The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #98509 Message #2280538
Posted By: Folkiedave
05-Mar-08 - 04:28 PM
Thread Name: Folk Process - is it dead?
Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
Jim, can't agree with you there.
If folk song is subject to change and people are still changing folk songs then the process continues.
If (for example) A.L.Lloyd puts together a version of Tam Lin and so does Mike Waterson and so do plenty of other people then the process of continuity and change is in action. If Martin Carthy puts together a version of Famous Flower - and so does Damien Barber - then the process continues. If someone then combines these throws out a verse, puts a verse in, changes a couple of words to make them scan, mishears a word perhaps and substitutes another one then the process continues for it was ever thus. And that's without tunes!!
I am always wary when things are copyrighted - pop songs are copyrighted so they never change. Folk songs aren't - generally speaking. I know young singers who are doing precisely this - taking a song they like, chasing various versions (much easier nowadays with the internet and the Round Index on line for example) and taking the best, in their opinion, of what they find - and then putting together their "own" variation.
Seems exactly the right thing to do to my mind. It's not how it used to happen - but so what?