To a US Midwesterner who's been performing both traditional and modern music in public for more than 50 years, this seems like an odd discussion. I love traditional songs performed in a minimalist folksy way. But I also love music performed in a tastefully elaborate way. I watched the YouTube video linked in the initial post and have to say I like it very much. I think it's nicely arranged, well performed, and exciting to its audience. What more could one want in a public performance where people pay good money for admission?

I'm guessing the question here is whether or not this performance (or any performance of "folk-like" music) remains true to the material. So here's my take on that question.

The term "folk" has had many meanings over time. The great classical composers often drew on what were called "folk" themes for their great symphonies and operas. They didn't travel to remote villages to find these themes. They were just part of the common musical consciousness of the day. In the 20th century, scholars made an academic discipline from the study of songs as they passed from person to person and generation to generation migrating with the people who sang them. So the term "folk" was an academic term with a particular academic definition. As these traditional songs evolved, and especially with the advent of radio and recording, the folk material became the basis for a great deal of "popular" music the main point of which was to entertain audiences and make some money. In the middle of the 20th century performers began rearranging the old songs to suit the tastes of the day and "folk music" was born as a commercial genre. All these meanings of "folk" and more are still in use (and useful) today.

A musical performance can have a number of possible purposes. For many years I attended the University of Chicago Folk Festival held near the end of January each year. The focus of the festival leaned toward the academic. Performers might be featured who really were directly from the hills, hollers, plantations, and prisons. They sang in ways passed through generations. Their performances were often beautiful (at least to me) but not necessarily beautiful as musical entertainment. But also on the stage would be some modern interpreter of those old songs whose performances were tightly arranged and expertly performed. These were the performers whose record albums the audience actually bought.

All this music is continually changing. When we think of Irish music today we think of bouzoukis, 4-string banjos, bodhráns, and other instruments only recently taken up by Irish performers. No one says this isn't "traditional" Irish music but it wouldn't sound familiar to "The Croppy Boy."

Whether or not The Bounty Hounds' performance of "Blackleg Miner" is folk, folk-rock, rock 'n' roll, or pop, it's clearly very entertaining and nicely done. We spend too much effort trying to force the music into this or that temporary mold when we should be trying to set the music free so it can grow to its full potential.

      - Mark