faire Accent).

For a long time I thought Hank Cramer was Irish, until I finally heard him speak in his normal Western accent. Though I actually quite like the accent he uses when he sings.

08 Feb 05 - 12:33 AM (#1402202)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Kaleea

Worst singing accent? Wouldn't that imply that the singer was singing in a manner unlike she/he would normally speak? If so, I'd have to nominate the dearly departed hysterically comical character of Inspector Clouseauuuuuuuuuu (Peter Sellers) when he was singing "Thank Heavens For Little Girls" to the Russian Spy who could not, for the life of her, figure out why he just didn't seem the same as when she fell in love with him--or who she thought was him but instead was Omar Sharif in the dark.

08 Feb 05 - 01:44 AM (#1402233)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Boab

Martin---you're kidding again!?!?
Seriously----I could name a host of artistes in the UK who are bluegrass and country fanatics and wouldn't dream of singing in anything other than an American accent; usually mimicked, I admit.
The worst accent? Well if by that is meant the most unintelligible, Dylan is unbeatable in any part of the world other than North America.
I forgive him, mind you, if I have the lyrics to refer to;he has some top class material.

08 Feb 05 - 04:03 AM (#1402295)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Strollin' Johnny

Jaze, DVD might have sounded English to an American, but he never fooled anyone here in England. He just sounded like the ham actor he was (is?). Why do they do that? Why not use English actors to play English people and American actors to play Americans?

Rene Zellwegger couldn't carry it off either - her shite 'English' accent wrecked an otherwise great performance.

08 Feb 05 - 04:18 AM (#1402301)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Com Seangan

Bad Accent ? It's got to be Beniamino Gigli for No.1 on his rendering of Mother Machree in his Dublin Concert in late fifties. The man was badly advised to take it on at all.

On the other had his "I'll walk beside you" (in strong Italian accent) went down great. The accenteven enhance the performance - maybe on account of the international character of the song.

08 Feb 05 - 06:50 AM (#1402358)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Moses

I always thought DVD was miscast in Mary Poppins and that Tommy Steele should have been offered the part as he had much more talent anyway as well as the authentic accent.

Thought it was only me who cringed every time DVD opened his mouth.

08 Feb 05 - 07:23 AM (#1402374)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Strollin' Johnny

Yes Moses, Tommy would have been an excellent choice. Presumably he wasn't well-known enough for the US audience.

08 Feb 05 - 07:24 AM (#1402375)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Strollin' Johnny

And Tommy was a moderate singer too - which DVD clearly wasn't.

08 Feb 05 - 08:52 AM (#1402432)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,mick

The rooftops in Mary Poppins weren't authentic either . And the soot on the faces of the chimney sweeps probably wasn't real soot atall. The movie is a fantasy , a pantomine .That's the way I look at it anyway and I find Van Dyke's fake cockney accent absolutely charming . I don't think Tommy Steele could have done much better; does anyone remember him singing Little White Bull? I doubt if it will ever make to the digitrad

08 Feb 05 - 09:14 AM (#1402450)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Strollin' Johnny

Then you have cloth ears sir!

08 Feb 05 - 09:23 AM (#1402458)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Snuffy

most unintelligible, Dylan is unbeatable . I heard a track by John Prine once. After three or four hearings I concluded he was probably singing in English, but I couldn't make out many words.

most irritating accent for me it has to be Bert Jansch. YMMV

08 Feb 05 - 10:53 AM (#1402552)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Splott Man

But then again, Tommy Steele did an awful Irish accent in a recently televised film

08 Feb 05 - 11:28 AM (#1402578)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Strollin' Johnny

But 'is cockney weren't arf bad guv'nor!

08 Feb 05 - 11:55 AM (#1402612)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

The worst singing accent is the one that is not your own, particularly if it is an American one.

08 Feb 05 - 03:00 PM (#1402799)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: John C.

Dear Roberto (if you're still there?),

Glad that you're a Ewan MacColl fan - unfortunately there's still a lot of prejudice against this amazing artist in the UK. He was a great talent but a very opinionated man who followed a hard left political line. Nevertheless, his opinions were based on a very deep understanding of British/European culture and traditional music. And his political opinions were formed in a British industrial slum during a time of great economic hardship for ordinary British working people.
I believe that Ewan was the only real genius I've ever met and geniuses are rarely easy to get on with (although on the limited number of occasions that I met him I found him always willing to chat and to listen to what I had to say). I still consider him, through the example of his artistry, one of the greatest teachers I've ever had. I suppose someone of the anti-MacColl faction will accuse me of all sorts of heinous crimes but I should say, in my own defence, that I've never been much of a one for heroes but for Ewan I make an exception.
As for his Scottish accent - as an Englishman I should really leave that for the Scots to decide - but it always sounded OK to me!

08 Feb 05 - 03:47 PM (#1402862)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: sixtieschick

Dr. John the Night Tripper

09 Feb 05 - 02:49 PM (#1403674)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,PoppaGator

Believe it or not, Dr. John (Mac Rebbenack) really does talk that way! That's an authentic working-class New Orleans accent; as a lifelong musician, Mac probably never had a reason to homogenize and polish up his speech (as he would had he pursued a career in, say, broadcasting). On the contrary, he has found it worth his while to emphasize the non-standard aspects of his English usage.

09 Feb 05 - 05:32 PM (#1403794)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim McLean

I don't think there are many people who would disagree with John C, be they pro ar anti MacColl. However when a Scot hears MacColl sing in his Scottish voice, he or she knows immediately that this is an actor who fails to convince. Whether this is relevant to the pleasure the listener obtains is another question but the fact remains that his Scottish singing accent was pretty dire.

10 Feb 05 - 10:21 AM (#1404544)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,padgett (at home)

In the Uk there are anumber of different English accents, my native Barnsley is reknowned for still uisng thee and tha (thou) which makes such as Kate Rusby so natural in singing Trad songs

altho I have brummy friends I hate the thick Birmingham accent, altho I loved Cosmotheka (brum?)and singing Cockney Music Hall

Norfolk/Suffolk is lovely accent

When I recorded unaccompanied recently i was amazed to find gutteral stops over which I had no control, this might be explained by the pronounciation of words due to accent as mentioned above and lack of a flow to my accent

However my sound/pa men did an excellent job in removing from my recordings. these are not detectable in normal live singing for they are so short

Anyone any similar experiences?

10 Feb 05 - 10:52 AM (#1404580)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,neovo

10 Feb 05 - 10:59 AM (#1404587)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,neovo

Sorry - I keep doing that.

I dislike the spurious introduction of a sibilant "H" in front of vowels. For example "H-abroad for pleasure h-as h-I was h-a'walking, h-it was h-on one summers h-evening clear". and such bad diction that you can't distinguish one word from the next also winds me up and turns me off (should that be hoff?).

11 Feb 05 - 05:07 AM (#1405563)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Liz the Squeak

At the local folk club, in fairest London
One pleasant evening in the month of May,
There stood a singer, of Cockney breeding
And his singing fairly took my breath away...

For he had no talent, or sense of rhythmn,
No ear for music, no none at all,
But he sang for ages, went on for pages,
And he sang them slowly, in a Galway Drawl.

He sang of Ireland, as if he'd been there,
He sang of troubles, of war and pain.
He stopped eventually, we clapped politely,
So he stood and sang them all again:

Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely intentional. You know who you are!

LTS

12 Feb 05 - 06:49 PM (#1407639)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,HughM

Liz - that was brilliant!

Maybe it's because I don't come from Barnsley, but Kate Rusby often sounds to me as though she continually alternates between standard English and Northern English (strictly speaking North Midland). However, I won't throw too many stones bedcause I live in a glass house. If I'm singing a Scottish song or a Geordie one, I often have to make some attempt at the appropriate accent or the words wouldn't rhyme.

12 Feb 05 - 07:22 PM (#1407661)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Chris Murray

Dick van Dyke in 'Mary Poppins' has the sort of accent that Americans think we have in the UK. The same accent can be heard in any American sitcom when an English character is introduced, whether they're supposed to come from London or not.
My least favourite accent is the awful 'Mummerset' accent adopted by many singers in folk clubs.

12 Feb 05 - 08:20 PM (#1407724)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Mark Cohen

I once had a voice teacher who showed me a statement in one of her books that stated quite emphatically, "Philadelphians have the worst vowels in the world." I'm quite proud of that fact, even though I purposely dropped most of my Philadelphia accent when I was 16 and still living in Philadelphia, or, as we would say, Full-ulfya.

And as far as unintelligible singers go, I don't think Dylan can hold a candle to Vin Garbutt. Even Van Morrison on "Madam George" doesn't even come close.

Aloha,
Mark

13 Feb 05 - 04:02 AM (#1407993)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,padgett (at home)

yep the Geordie accent has escaped so far, Vin I believe is from Guisborough nr Middlesborough which was in Nth Yorkshire (hope his op goes well) but like the North East accent can near unintelligible

My mate Sid Calderbank was last year untertaking research into the different accents and dialects and if you listen to one or two of Sid's songs in the broad Lancashire dialct youd wonder which country you were in.

e stood taliking in Whitby; John Denny from Brum, Me from Barnsley, and Sid from I think Leigh (correct me if I'm wrong) any one from anywhere else would have been hard pressed to understand what we were saying god bless English in its many forms. I know I struggled to get attuned. Just needed Benny Graham or Johny Handle and they were both there.

13 Feb 05 - 04:14 AM (#1407999)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Teresa

This happens in Irish songs a lot. The word "char-ums" which rhymes with the word "ar-ums" Is this just in singing or is it also in speaking? It always makes me giggle. :)

Teresa

13 Feb 05 - 05:01 AM (#1408026)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Liz the Squeak

Why, thank you HughM. There was more but I think that bit covered it!

LTS

13 Feb 05 - 07:41 AM (#1408057)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

Let's have the lot then, Liz.

Pretty please.

13 Feb 05 - 07:46 AM (#1408059)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Snuffy

Sorry, Liz. That was me. Forgot I'd had to come in the back door

13 Feb 05 - 04:56 PM (#1408426)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Liz the Squeak

It'll take me a while to find it again... remind me!

LTS

20 Feb 05 - 09:17 PM (#1416060)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: YorkshireYankee

Have you found it yet, Liz?

YY (also interested)

21 Feb 05 - 12:15 AM (#1416130)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,slickerbill

I've got to say to my ear the worst are:
a) French people singing rock and roll translated from the english.

b) Japanese people singing country music.

c) me singing any French or Japanese tunes.

sb

21 Feb 05 - 07:27 AM (#1416289)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Hand-Pulled Boy

This thread reminds me of the 'armchair' sports fan who constantly critises the action on the screen BUT has never played the sport themselves, and would be rubbish if they tried to!

08 Mar 05 - 02:22 AM (#1429460)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

Refresh...

Have you found it yet, Liz?

08 Mar 05 - 03:02 AM (#1429475)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,wandris

I well remember Tommy Steele singing Little White Bull when I was a child, I was not allowed to sing it at home because the poor prnounciation ! My parents were obviously concerned about my vowels.

08 Mar 05 - 03:50 AM (#1429486)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Liz the Squeak

At the local folk club, in fairest London,
One pleasant evening in the month of May,
There stood a singer, of Cockney breeding
And his singing fairly took my breath away:

Ch: He had no talent, or sense of rhythm
No ear for music, no none at all….
But he sang for ages, went on for pages,
And he sang them slowly, in a Galway drawl.

He sang of Ireland, as if he'd been there,
He sang of troubles and war and pain.
He stopped eventually, we clapped politely,
So he stood and sang them all again:

He sang of rebels and Irish rovers,
The lakes, Coolphin and Ponchitrain
He sang each note, like an Irish setter
And the tears stood in our eyes with pain.

He kept on singing, we started walking,
Till the Temple Station came into view,
Says he to us, 'mates, all back to my place,
Where I've got another book of songs or two:

08 Mar 05 - 04:49 AM (#1429508)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: mindblaster

All this debate about Jimmy Miller being a genius! The man was a total fake who made a living by pretending to be scotch, stealing songs from gypsies and old seamen rearranging then and calling them his own - A total wanker!

08 Mar 05 - 04:54 AM (#1429511)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Liz the Squeak

Mindblaster - I wholeheartedly agree!! Never like the man! Although I must correct you - scotch is a drink, he pretended to be Scots.

LTS

08 Mar 05 - 05:08 AM (#1429523)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: mindblaster

In his case it's scotch - I wouldn't insult my kilt wearing mates north of the border!

08 Mar 05 - 06:22 AM (#1429550)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Wrinkles

Liz said " Although I must correct you - scotch is a drink, he pretended to be Scots".

Wrinkles writes;
"Scotch" is an adjective, it's merely the english ponounciation of the Lallans "Scots" (which sounds like "skohshsh" to english ears; hence "scotch"). Two different dialects words for the same things. Although I'd say useing either at the end of a sentence is just bad grammar; in each case the correct word in an english sentence should have been "Scotish".

And Whiskey is a drink, the designation "Scotch" is to warn folks it's not the real thing; IE Irish Whiskey ;-).

Wrinkles
(running and ducking for cover; hee hee)

08 Mar 05 - 06:52 AM (#1429561)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: mindblaster

Yes wrinkles, you are correct. Why is it though, that my pals from north of the border get very upset when refered to as scotch?

08 Mar 05 - 07:11 AM (#1429567)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Dave Earl

Why is it though, that my pals from north of the border get very upset when refered to as scotch?

If I have understood what has been said, it's because they are Scottish or Scots(men)

08 Mar 05 - 01:26 PM (#1429850)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

MANY thanks for the rest of the words, LTS – they're a stitch! (Can't wait for the next singaround...)

08 Mar 05 - 02:07 PM (#1429897)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Leadfingers

The worst singing accent I have EVER heard is on a CD that is played at the hotel I work in regularly - No Names , No Pack-drill , but the lead singer seems to have an accent thats midway between Black Country and Cockney .

08 Mar 05 - 02:08 PM (#1429898)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Leadfingers

But INSTRUMENTALLY they are great !!

08 Mar 05 - 11:47 PM (#1430245)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

newfoundland, but only when they put the country western lilt on it.
grraaahrgh.

09 Mar 05 - 03:06 PM (#1430842)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Big Al Whittle

ewan was okay. leave him alone. wrote some nice songs. was generally nice to people. wrote a lot of plays. nice people like Ian Campbell worshipped him.

what have you got to do to be liked. some of ewan's followers were tartars for telling eberybody what the tradition was really about. but the man himself. I thought he was better than all right

he contributed to the gaiety of nations

RIP - thats what I think

Big Al Whittle

09 Mar 05 - 03:09 PM (#1430844)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Kim C

Reba McEntire

09 Mar 05 - 04:41 PM (#1430913)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: John C.

Not often we agree, weelittledrummer (unless you're being ironic, of course?). Ewan was the only hero I've ever had (don't usually bother) - he changed my life.
Do you realise that he would have been 90 this year? Doesn't time fly?

09 Mar 05 - 06:01 PM (#1430985)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Dug

This song from John Dengate (tune "Marching through Georgia"

I am a little Aussie boy, I come from Cammeray
I've never travelled further than the beach at Byron Bay
But when I pick my guitar up I'm off and far away
To Tennessee via California

Guitar guitar I touch the finger board
Guitar guitar I play an opening chord
Then my accent changes from Australian strong and broad
And my tongue goes bungling through Georgia

3 more verses...

31 Mar 05 - 12:37 PM (#1448032)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: YorkshireYankee

LTS, forgot to ask before... who wrote Galway Drawl? Was it you, by any chance?

31 Mar 05 - 01:50 PM (#1448103)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Severn

Foreign Bluegrass bands like Druha Trava (Czech) or The Nakashima Family Band (Japan) can sound pretty bizzarre, but on the other hand, I can think of quite a few American bands, I won't name names, that don't get too much closer. Pick your (probably) local favorite.
Not that I could sound like a young Red Allen ot something if I tried.....

Severn

31 Mar 05 - 02:43 PM (#1448170)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Liz the Squeak

The Galway Drawl was indeed penned by myself..... well, spawned really!

LTS

31 Mar 05 - 07:33 PM (#1448445)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: mandoleer

I just thank the gods that Dick van Dyke wasn't a folk singer. Was he supposed to be a comedian or something... No, my vote in the folk world goes to someone not yet mentioned. The revered by many Dick Gaughan is a singer I would prefer to pay not to listen to. I could be wrong, but he only appears to use three vowel sounds - none of which I can describe here - which don't seem to me to be normal Scots sounds anyway. (Of English birth, I have Scottish family and am related to 'the sweetest of Scottish bards' Robert Nicoll.) Ewan McColl did have a peculiar accent, but at least he had a reasonable selection of vowels. I make no claims of superiority on my own part - as mentioned in another thread I have been used to clear pubs at closing time....

01 Apr 05 - 04:02 PM (#1449408)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: McGrath of Harlow

Posh voices.

01 Apr 05 - 11:29 PM (#1449742)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: YorkshireYankee

LTS – well done! I'm extremely impressed!

Severn's comment about foreign bluegrass bands brought back memories...

Quite a few years ago now, my folk club (Paint Creek Folklore Society, in case anyone's wondering) was involved in a cultural exchange with a Danish group in the Thisted (pronounced Tis-ted; near the city of Thy – pronounced Tu (sort of)) region of Denmark. One evening (when it was our turn to visit them), we had a sort of talent show, and one of the high points of the evening was the local Bluegrass (a.k.a. "Thygrass" (pronounced Tugrass)) group. They were great – had the music absoloutely down – but one of my favorite memories to this day is their refrain on one particular song: "And dhey laid Yessi Yaimes in his graive"....

02 Apr 05 - 02:47 AM (#1449804)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Tunesmith

One area of "worst accents" which seems to have escaped criticism is " the white men sings the blues" syndrome. One of the most venerated performers of pre-war country blues is John Hammond Jr. but to me his adopted deep-south rural black accent is embarrasing.

01 Aug 10 - 09:19 AM (#2956103)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: oldhippie

The worst I've heard: A guy named Wolf Krakowski. Someone once loaned me his CD Transmigrations, and he was totally unintelligible.

01 Aug 10 - 02:27 PM (#2956216)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: romanyman

those folkies that think all folk or shanties must be sung through the nose, make me want to give them a packet of tunes and a tissue

01 Aug 10 - 09:02 PM (#2956415)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Genie

Interesting phenomenon in this thread. On the one hand, many are decrying singers trying to adopt an accent that they don't come by naturally (e.g., a Yank trying to use an Irish accent when singing a song from Ireland). On the other, many are saying it's "the worst" when someone from an Asian country tries to sing a song in English and can't pronounce the "r's" or "l's" properly.
So is the consensus that you should never sing a song in another language unless & until you can sound like a native speaker? Should middle-class professionals not try to sing blues -- or maybe sing blues with all the final "g's" clearly articulated (and maybe singing "I haven't got anybody" instead of "I ain' got nobody?")

Personally, I enjoy hearing singers sing songs in various languages and dialects other than their own, if the accent fits the song. Some songs really wouldn't sound right to me without being sung in a particular dialect. (Many English Music Hall songs come to mind.) Yet I would not want to discourage all but the "natives" to perform them.

I do agree, though, that some fake accents are strange concoctions of the imagination (e.g., the "Foghorn Leghorn" US "southern" accent) rather than honest attempts to mimic or echo an authentic accent one has heard.

02 Aug 10 - 02:28 AM (#2956501)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,DonMeixner

I have played in an Irish Folk band in NYState for about 23 years. I have never ever not once tried or intended to throw the brogue. I have always thought it a bit silly to try and sing in an accent not my own.

One day at a festival this past year a fellow I know to have come from Kerry came up to me and said, Good on you Don, you're finally startin' to get the voice."

Don

02 Aug 10 - 03:03 AM (#2956505)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Allan Con

"I have always thought it a bit silly to try and sing in an accent not my own."

I sang a couple of my own songs at the break during a Debra Cowan gig in our local. One of the songs is written basically in Scots dialect whilst the second just is standard English. She congratulated me when I got back to the table but asked me why I had sung the second song in an American accent. I was pretty dumfounded as I didn't think I had. Still don't but obviously she heard something. :-)

02 Aug 10 - 03:18 AM (#2956511)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,DonMeixner

Dear Debra has a wry sense of humor.

02 Aug 10 - 06:10 PM (#2956983)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,bert

I can't believe that I haven't posted on this thread before.

I agree with Genie. ...I enjoy hearing singers sing songs in various languages and dialects other than their own...

If you don't try to affect an accent then you won't be able to sing songs like "Manura Manyah".

Dylan (accent wise) was bad though, but not nearly as bad as those who try to imitate him.

02 Aug 10 - 06:40 PM (#2957002)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Genie

Don, I think there's a big difference between trying to sing "Carrickfergus" with an affected Irish accent and singing a song like "Twa Heids Are Better Than Yin" with at least some semblance of a Scots accent.   The latter is written in dialect, including some Scots words, and to me it sounds weird if sung with a midwestern US accent except for those few words (not to mention that it screws up some of the rhymes).

Same goes for some American songs, such as the part of Loretta Lynn's "Coal Miner's Daughter," where she deliberately rhymes "hard" with "tard" ("tired).

And 'ow do you do "'Enery The Eighth" without putting on something like a Cockney accent?

Just saying I think some songs, like some roles in plays, are meant to be done with an accent. If you can't do that accent perfectly, I don't think it means you shouldn't ever perform that song or role.
And depending on who your audience is, they may or may not know the difference.

That said, I probably wouldn't go to another country and try to entertain the people there by doing their own songs.   And I'd steer clear of performing an "accent" for people for whom it was second nature.

Dick Van Dyke's accent in Mary Poppins doesn't stand out like a sore thumb to me like it does to some others because I don't hear a real Cockney accent all that often. But I wonder how many Brits can tell a New Yawk accent from a Joisey one? Or S. Carolina from Georgia from Alabama?

03 Aug 10 - 05:58 AM (#2957225)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Patsy Warren

I can't remember the artist's name but I think it was about the summer of 75 and the song was sung in the worst fake Jamaican accent, 'Whoah I'm going to Barbados'

To this day I cringe if I hear this stupid piece of pop pap.

03 Aug 10 - 08:15 AM (#2957267)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Accents

According to a scientific report out today all good singers, sing in an American accent, not deliberately just that if you form your words properly and phrases it will sound like that. Worst for me is the Tom Jones type fake Macho/Black accent. A dear lady in our Folk Club, sings in a very thick Birmingham accent despite not being that Brummy whewn she talks!

Desi C

03 Aug 10 - 09:38 AM (#2957299)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,bardan

I think that the idea that your singing voice should sound exactly like your speaking voice doesn't always make sense because they're two different processes. Singing isn't normal- it's a performance. Singing tends just work better with purer vowel sounds, underemphasised sybillants etc if we're talking about intelligibility.

Another side of that is that in a 'by ear' context you'll probably be influenced to an extent by whoever you got the song from at least until you've been singing it a long time.

Thirdly people don't necessarily have one accent or one strength of accent. My mum sounds almost english or at least fairly neutral to most ears cos it's been decades since she left Kerry and she's spent lots of time in non english-speaking environments. Stick her on the phone with her sisters though and you'll notice a (totally unforced) change.

I'd say the key is not to overdo/force it. If it feels fairly natural, it probably sounds fairly natural. If you start singing "last noite as oi lay drrrameing on pleasant days boi" you'll probably sound like a prat.

just my opinion mind.

03 Aug 10 - 10:10 AM (#2957302)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Jan Burda

I take it no one has heard Tom Waits.

03 Aug 10 - 11:39 AM (#2957352)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: DonMeixner

I am a person from the middle of New York State. The idea that I would talk like a New Yorker and sing like and irishman or a Scot when I do Irish or Scottish songs seems wrong to me. That being said I will sing in a "Voice" if I am doing a comedy tune like Henry The VIII. But were I to sing "Carrickfergus" it would come out like Don Meixner singing "Carrickfergus".

Are we splitting airs but isn't singing in an accent different than singing in a dialect?

Don

03 Aug 10 - 10:07 PM (#2957714)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

Hey, Old Hippie:

Thanks for a novel and humorous way of plugging my (first Yiddish) CD.

Originally self-produced and self-released (Kame'a Media 1996) it was re-issued in 2001 on Tzadik Records (and followed in 2002 by "Goyrl: Destiny," also on Tzadik Records. Got a couple of videos up on YouTube of the Lonesome Brothers and myself in performance at University of Florida (Gainesville). We're all old hippies . . .

and still rockin', baby!

Peace and Love,

Wolf Krakowski
www.kamea.com

03 Aug 10 - 10:44 PM (#2957726)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Joe Offer

Hey, Wolf Krakowski isn't your usual Klezmer band, but I like his Transmigrations CD. Maybe I don't mind his accent, because my Yiddish is no better...Wolf, what language were you raised speaking?

Judy Bressler you ain't, Wolf. Judy Bressler gives me fantasies. I'm rather glad you don't.

-Joe-

P.S. Wolf, if you performed at Gainesville, does that mean you know John Johnson and the 24th Street Klezmer Band?

04 Aug 10 - 03:00 AM (#2957806)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

Hi Joe:

Yiddish is my first language; I am a native-speaker, born and partly raised in Europe. Yiddish was spoken in the home and used as the language of instruction in =kheder=. What confuses you is my particular =poylish= (Polish) DIALECT, not often heard on recordings. Only the culturally disadvantaged would make a thoughtless statement claiming that his Yiddish "is no better," but you'll have to forgive me for not having the time or space to adequately school you. That said, I have never played klezmer music in my life, but of course, you, like many others, are mistakenly under the false impression that anything Yiddish should be classified as "klezmer." NOT. Klezmer is the INSTRUMENTAL party music of East European Jews. My VOCAL repertoire is drawn from Yiddish SONG - folk, theatre and popular and re-animated as country-rock, rhythm 'n blues, reggae, etc. Not enough space to explain Judy Bressler's Yiddish, but can say it is either second (most likely third) generation American/Litvish/theatre Yiddish. Enjoy your fantasies, Joe & zaa mir gezint, Wolf. PS Read my reviews @ www.kamea.com

04 Aug 10 - 03:14 AM (#2957811)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Joe Offer

As I suspected, Wolf, your accent has authentic roots. My training is in German, which I've spoken most of my life; and I picked up Yiddish by listening to a lot of recordings - many from singers who came from Poland and Lithuania. I think my Yiddish accent is pretty good, but probably heavily influenced by German.
But authenticity aside, I have my Judy Bressler fantasies. I love her voice, despite her New York/New England Yiddish accent.

-Joe-

04 Aug 10 - 01:40 PM (#2958116)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

You are correct, Don.

A DIALECT refers to REGIONAL speech and includes particularities
in GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY and ACCENT.
An ACCENT refers to PHONOLOGY, - eg. STRESS & INTONATION and SOUND PATTERNS.

In Yiddish, there are four main dialects. But there are overlaps.
People whose exposure to Yiddish is only from performance (and not family, community, education) should note that, in the Yiddish theatre, dialects were "standardized" or melded to create a workable "stage Yiddish" so that the actors would all sound like they originate from / inhabit the same place. This is the Yiddish most people find familiar.

Imagine casting a play with actors from Liverpool, Jamaica and Mississippi and allowing them all to speak in their native dialects.

Peace,

Wolf
www.kamea.com

04 Aug 10 - 02:56 PM (#2958198)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Genie

[[Imagine casting a play with actors from Liverpool, Jamaica and Mississippi and allowing them all to speak in their native dialects. ]]

You mean sort of like those old Hollywood epic Biblical movies where the Jews sounded like middle America, the Roman soldiers & nobility spoke with an upper-class English accent, and the Roman peasants sounded Cockney? ; D

04 Aug 10 - 03:24 PM (#2958222)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

Genie:
Good point, hpwever, not the one I was hoping to make.
In those movies, the different populations were made to speak
as they did purposely to facilitate the audience's perception
of specific groups.

In attempting to elucidate the origins of stage Yiddish, I was
hoping to try and get you to picture, let's say, three brothers
(raised in the same home, etc.) being portrayed by actors with
wildly different dialects.

Peace,

Wolf
www.kamea.com

04 Aug 10 - 03:59 PM (#2958260)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: open mike

When performing My Fair Lady in Sweden I hear that the Cockney accent is portrayed as the speech from Skane, in southern Sweden.

(i originally read the thread tittle as "worst singing accident"
which thread I will now start....)

04 Aug 10 - 06:52 PM (#2958404)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Genie

Oh, I know why the directors (e.g., DeMille) used different accents, Guest. I just think it's interesting that they chose "The Queen's English" to represent the Romans (except for the lower-class ones) and American English to represent most of the non-Roman central characters (e.g., Ben Hur, Moses, Jason, Odysseus, etc.)

Anyway, if you guys want to hear a gawdawfully embarrasing faking of an accent and dialect, check out
Nelson Eddy singing "Shortnin' Bread."

Yeah, I know, Al Jolson and others did that sort of thing too, but I think this one takes the cake (or the sho't'nin' bread, as de case mebbe).

05 Aug 10 - 09:13 AM (#2958731)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

Old Hippie writes BOTH that someone "loaned" him my CD and that (Heaven forfend!) he didn't buy it, but it was "gifted" to him and it was "unintelligible." He also said it "went straight into the trash." Who would do that with a loaned copy?

Here's what I think: Old Hippie got a hold of a burned copy with no cover or liner notes and Old Hippie thought I was supposed to be singing in English . . .

Transmigrations: Gilgul (Tzadik Records) is sung entirely in Yiddish.
The cover alone would have made that pretty clear, not to mention the
extensive liner notes.

Now, Old Hippie, I am waiting for you to tell us you are a fluent Yiddish-speaker and found me singing in my my native language "unintelligible." LOL.

Peace and Love,

Wolf Krakowski
www.kamea.com

06 Aug 10 - 07:41 PM (#2959787)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Guest, Lash LaRue

(Have tried to register as a member 3 times unsuccessfully.)

Worst singing accent?
John Fogerty. A combination of Biloxi and Brooklyn:
"Big wheel keep on TOININ
Proud Mary keep on BOININ"

(Rollin', rollin', etc . . .

Lash LaRue

07 Aug 10 - 02:57 AM (#2959933)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Genie

Well, DK if Fogerty's 'accent' is affected or natural, but it's not all that unusual for someone (like me) who has lived all over the place to end up with a real 'mongrelized' accent. When I spent a year in Texas in my teens, I probably came away with an accent that was a little bit central Texas, a little bit remnants of Newark, and a lot of central Illinois. Then when I later spent 3 years in Toronto, I added more than traces of that to my speech patterns.
Why not Biloxi and Brooklyn?

07 Aug 10 - 09:17 AM (#2960024)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Lash LaRue

Nothing "wrong" about it. It is what it is. Ya gotta admit it can be, shall we say, a tad "humorous" at times.

When I hear "unusual" pronunciations and speech patterns,
I am intrigued and try to ascertain the possible origin and/or place of raising of the speaker/singer.

Was recently stumped by my oral surgeon's curious accent. Just couldn't place it and was thinking perhaps umh, working-class Baltimore?

Turned out he as a transplanted French-Canadian from Quebec. It was his English surname that threw me.

I heard every conceivable mish-mash of accents and dialects growing up
in an area of working-class immigrants. I find the many ways English is spoken thoroughly fascinating. Listen to Willie Nelson and Toots Maytal singing "Still is Still Moving to Me" for an unusual pairing
of accents.

So, Genie - what years were you living in Tronna?

Peace,

Lash LaRue

07 Aug 10 - 06:11 PM (#2960287)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Genie

Early '70s. Then one summer in Montreal (where the "French" Canadians don't sound anything like the French I learned in school - LOL).

08 Aug 10 - 07:35 AM (#2960509)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Wolf

I would like to apologize to Old Hippie for the posts I directed at him/her. In retrospect and upon closer inspection, the tone and choice of words I employed, while impassioned, only diminishes myself.

Thanks for your understanding.

Wolf

08 Aug 10 - 01:22 PM (#2960617)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,DonMeixner

Thanks Wolf, I appreciate the information regards dialect and accent.

Don

08 Aug 10 - 04:26 PM (#2960739)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Lash LaRue

Good timing, Genie. Those were among the best years for living in Hogtown. I was there then, too; had an apartment on top of Switzer's Deli (gone) on Spadina across from the Victory Theatre (also gone).

Grossman's Tavern is still there. And, thank goodness, Kensington Market, too; most of the Jewish shopkeepers have been replaced by Jamaicans and Vietnamese. I used to see the wonderful Bob Snider busking in the doorways to keep out of the rain.

You say you had trouble understanding the French-Canadian joual spoken in Montreal? Coliss! Tabernak!

Lash LaRue

07 Jul 11 - 11:39 AM (#3183123)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Tug the Cox

This is from Wiki. Of course macColl's scottish accent was based on deep immersion in scottish culture....not faked.

MacColl was born as James Henry Miller in Broughton, Salford, Lancashire to Scottish parents, William Miller and Betsy Miller née Hendry. Both of his parents were socialists and William Miller was an iron-moulder and militant trade unionist who had moved to Salford with his wife to look for work after being blacklisted in almost every foundry in Scotland.[1] They lived amongst a group of émigré Scots and Jimmy, their only surviving child of four, was brought up in an atmosphere of fierce political debate interspersed with the large repertoire of songs and stories his parents had brought from Scotland.[1]

07 Jul 11 - 04:23 PM (#3183345)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: dick greenhaus

If you want to get an idea of where MacColl's Scottish accent came from, give a listen to "A Scottish Garland" (CAMSCO 702) which consists of songs sung by Ewan MacColl an Betsy Miller (his mother). Some good stuff there.

27 Jun 18 - 10:50 AM (#3933682)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GaryG

Fogerty's accent has to be contrived. He grew up in El Cerrito, one town over from Berkeley, and speaks in a normal California accent. The weird accent only appears on some songs, Proud Mary, Green Rivah, Born on the Bayou, Keep on Chooglin, etc. Great music for sure.

Concerning Dylan, I think he tried to cultivate an Okie accent due to his admiration for Woody. It is a small matter considering his genius as a writer.

27 Jun 18 - 11:04 AM (#3933685)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jack Campin

I have yet to hear any British or American singer do a convincing Australian accent (except Eric Bogle but he doesn't count as British any more).

27 Jun 18 - 12:32 PM (#3933703)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: keberoxu

Fogerty also Hoid It T'roo de Grape Vine.
And I wanted somebody to sit on him. Hard.

28 Jun 18 - 04:26 AM (#3933797)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Hrothgar

My teeth are on edge when I hear somebody with an Australian accent singing a Scots song pronouncing the words as spelt - as in the "Twa Heids Are Better Than Yin" mentioned above - without any vestige of a Scots accent.

28 Jun 18 - 06:05 AM (#3933811)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

I'm always intrigued by the conversation at local singing sessions here in the West of Ireland when a visitor who has sung in an 'oirish' accent departs - "gently condemnatory" usually sums it up.
I doubt if they would repeat their efforts if they had remained as 'flies on the wall'
Jim Carroll

28 Jun 18 - 08:30 AM (#3933837)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: BobKnight

Being from Aberdeen, and having a quite distinctive accent, it amused me no end to hear an Australian singing one of my songs, written in Scots/Doric. (Doric is the Aberdeen/shire variant of Scots.)He was making quite a decent job of it too, until I coincidentally entered the room behind him and everybody started laughing.

28 Jun 18 - 08:44 PM (#3933954)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Joe Offer

My first trip to Ireland was about 2000. In every music venue we walked into in the West of Ireland, people were wearing cowboy hats and singing with a twang. They sounded very much like singers in the American Southwest - but singers in the U.S. Southwest don't sound very authentic, either.
-Joe-

29 Jun 18 - 01:22 AM (#3933971)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Wellsy

Wow, we Australians have escaped remarkably unscathed in this thread. Didn't anybody think of Rolf Harris ? Now that would annoy the pants off anyone ..... errrr, sorry. Wrong metaphor.

Oh, and Aussie bush band singing is an acquired taste. I love it meself, but I know it would make some of you sensitive Brits come out in boils.
As for Eric Bogle, whom Jack Campin mentioned: sorry Jack, Eric doesn't come within coo-ee [ viz, a long way] of an Aussie accent. His affected twang is deliberate, and good!, comic relief.

But to put my 2 bob's worth into the argument - a couple of contenders as yet unmentioned I think: Rita and Sarah Keane ( of ethnomusicological worth only), and .... sorry to speak even more ill of the deceased ... Margaret Barry ( just torture).

29 Jun 18 - 02:54 AM (#3933984)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: BobL

"Nothing is guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of a native speaker so much as a Yorkshireman trying to speak Welsh"

29 Jun 18 - 03:17 AM (#3933987)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

" In every music venue we walked into in the West of Ireland"
You must have gone to Doolin Joe - full of Yanks wearing stetsons
In our part you can't get into the pubs for youngsters playing that **** diddley-di on pipes, concertinas, flutes and fiddles
Unfortunately, singing is still a bit thin on the ground, but it's getting there gradually
Hopefully, when it does, it'll come without that dreadful Mid-Atlantic drawl

Seriously, most of the good traditional songs and ballads transmit into a fair, neutral accent with a little work
I love the Scots ballads, but I wouldn't dream of attempting them in a Scots accent
The ones that don't without losing the beauty of the vernacular should be left to those who speak the language
Jim

29 Jun 18 - 03:25 AM (#3933989)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jack Campin - PM
Date: 27 Jun 18 - 11:04 AM

I have yet to hear any British or American singer do a convincing Australian accent (except Eric Bogle but he doesn't count as British any more)
have a listen to Gerry Hallom, or Martin Wyndham Read

29 Jun 18 - 03:40 AM (#3933991)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,LynnH

Just about anybody trying to sing in a foreign language - some can do it, a lot can't.
I live in Germany and have, in the recent past, recorded english voice-overs for various companies etc. A lot of companies here specify that mythical wonder 'Mid-Atlantic' english. Nobody has ever been able to convincingly demonstrate to me what that is and what it sounds like when it's at home.

Lynn

29 Jun 18 - 06:54 AM (#3934026)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

As I have lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I sometimes find myself singing a couple of words in the "wrong" accent. Nevertheless, I am happy to report that a fellow friend and singer (who is a stickler for authenticity) does give me a bit of slack for my hybrid deliveries.

29 Jun 18 - 04:00 PM (#3934190)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

I love the Scots ballads, but I wouldn't dream of attempting them in a Scots accent.Jim Carroll.
Remarkable, one area where you take a different line from Ewan MacColl, who was born in Salford had a Scottish mother and an English Father, and IMO only got the Scottish accent, half right.

29 Jun 18 - 04:29 PM (#3934195)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Pancho

Know what you mean, Sandman but what about his "Irish" accent re The Galway Races? Third rate stage Irish.

30 Jun 18 - 02:46 AM (#3934254)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

"a Scottish mother and an English Father, "
Ewan's father was from Falkirk (maybe that't moved to Oxfordshire!)
"one area where you take a different line from Ewan MacColl,"
How is that Dick (apart from the fact I disgreed with Ewan on many things while he was alive and we argued about them on several occasions - but you wouldn't be expected to know that?

Early in his career Ewan, like everyone in the revival, were singing in a 'Rainbow Nation' of accents - both Ewan and Bert indulged in the mid-Atlantic American ones occasionally
Alan Lomax appeared on the scene, took them all by the scruff of the neck and demanded to know why they weren't singing their own songs in their own accents - they began to do just that
MacColl was no different than kids from Irish families born in London - his accent was formed from what he heard at home and what he heard in the street - he was (according to a contemporary I once spoke to, Eddie Frow) a mixture of both, depending who he was with.
His parents spoke, their own dialects they had Scots neighbours and friends and they took in a series of Scots lodgers
I lived with Ewan Peggy and his mother, Betsy for a short time when I moved to London - when Ewan and his mother were in deep conversation his accent thickened to much you may as well have been sitting with a Bangladeshi mother and son at times.

Maccoll loved the Scots ballads - he was found singing them to a cinema queue in Manchester by a BBC employee during the Depression
From a report of his first being discovered in 1931.
Prospero and Ariel, G D Bridson.

"MacColl had been out busking for pennies by the Manchester theatres and cinemas. The songs he sang were unusual, Scots songs, Gaelic songs he had learnt from his mother, border ballads and folk-songs. One night while queueing up for the three-and-sixpennies, Kenneth Adam had heard him singing outside the Manchester Paramount. He was suitably impressed. Not only did he give MacColl a handout; he also advised him to go and audition for Archie Harding at the BBC studios in Manchester’s Piccadilly."

MacColl and Bert took it on themselves to popularise the ballads and made the groundbreaking 'Riverside' albums
Ewan's training as an actor taught him to utilise his familiarity with an accent he was well used to to make the ballads and Scots songs accessible to a British and American audience
In m opinion, it was far more genuine than most of the attempts at American accents you still hear in clubs today, which somehow never make it further west than The Isle of Man

I was brought up in a working class area of Liverpool with a broad local accent that everybody took the piss out of when I left home
I moved to Manchester and my accent changed, the same when I moved to London - now I live in the west of Ireland it's changed again - but it has never lot its earlier influences and it broadens when I phone home (I'll bet E.T's did too!)

Ewan always had a poor Irish accent when he used it - if he'd continued to do so it would have been a problem nowadays it's only an issue to people who want it to be
He had a not bad Liverpool accent when he sang sea songs in the early days - he never kept that up.
Jim Carroll

30 Jun 18 - 03:21 AM (#3934268)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

Ewan always had a poor Irish accent when he used it - if he'd continued to do so it would have been a problem nowadays it's only an issue to people who want it to be. quote
like yourself and your friends here
I'm always intrigued by the conversation at local singing sessions here in the West of Ireland when a visitor who has sung in an 'oirish' accent departs - "gently condemnatory" usually sums it up.
I doubt if they would repeat their efforts if they had remained as 'flies on the wall'
Jim Carroll

30 Jun 18 - 04:03 AM (#3934277)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: FreddyHeadey

I cringe and feel awkward when I hear what I consider a "wrong" accent.
Sometimes, I think, I'm justified because it is a middle class Cheshire singer-songwiter singing about meeting his love on the Derbyshire Moors singing in(what sounds to me like) an American accent.

But it's my loss. The singer is happy. The rest of the audience is happy. I wish I could relax and enjoy it.

Other times I feel awkward but I'm just wrong.
There was a BBC radio drama recently and one actor had the most awful and peculiar Scottish accent. Bad enough that I felt I needed to write to complain.
But I thought I'd better go with some evidence. It turned out that the play was set on Skye and the actor was born and bred in .... Skye.

Accents with one label can vary widely.
JC will probably concur that in Liverpool you can hear the word 'book' as 'bewk' or 'buch'(ch as in loch). Depends which estate your family lived.

I don't particularly like Ewan MacColl's Scottish accent but it was 'his' Scottish accent and I'm content he had enough immersion in Scottish accents that we should accept it as such.
And as JC said our own accent can change as we move round the world. I find it difficult to go on holiday without starting to talk in my version of the local accent. Same with singing songs I've heard and try to sing.
I try to start with an apology especially if there is someone in the audience with the genuine thing.

30 Jun 18 - 04:39 AM (#3934287)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

There is a problem with all accent when you consider our chosen form of artistic expression and musical pleasure comes from all over Britain and Ireland - each part having its own distinctive accent and vernacular
Back in the early sixties, not long after I'd first got into folk songs
I went with a couple of mates to the Edinburgh Festival and we were drawn to a new production of MacBeth - the main attraction (apart from the three witches dressed in diaphanous, see-through robes) was that Matt McGinn was cast as the Gatekeeper
We didn't understand a **** word!
For years I loved the sound of Jeannie Roberton's singing, ut it took some time and a fair amount of reading to understand what she was singing about

MacColl made a point of introducing ballads into the revival, eventually he breathes life into 175 Child Ballads, many in multiple versions
Personally, I'd be more than happy to forget the occasional iffy Scots pronunciation for that

WE are now faced with a problem of what to do with around fifty Irish traditional stories we recorded from elderly Irish storytellers
We can publish transcriptions, but the printed word is very much inferior to the spoken versions
Jim Carroll

30 Jun 18 - 09:25 AM (#3934339)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Visior

Why not donate the recordings to Eddie Lenihan

30 Jun 18 - 10:21 AM (#3934353)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

"Why not donate the recordings to Eddie Lenihan"
Not really
Eddie is a performer who 'populates' folk tales raher than keeps tham as they are
He is, of course, welcome to use them when they go on line, (soon, we hope) but our aim is to issue them as examples of traditional storytelling
In my opinion, Eddie'over-edits' what he publishes.
It should be noted that some of thee tales are long - up to an hour, in some cases
Thanks for the suggestion though

There is a chance that our local Traditional heritage group Oidreach an Chláir (O.A.C.) will publish a collection of songs and stories as examples of local culture, but over here, unless you can get a grant or find a sponsor you have to raise the money yourself
O.A.C. struggles to pay the rent on its headquaters
Jim

30 Jun 18 - 04:24 PM (#3934445)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

are there any other story tellers who might use them pete castle for instance

30 Jun 18 - 07:05 PM (#3934472)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

It's not a matter of them being used Dick - anybody is welcome to do that anyway - it's a matter of them being preserved as performances.
THey will be archived as part of our collection of course, but it would be a tribute to the memory of the storytellers and especially to their families to see them circulated widely
We used a couple when Malcolm Taylor was Librarian at Cecil Sharp House established a series of Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Cassettes - now sadly discontinued
The first was one of our recordings of Travellers; "Early in the Month of Spring"; then one on British and Irish Storytellers, '...and That's My Story; next, Malcolm and I edited selections from the Fred Hamer collection, 'Leaves of Life', then one of Yorkshire Singers, "Will's Barn" and finally a Fred Jordan Cassette.

It was a great series - Malcolm got no credit for it and 'them upstairs' finally sat on the project.
If we can't get a book of these stories published - that type of thing would do just as well.
THere doesn't seem the interest in the U.K. nowadays
We'll see
Jim Carroll

01 Jul 18 - 11:25 AM (#3934567)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

Should performances be preserved,should they not be different every time

01 Jul 18 - 12:05 PM (#3934570)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

I'm tlking babout the recordings Dick - not how people should choose to use them
To answer your question - the old storytellers didn't feel the need to change their performances
Jim Carroll

01 Jul 18 - 12:30 PM (#3934572)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

They undoubtedly did it unconsciously, Im sure the performances were not the same every time, however if it is a question of preserving them as a record or museum piece, why not donate them to a historical society or a folklore society or a museum

03 Jul 18 - 05:12 AM (#3934930)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Nick Dow

Worst singing accent Ewan McColl trying to sing in a West Country accent (The Sheepstealer)

03 Jul 18 - 06:09 AM (#3934935)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,VISIOR

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGbLjOl6CZE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGbLjOl6CZE THE SHEEP STEALER.I nominate Rev Ken Loveless

03 Jul 18 - 06:22 AM (#3934937)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Corrector of link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGbLjOl6CZE

03 Jul 18 - 07:23 AM (#3934948)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

why not donate them to a historical society or a folklore society or a museum?
How can they be "used" in that way Dick?
They are examples of how the old storytellers approached their material, not museum pieces to be looked at - something very much needed as examples when you consider the 'tricksy' approach of modern storytellers who feel the need to act out their tales in pseudo-medieval costume
You appear to making too much of this Dick - you've lost my attention - sorry

Nick - not a great example of Ewan, but hardly the worst
I've heard far more diabolical attempts at 'Mummerset' - even from people who are from that part of the country
The Yetties always managed to set my teeth on edge when I could bear listening to them
Jim Carroll

03 Jul 18 - 07:38 AM (#3934954)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Jack Campin

WE are now faced with a problem of what to do with around fifty Irish traditional stories we recorded from elderly Irish storytellers
We can publish transcriptions, but the printed word is very much inferior to the spoken versions

Add some who/what/when metadata and upload them to archive.org. Links to them could then be placed anywhere, e.g. here, Facebook or a blog.

03 Jul 18 - 08:05 AM (#3934963)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Karen

Hello

This business of accents is odd. I know a person who sounds completely 'English' and has never lived in Ireland but whose ancestors (not sure how far back) were Irish. This chap, who is lovely, sometimes sings in an Irish accent, and it always feels strange.

But as a child I was always puzzled about why pop stars sang in odd accents, with Mick Jagger being a prime example. It took me a while to realise they were imitating American accents. I have read pieces which on the basis that Jagger would have been imitating African American accents accuse him of being an example of latter day 'minstrelsy' though the comparison only goes so far. It is an emotive term, but the contexts and attitudes are different.

I'm not sure if anybody has mentioned 'code switching' here, but linguists have noticed that most of us can speak in varying degrees/styles of accent. We tend to switch depending upon the context and company. Another term is I think accommodation, which is how when two people with different accents meet, their accents automatically tend to get closer together. These terms seem potentially useful to me when thinking about the way people sing.

Thinking in terms of just English, it isn't just accents, but the whole language has changed a lot over the years. If we went back in time to the centuries when some traditional folk songs are said to have started, I don't think we would understand much of what people said. Certainly not the French speaking Normans. Reading it is problematic too. So it isn't just that the 'accent' has changed over the years, the whole language has too. So the 'old' songs, it seems to me, have to have changed too.

Jack, on transcribing oral texts, the linguists have devised methods of annotating these to show pauses and so on. There are also complicated methods of showing how pitch varies during speaking (which I cannot use, just know about). But you are right that the printed word cannot capture everything about a spoken version, and a spoken version will omit all of the non-verbal communication that accompanies the verbal.

I once met a Frenchman who had learned to speak English in Yorkshire and had a wonderful Yorkshire accent. It came as a surprise, but I quite liked it: you felt he had learned it among people, not from books teaching Received Pronunciation.

Accents are emotive things.

03 Jul 18 - 08:21 AM (#3934968)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Nick Dow

Just listened to Ewan again. No not the worst but close.
I didn't mind the Yetties. At least they were from Dorset. (Well they still are in fact)

03 Jul 18 - 08:25 AM (#3934969)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

Thanks Jack

Karen
It's always struck me that, certainly since the late fifties, all British pop music is based on a somewhat odd Americanese - even my fellow Liverpudlians, The Beatles
Not just pop, of course - that has filtered into singer-songwriter 'folk'
We once booked a very fine Welsh harmonica player at The Singers Club - also a singer of his own songs
He had a fine speaking accent but sang everything in 'mid-Atlantic'
He introduced one of his songs, telling how he had been inspired by a girl he met while he was working at a Holiday Camp - it was based on their parting and going their separate ways, and his measuring the separation by the names of the stations he passed though on the way home - quite a nice idea.
Then he said "The English and Welsh names didn't work for me, so I changed them to American ones" - the spoiling of a nice idea.
I've never understood people's lack of confidence in their own natural way of speaking

One of the big culture shocks we had regarding language was when we were staying on a Greek Island and had climbed the hill above the town for some refreshment
We twenty into a small shop to buy ice cream and, while we were bending over the fridge trying to interpret the different brands we were approached by the young woman serving, swathed entirely in the traditional black of Greek widow, who told us "that's vanilla, that't's lime and that's chocolate chip, luv" - in pure, fluent North-East Londonese
Jim

03 Jul 18 - 08:49 AM (#3934972)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Hedge Accentor

Yetties are from Dorset. They sing in Dorset accents,their own accents. Jimmy Miller failed when he tried to sing in different accents, other than his own, his attempts at Scottish and Irish and West Country are laughable.

03 Jul 18 - 09:26 AM (#3934978)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Peter Plum

Peter Pears,Lonnie Donegan,Bob Dylan,Ewan McColl.

03 Jul 18 - 11:13 AM (#3934996)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

"Jimmy Miller"
Did Robert Zimmermann do the same, or Ethel Gumm or Maria Louise Ciccone?
Who the fuck is Jimmy Miller?
Why do people insist on posting this garbage thirty years after the man snuffed it
You undermine your argument before you start
Jim Carroll

03 Jul 18 - 11:24 AM (#3934998)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Jack Campin

Just occurred to me - ARE there any recordings of Ewan MacColl singing in a Salford accent?

03 Jul 18 - 11:36 AM (#3935001)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Jimmy Riddle

Jimmy Miller is the name he was born with, it is the name Joan Littlewood his ex partner refers to him in her book.

03 Jul 18 - 11:58 AM (#3935012)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

"Jimmy Miller is the name he was born with, "
And he changed it by deed poll
Do you talk about Robert Zimmerman?
Bet you don't
How about John Pandrich?
This Jimmy Miller" garbage is becoming a sure sign of old-folkie senility - the youngsters don't know who you are referring to and just seems spiteful sour grapes from folkie crumblies to continue is's necrophobic use.
I do wish some people would grow up so we can discuss these things sensibly
Personally, I don't give two monkeys what people thought of Ewan as a singer and most of them who take snide digs at him never met him - none of that matters to me
To me, MacColl is a dead friend who went out of his way to work with younger singers who asked for his help while the rest of the folkie-stars got on with their careers

Is your name really "Jimmy Riddle" by the way - I thought that was a bodily function?
If it isn'yt, why did you change it?

"ARE there any recordings of Ewan MacColl singing in a Salford accent?"
Don't think there are - his period as an actor and his nomadic life changed that as it did mine and others
THe BBC description from the 1930s depression described hims as singing in a Scots accent
Jim Carroll

03 Jul 18 - 12:15 PM (#3935018)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

Jim, he should have sung in a Salford accent, Particularly as he and Peggy were so critical "of the cockney who sang rock island line?in his own "cockney" accent".

03 Jul 18 - 12:17 PM (#3935020)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

Thinking about it Jack, there is an album where MacColl sings with a Salford accent, Topic's early - 'The Singing Streets', on which he swaps Children's Songs with Dominic Behan
Jim

03 Jul 18 - 12:57 PM (#3935030)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

"Jim, he should have sung in a Salford accent, "
He didn't speak in a Salford accent when he became a singer - why should he sing in an accent that was not his own?
As far as the young feller trying to sing like Leadbelly (Peggy not both) - the Singers Club (that was where the argument was aimed at) was set up to encourage singers singing songs from their own national backgrounds - certainly not English honkies trying to sound like black American convicts
The aim was to put British songs on the map rather than the predominantly Yankee stuff that filled the record shelves in those days
If your own repertoire is basically British, you owe a vote of thanks to the people who followed our lead in opening up venues which encouraged those songs
I do wish I didn't have to keep repeating this piece of simple common sense
Jim Carroll

03 Jul 18 - 01:16 PM (#3935037)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

As far as the young feller trying to sing like Leadbelly (Peggy not both) - the Singers Club (that was where the argument was aimed at) was set up to encourage singers singing songs from their own national backgrounds - certainly not English honkies trying to sound like black American convicts
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT A HONKIE IS? anyway this guy was singing in his own cockney accent,so he was not trying to sound like leadbelly, but peggy found this funny, she was hyprocitical, there she was singing appalachian songs with a new york accent,its like the mad hatters tea party

03 Jul 18 - 01:28 PM (#3935043)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

non of which alters the fact that both of them were very good performers, [and Peggy still is] and very good songwriters

03 Jul 18 - 01:44 PM (#3935045)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

"I DO NOT KNOW WHAT A HONKIE IS? "
Really - yuo ahve lived a sheltered life !!
It's a black term for a white man - no need to shout
No - the lad wasn't singing in his own Cockney accent - that's the problem - very few people who sing American songs ever do
Apart from that, you haven't read a word I wrote and you will continue to regard Peggy (an American) as a hypocrite for singing American songs
I suggest if you ever meet her you should tell her what you think - she will probably think you are as daft as I do, though she's more good manners than I am so she won't tell you so.
Can you produce proof that Ewan (or anybody) ever suggested you should sing songs from your own street, area, town or county?
Won't hold my breath !
By the way, Peggy may have been born in New York, but she was educated in Massachusetts and she traveller the world, including Russia and China, before settling in England with Ewan, where she lived most of her life
As a child her family welcomed singers and musicians from all over America to their home - they had a live in home help, Elizabeth Cotten, a singer and guitarist from North Carolina, who taught Peggy to play and gave her her songs, including 'Freight Train'
When Ewan died, she moved to North Carolina and is now living in Oxford
A chance to have picked up more accents than most people
Now, if you have nothing sensible to add - I really think we are finished
Jim Carroll

03 Jul 18 - 06:28 PM (#3935086)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

i have met her, in fact i booked both of them, they are good performers, and if the time was appropriate and i met her again i would be delighted to discuss the good points and the bad points of the singers club policy.

03 Jul 18 - 10:57 PM (#3935095)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: StephenH

A couple of points that I'd like to address.
Firstly, I think people are conflating singers attempting accents that they have only heard from other singers, with singers singing in an accent that was likely the one they were spoken to in their early formative years, until socialising with other children altered their speech. So,for me, Ewan MacColl singing with a Scots accent - having been raised by Scottish parents - is not the same thing as someone singing in an accent they have no real familial or cultural ties with.
You may not like MacColl's Scots accent, and I leave it to the Scots to judge its acceptability, but he didn't simply decide to adapt it from recordings.
Secondly, since Peggy Seeger and the Singers Club has been once again brought into the discussion, I think it's worth quoting from Peggy's
very well done memoir:
(After the London singer's performance of "Rock Island Line").."My gut reaction was to laugh. It was rude, outrageous - but I couldn't stop.I had to be taken out of the room. After the show, other resident singers insisted that we talk about it. Members of the audience were invited......one of the French audience members said he didn't like my singing of French songs. Stung, I passed the aggro on to Ewan: Well, I don't really like it when you sing 'Sam Bass' with an exaggerated American accent. Then Isla Cameron objected to Bert singing songs from Scotland. A trail of dominoes - we all lost, but in the process found a policy for our club and our club only. Repeat: The Policy was for our club only....(it) has been blown up out of all proportion. It was only meant for onstage singing....(s)ing whatever you want elsewhere..."

There is more in that section, and I realise this is Peggy Seeger's personal recollection of the event, but I do find it tedious that she and Ewan MacColl do seem to come in for more than their fair share of stick when it comes to this subject. (apologies if this section of Peggy Seeger's book has been quoted before elsewhere.)

04 Jul 18 - 12:46 AM (#3935100)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

STEPHEN H,yes we have seen that before, the recollection i have of that time is different, in that the knock on effect of the policy had much more influence than Peggy says
.The good side of the knock on effect was that many singes explored in more depth the repertoire of the geographical british isles. the down side was that in doing so some of us steered away from some very good american songs of social comment.
My recollection of the knock on effects of their policy is a different one.
.Cyril Tawney by contrast went around trying to quietly encourage singers to look at indigineous repertoire rather than trying to impose rules.
finally MacColls attempts at scottish, irish and west country accents are not very good, and for Jim Carroll to criticse the yetties for singing in their own accents is bizarre

04 Jul 18 - 02:21 AM (#3935104)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Nick Dow

Agreed. Specially the bit about Cyril.

04 Jul 18 - 02:43 AM (#3935105)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

Thanks Stephen - my feelings exactly - you said what need saying
That incident took place when the fledgling revival was still basking in the glow of the 1950s BBC recording campaign which had opened up the treasure box of British traditional song yet enthusiastic singers with basically good voices and instrumental skills where still herding cattle and slaving away on chain gangs in a mythical America that they knew nothing about.
Peggy's reaction to the wannabe Leadbelly was only one in that period; there was 'The John Snow' meeting; I don't think that's dealt with in either Peggy's biography or autobiography, (Freedmans bio is ecxcellent, if you haven't read it).

Ewan, Bert and others were concerned with the way the scene was beginning to dissipate so they called a meeting in Central London to see if anything could be done - Bert introduced it, MacColl was in the chair, and they along with Bob Davenport and Alex Campbell gave short summing ups of what they thought was happening and where things should go, then it was thrown open to everybody; it ended up in a shouting match, basically because of the behaviour of one person.
We have a recording of it - it is a fascinating peep at what was good and bad at the time.
Bert went off and continued to plough his furrow and Ewan set up The Critics Group to examine the techniques and relevance of folk song and produced 'The Song Carriers', ten (well-twelve really) programmes on British traditional singing that have, in my opinion, not been surpassed in over half a century

A few years later, I became involved with the work of Ewan and Peggy, and that lucky break put enough petrol in my engine to keep me going till now.
I don't care if people like Ewan or his singing - I like both, but that's not why I stand up for a man who has been dead for nearly three decades
What Ewan had to say, his ideas, his arguments, his suck-it-and-see approach to folksong represents over ten years of concentrated work on the social and technical aspects of the performance of folk song - much of it was recorded and still exists
We have around 200 tapes of Critics Group meetings on our shelves which I hope to sort out and pass on one day.
Shortly after the Critics Group ended Pat and I embarked on a six-month long interview of Ewan concentrating on his work and ideas rather than his personal history - twenty tapes of fluent outpourings.
There are stacks more examples of his work here, seminars, talks, interviews, by him, Peggy Charles Parker and others, all on the subject that has entertained and inspired me for most of my life.
I believe it needs to be accepted or rejected on the basis of people having listened to so they can decide whether MacColl said or stood for anything worth listening to.

Instead, we get this facile and often disturbingly nasty cat-'n-dog fights that seldom get beyond accents or name change or war-records, based largely on Chinese whispers and spiteful rumours - more than a little frustrating.

MacColl wasn't perfect by any means, but his knowledge and his and Peggy's generosity in being prepared to share what they had, well made up for any physical flaws
Sometimes I think all of this is not unlike rejecting The Theory of Relativity because someone told you that Einstein had halitosis or picked his none
Taking the man and his work into consideration, none of this nonsense is worth a fiddler's fart.
Jim Carroll

04 Jul 18 - 04:35 AM (#3935126)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

Ewan, Bert and others were concerned with the way the scene was beginning to dissipate so they called a meeting in Central London to see if anything could be done - Bert introduced it, MacColl was in the chair, and they along with Bob Davenport and Alex Campbell gave short summing ups of what they thought was happening and where things should go, then it was thrown open to everybody; it ended up in a shouting match, basically because of the behaviour of one person.
I listened to that audio clip, and the one person who made the most sense was Alex Campbell[ the same man who genrously married peggy seeger andthus allowing her to stay in the uk] particularly when he said does that mean because i am scottish i am not allowed to sing a woody guthrie song.Alex comes across very well IMO
Viewed in hindsight part of the problem with that meeting was the allowance of any alcohol and the large chip on the shoulder of Bob Davenport, there is no excuse for violence, however i can understand Bob Davenports frustration with the controlling attitude of Ewan MacColl.
Ewan was a fine songwriter but imo wanted to control situations too often, you are right ,his legacy will be the many fine songs that he wrote. however of all the people at that meeting the two whose company i would enjoy the most would be A.L .Lloyd and Alex Campbell

04 Jul 18 - 05:33 AM (#3935146)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

" Alex Campbell"
Was pissed out of his mind and his main contribution was to slur drunkenly 'I love the old folk'
If there was violence, it isn't clear who started it - I've never been sure there was

It wasn't a 'clip' - it was an hour-and-a half recording
I've only ever given it to close friends and a member of this forum I trust
I don't know which bit you heard
Jim Carroll

04 Jul 18 - 06:26 AM (#3935153)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST

It isn't just the worst accent in singing.

You can 'write' in an accent not your own, and that can feel weird to the reader. So recently I was reading something by an African American (which I am not) who didn't like the way the early "race records" marketing used what was supposed to be a representation of African American parlance to advertise their products. Suppose this is the 'buy in any language, sell in the buyer's language' principle.

I have seen similar imitations of that speech used to advertise blues-type events in the UK and it just feels 'fake'. And I've read articles about blues music by white English people which do the same sort of thing. Come n dig dee blues man! It's smokin

Probably fallen into the trap myself of course, but there you go

04 Jul 18 - 09:17 AM (#3935193)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jeri

Guest, I've always hated the pronunciation white people ascribed to African Americans. About the weirdest example of that is a 78 rpm record I have of a Black college choir singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" with these college guys singing the dialect. The words are pretty much the same. The accent is what's different. Nobody does song lyrics à la Mainers, or Minnesotans.

04 Jul 18 - 10:35 AM (#3935215)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,keberoxu

Rosemary Clooney's singing, in her own American-English accent, is a pleasure.

I cringe, though, when a young Rosemary Clooney sings an English lyric with a fake Italian accent.
I guess it sold records and made her a show-business name at the time,
but ...

04 Jul 18 - 11:03 AM (#3935218)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Nigel Parsons

Possibly mine.

But I'm lucky, I don't have to listen to it!

200

04 Jul 18 - 11:40 AM (#3935227)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Roger

Classic FM are running an advert for Maserati Cars at the moment.
The Italian accent of the female voice 'artist' is hilarious.
Roger

04 Jul 18 - 12:25 PM (#3935245)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

Jim,
i have heard the whole lot, Alex was clearly not pissd out of his mind., the clip somewhere in the middle has ewan suggesting that they have a break for a beer[ imo a big mistake]. you know perfectly well there was at least a scuffle which involved Davenport, stop trying to twist the truth and muddy the waters.my impression on listening to that tape was that Alex Campbells remarks about him not being able to sing woody guthrie songs because he was scottish, were spot on ,he ceratinly did not sound pissed out of his mind,bob davenport was fairly awkward and hard to manage throughout the meeting , are you denying this jim? are you calling me a liar?

04 Jul 18 - 12:41 PM (#3935248)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

a so jim why not share the meeting so that others can make up their minds ,they will undoubtedly come to the conclusion that davenport was obstreperous during the meeting, they will also hear Ewan and his remarks and bert Waffling, and reamnarkable it is that over 50 years ago theywere worried about the UK FOLK SCENE, here we are in2018 and the uk folk scene is still with us

04 Jul 18 - 12:56 PM (#3935253)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

Sorry Dick - I have no intention of entering into a slanging 'you are a liar' match with you
I never gave you a recording, maybe someone else did
If you think Alex was sober (a first surely) you have listened to something else
I don't hand it around because it is not my recording
If you think Bert was "waffling" you don't deserve a copy anyway
Enough - lets not inflict our disagreements on others
Jim Carroll

04 Jul 18 - 01:18 PM (#3935259)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

Jim, i have heard the recording, i never said you gave me the recording. Bert was waffling and so were others, Bob was obstreperous[ do you agree or disagree], answer the question please. Alex talked more sense than anybody else imo
share the tapes so others can make up their own minds and stop hiding the truth, and stop trying to rewrite history.some people were concerned about the uk folk revival over 50 years ago, why, was it because they wanted to control it?, enough of this secrecy, share the recording, let others and make up their own minds.

04 Jul 18 - 02:44 PM (#3935275)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Roger

There seem to be a lot of tossers arguing about the past here.
The discussion is about accents and not EGOS.
Roger

05 Jul 18 - 09:11 AM (#3935437)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Jam Today

One can only learn from the past. The Sandman is right why cant Jim let us all hear the tape.

05 Jul 18 - 09:23 AM (#3935440)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: keberoxu

And then, there's Dean Martin.
A caveat: Dean Martin's singing accent is far from the worst.
He knew what he was about. He chose an admirable artist on whom
to model his own singing sound, and what you hear
when Dean Martin sings is the result of consistent practice and hard work
at sounding natural and at ease with an accent different than your own.
Again, Martin chose well. He modelled his sound on Donald Mills,
the Mills Brothers ensemble member who most often
takes the solo parts in the group's harmonizing.
And Donald Mills had a strong, wholesome, stabilizing quality
to his vocal technique and to his interpretations,
not a singing personality of attention-grabbing extremes.

You have to have an ear for subtle differences in quality
to hear the distinction
between Donald Mills,
whom I believe sang the way he spoke and spoke the way he sang,
and Dean Martin,
who sang with one accent and spoke with another.

Funny business, popular USA music.
The Mills Brothers existed long before the era of
I'm Black and I'm Proud, and they were not confrontational men.
There were parts of the United States, on performance tours,
which they visited just the once, and to which they never returned,
because, as one of them said in an interview,
"we didn't like unpleasantness."
And yet it's my opinion -- I might be mistaken here --
that Mills Brothers recordings were popular over the whole of the USA,
not just where they felt at ease performing and staying in hotels.
They didn't cause a sensation, but they were deeply loved.
And they were enjoyed even by listeners who had no clue.

Meanwhile, Dean Martin took his career to places that
few popular singers can dream of;
he didn't win a Oscar for film acting as Frank Sinatra did,
but he was in films for all that (Westerns),
and he had his own prime-time variety television show.

Yes, he is up there with Doris Day,
and ye gods! What a shock it was for me to discover
the recordings that broke her into the music business.
I grew accustomed, in my growing-up years,
to Doris Day's recordings after she had Arrived, career-wise.
She went back and re-recorded songs like "A Sentimental Journey"
and they sounded totally white-bread-and-blue-eyes, as it were.
But it was when I was considerably older
that I heard her earlier recording of "Sentimental Journey,"
a performance that is the result of
what must have been hours upon hours of listening to
what were then called "race records,"
imitating and practicing both an accent and a sense of syncopated rhythm
that could be heard nowhere else in music at the time.
The young Doris Day, on those early recordings,
sounds altogether like something that she never really was.
She sounds as though she could have been one of
the singers recruited by Duke Ellington for his orchestra.

05 Jul 18 - 09:59 AM (#3935456)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jack Campin

"I DO NOT KNOW WHAT A HONKIE IS?
Really - you have lived a sheltered life !!
It's a black term for a white man

I used to work with a guy from Hong Kong who had ended up having three second languages - English, Mandarin and Cantonese - but didn't quite manage native speaker ability in any of them. I remarked that there was no elegant words for people from Hong Kong and suggested "honkies". When he asked what that meant I said "Black American English for white people", and if you've heard me speak you will realize that the end of the sentence would have gone through his ear a few milliseconds before the beginning had emerged from the language processing centre in the brain - he didn't have a prayer of getting it first time.

05 Jul 18 - 10:16 AM (#3935459)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Observer

Ewan, Bert and others were concerned with the way the scene was beginning to dissipate so they called a meeting in Central London to see if anything could be done - Bert introduced it, MacColl was in the chair, and they along with Bob Davenport and Alex Campbell gave short summing ups of what they thought was happening and where things should go, then it was thrown open to everybody; it ended up in a shouting match, basically because of the behaviour of one person.

An observation - I couldn't care less about hearing the tape, why should I, or anybody else? Instead ask yourselves, "Who, apart from themselves, appointed MacColl (Or Miller, whatever you want to call him); Armstrong; Davenport and Campbell to decide what should be done about an art form that none of them actually owned or had any proprietary claim to? Looks like total unbounded arrogance.

My opinion of MacColl is no secret, everything about the man was fake.

Ewan set up The Critics Group to examine the techniques and relevance of folk song - Aye in his own image with everything coloured by his own politics.

05 Jul 18 - 11:35 AM (#3935472)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

"why cant Jim let us all hear the tape."
I've ytold you why - it's not mine
Perhaps Dick will let you hear his - but I doubt it somehow
C'mon Dick - how about it?

"everything about the man was fake. "
As fake as anonymous trolls who post creepy abuse, do you mean?
"My opinion of MacColl is no secret"
Is that why you don't tell us who you are or what your achievements are?
Ill stick what what and who I know, if it's all the same with you

What a strange bunch!!
Jim Carroll

05 Jul 18 - 01:06 PM (#3935495)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

Jim , I listened to it some time ago on the net , i did not have it in my possession, so i cannot do that, you do have it so you can do so.
I agree with Observer,no one had that right to set themselves up to control the uk revival, I do not agree with observers politics, i agree with MacColls, but , observer has hit the nail on the head, Alex wanted toi further the entertainment side or folk comedians llod and maCcOLL wanted to furgher left wing influence
Davenport [alhough to the left in poltics] was fed up with MacColls controlling attitude.
,I may be wrong but that is my honest opinion.

05 Jul 18 - 01:16 PM (#3935496)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

here is a quote by shirley collins on MacColl.
Shirley Collins: singer instrumental in the English folk revival of the 1960s and 70s

Ewan had quite a pernicious influence on folk music, I think. People who went to the Critics Group [a study group for singers held at MacColl’s home] ended up being moulded by him, sounding the same. Folk music should be about reflecting music from the regions, the different voices, the roots of it. You couldn’t differentiate anything with his approach.

I first met him when I was 20 and my antenna went up straightaway. I genuinely don’t want to be unpleasant, but he was unpleasant to me, quite sexist, and pretentious and pompous – words that should never be applied to a folk singer. He said to me that I shouldn’t wear nail varnish. What a wretched thing to say to a young woman with an interest; what a way of putting someone down.

He was self-invented; there seemed nothing truthful about him, and that’s always concerned me greatly. He was an actor, really, even as a singer. The way he’d turn his chair, sit astride it, put his hand to his ear... my heart would sink. I know it’s not fair as he’s not here to defend himself, but I’ve had my opinion since I first met him, and I’ve not seen any reason to change it.

He was a talented man, yes – you can’t get away from that – who made some fine pieces of work, but he could never reach me like a traditional singer could, someone like George Maynard or Harry Cox. His influence now? Things have opened up. Nobody has to listen to what other people are saying. People are going their own way. That’s the way it should be."
for the benefit of jack campin. he quote was taken from the following context from the Guardian.HERE.
Ewan MacColl: the godfather of folk who was adored – and feared

Best known today as the man who wrote Dirty Old Town, the singer and songwriter was a leftwing firebrand who instigated the 60s folk revival. On the centenary of his birth, Neil Spencer recalls an inspirational yet controversial figure while family, friends and fans pay tribute.

05 Jul 18 - 02:25 PM (#3935516)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,02lame

The master voice (so to speak)
HONKY
Huge changes

05 Jul 18 - 02:36 PM (#3935521)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

and by contrast appalachian accent,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbHccbzDloI
completely different from new york accent, so i peggy and tom paley did not have appalachian accents

05 Jul 18 - 02:37 PM (#3935523)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU

05 Jul 18 - 03:13 PM (#3935539)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Jim Carroll

You whinge about people when people criticise performers you like yet you bust a gut critiscing a singer who has been dead for thirty years and can't defend himself and who did more for folk song in Britain than any other singer
You really ought to be ashamed of yourself Dick
It really is no wonder people find you a pest
Finished
Jim Carroll

05 Jul 18 - 03:22 PM (#3935544)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,keberoxu

finished? I only wish you would make up your minds:
finish here already,
or take it elsewhere. I mean, enough.

05 Jul 18 - 03:25 PM (#3935546)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: The Sandman

JIM, I give my honest opinion always ,if you do not like it tough ,start behaving like an adult not a spoiled child.

05 Jul 18 - 04:06 PM (#3935554)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Nick Dow

Hang on a minute of course Dick is going to defend singers he likes, weather they are dead or alive. How is that wrong?
McColl was as described above (very eloquently). If some of the traditional singers I have known over the years were to have witnessed him singing in a non existent Scots accent sitting back to front on his chair with his hand clamped over one ear, they would have thought he had serious mental problems. I have worked with and been taught by Traditional singers from the Gypsy community from the Southern counties and from Lancashire, and I never met one singer who did not know how to enjoy themselves when singing. It's supposed to be a pleasure, not a political platform, not a search for fame, not a springboard to 'better' things in show business, not about moneymaking and not about winning Grammy awards, not about getting MBE's, but making people laugh, cry, and empathise but above all sing Traditional songs in Traditional style, weather on a gig or in a sing around. Yes! Traditional songs in Traditional style, not a very popular mission statement nowadays, but it seems to be working for me. (and dare I say Dick)

05 Jul 18 - 04:29 PM (#3935559)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: GUEST,Observer

Jim Carroll, Date: 05 Jul 18 - 11:35 AM

YOU may regard MacColl as some sort of God to be worshipped and adored - that is YOUR opinion and you are perfectly entitled to it.

Just as I am ENTITLED to my own opinion of a man about whom, on examination, everything is false.

Stick to the content of posts, I am not interested in your opinions and remarks about those actually posting.

05 Jul 18 - 05:28 PM (#3935574)
Subject: RE: Worst singing accent.
From: Joe Offer

I hate to have to start doing this, but I guess I must. This thread has become unpleasant because of all the personal insults. Thread closed.
-Joe Offer-