Hi all,
just a quick reply to the following. I'm the person working with LL on this service.

"the music offered will be purely folk music (in it's broadest sense)"

Am I the only one who thinks there's something odd there (and, no,
I'm not referring to the surplus apostrophe)?"


>>>Well first, apologies for the unwarranted apostrophe, a slip of the finger.

>>>What LL was trying to reflect in the above wasn't anything odd, it was just reflecting that people often have varying views as to what is and isn't folk. We are trying to support new and older artists and what a new artist calls folk in all sincerety might not be accepted as such by a traditional artist. We are also trying to include music that is inspired by or connected to folk. This might be like the George Butterworth 'rural song' styled settings of Richard Moult or experimental acoustic inspired by the likes of John Fahey and Sandy Bull etc (who even back in the 60s many never accepted as folk). Then there is the whole area of music that combines folk with influences from the late 60s psychedelia period. We want to be able to include such music but recognise that again, it's not folk in the purest sense, USA mountain songs in the style of Dock Boggs or Roscoe Holcomb some might say are more blues or formative bluegrass, folk-rock of course isn't pure folk. All we're trying to do is recognise that folk has been an evolving form that has taken in other influences and retained its traditional heart. We want to try and help all of this.

>>Rather than try and be strict about what is and isn't folk, we're working with the artists directly and trying to build something positive that can support a broad range of artists - we will be careful how we present them though and will ensure we don't give the impression that a new freeform release isn't represented as being traditional folk and so on. LL and myself bring together complementary and overlapping interests across the range of folk music - and it is that we're trying to reflect.

Obviously we're also keen not to scare people away from expressing interest, we both get a lot of emails saying 'I think what I do is folk but I don't quite know' - for a lot of people folk isn't something they have experienced much but like the idea of or take some inspiration from but with encouragement and support they can go on to have an active interest. So we're being careful to encourage people to get in touch rather than feel the service is too specifically defined to apply to them. Already it is turning up some incredible music that might otherwise not find release such as an amazing instrumental acoustic folk set from Slovenia with guitar playing comparable to John Renbourn or Adrian Legg.

>>I know it is easy to see ulterior motives or something odd in such initiatives, but this is a sincerely meant service that rather than see folk and music inspired by it fade away (as another post here said the other day) we want to provide some support and passion to help it be seen as a contemporary and vital form in its own right. If we stuck to only the purest sense of folk, we would lose the ability to bring artists together across eras and genres and to bring a new set of musicians towards folk music. We're also in active discussion now with a number of traditionally focussed, contemporary folk artists who see this as a viable route for them - I talked with two artists yesterday that everyone here would know and accept as part of folk music in the strictest sense of definition.

I know people will say this or that release isn't pure folk but we have to start somewhere. Let me finally say, we actively and specifically do want traditional / acoustic folk and it will have pride of place in the service. If you make such music and would welcome some support, do let us know.

Anyway, I hope that helps and thanks for reading it.

cheers
Mark