Is it really Folk?

Subject: RE: Is it really Folk?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 01:50 PM

Yes, 'Guest, Shaneo' your point is too simple and gets us nowhere!

Subject: RE: Is it really Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 09:04 PM

Folk songs is stories about folks--I never heard a story about a horse!!!

Subject: RE: Is it really Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 10:46 PM

I have. Quite a few, actually.

Stewball, The Strawberry Roan, I Ride and Old Paint, Doney Gal. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Is it really Folk?
From: shepherdlass
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 02:48 PM

"If you can break it down to one voice and an acoustic guitar, it's folk."

Sorry, but this is way too simplistic. As others have already pointed out, the piano can be just as folkloric an instrument as anything else.

I'd still like to take issue with the idea that folk music has to be simplistic. Tell that to your average Bulgarian folk musician turning out dance tunes in 15/16 or similar. The idea of it being linked to rusticity and simplicity has its roots in all that Herder/Grimm noble savage stuff.

Subject: RE: Is it really Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 11:06 AM

I knew that Herder/Grimm crowd would lead me astray. It was them that got me smoking cigarettes, acting big and pretending I enjoyed straight sex.

The Noble Savages though... what a band. Will we ever see their likes again. I remember a gig in back in '64. The lead banjo player had OD'd on snakebites - they said, can you sit in Al - we're desperate and we neeed you.

As luck would have it, I'd lent my last banjo string to Jimmy Page, who was auditioning for Led Zeppelin that very night. What I mean is, I coulda bin a contender.....history shoulda bin different.