Alan,
Don't know about being owed a pint - it looks as if I owe you an apology.
Please put it down to the red mist before the eyes whenever I meet up with terms like "twenty verse dirge" - which, as has been said, I took out of context (more later on getting teenagers involved in our music).
There were plenty of other examples on this and other threads which I could have chosen - however, our 'Guest from Sanity' saved me the search with "the 'purists'......they're always out of tune" - thanks for that guest (or is it Sanity?).
I always find that having our songs sneered at by 'snigger wrongsighters' is a little little having squatters break into your home, and then complain about your taste in wallpaper.
The problem with these people is that they have no history, no workable definition, no validating documentation, no research - no pedigree; their identity exists purely in their heads, and eventually, like the mini-choirs, 'electric folk', and all the other fads that have gone before, they will eventually drift off into the mists of time leaving little or nothing behind them. Even their Icon-in-Chief, Dylan, had the good business sense to move into fresh fields and pastures-more-lucrative - as the man said... "that's all over now Baby Blue"......
See - anybody can slag off other peoples' tastes.... but wouldn't it be far better to just accept that we all like different things and let each other get on with it.
Bryan
"I give up on you Jim. If you are determined to be miserable,"
I really am not miserable (disappointed sometimes maybe).
I've had a great time in the music; over forty years of it - met some wonderful people and heard some beautiful songs and stories; if nothing else, I have the memories (and the recordings) to fall back on.
We're now living in Ireland where we have wall-to-wall music of an enviable standard 4 nights (and more) a week, within walking distance, as well as a choice of singing and music week-end on an average of around 2 a month within driving distance: Joe Heaney, Frank Harte, Geordie Hanna, Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin, Mrs Crotty, Seamus Ennis, Johnny Doran, Micho Russell, Willie Clancy, Frankie Kennedy.... and many more; all are honoured with a weekend of singing or music (they don't just bury their dead singers and musicians here - the give them a festival). We can turn on our television or radio and be regaled with high standard folk music programmes most nights of the week, and should we decide to take our activities further - we can always apply to the Arts Council for funding to work on our own collection (a bit of a plug - Lyric F.M., the (usually) classics based Irish radio station are broadcasting three programmes on the Travellers we recorded in London later this month, starting on Saturday 23rd - commercial break over).
As I said, not miserable (but I might be if you gave up on me, Bryan), and certainly not bored.
My problem is that we have now reached a stage in our lives when we have to make choices. We have a mass of material which we recorded in the UK which we have to decide what to do with. Do we spend valuable time sorting out and editing the 20 years worth of work we did with Walter Pardon (and the others we recorded) in order to make it generally available, say on the internet (are there enough people interested) - or do we let it stay on the shelves of the British Library and let posterity judge its worth.
I have always tended to judge questions like this on the state of the clubs; my main interest in folk song has always been as a performed art rather than an academic study.
I joined this thread in order to find out whether my judgment of the club scene was an accurate one - I wasn't making a statement regarding your (Bryan's) complacency - it was a question - are you being complacent because your own club is doing well - if not, what is all the fuss about? (nearly 270 postings to this thread when I last counted).
I would like to think that my impressions are wrong and there will be enough interest to keep the clubs going to allow people to have the hairs on the back of their neck bristle the first time they hear Sheila McGregor sing 'Tiftie's Annie' as happened to me (my condolences to those of you whose attention span doesn't stretch beyond songs of more than three verses!)
Frank Hamilton put the value of the clubs in a nutshell for me in his last posting - it would be a pity to lose them.
Peace:
"Trad music in clubs will likely begin to die unless it shares the stage with other musics,"
Sorry - beg to differ; in my experience the opposite is the case.
I believe the mess that the clubs appear to be in is largely down to trying to please all of the people all of the time, and ending up pleasing nobody. I think this works both ways; I have read from singer-songwriters on this forum that describing an evening of their songs as 'folk' repels rather than attracts audiences - so why the charade.
The success of the Irish scene is largely down to the fact that the people who did the work threw the stowaways overboard rather than inviting them up to the wheelhouse - they decided what their tradition was and went for it - this has been to the benefit of all sides of the divide.
Alan:
Sorry - this is getting awfully long; but the sun is shining and there's an acre of grass out there - so I'm not going to get another chance.
I'm not sure that attracting teenagers is one of my priorities but Pat and I did a number of talks at schools and colleges in London years ago without having to compromise or water down the recorded material we used, with some apparent success.
One of the best of these we did was in Deptford, when we took Irish Traveller storyteller Mikeen McCarthy to a youth festival. He sat for nearly two hours and sang and told stories as if he was back on his site performing to adults - we may have been deluding ourselves, but they appeared to love it.
I believe it all lies in the presentation of the material rather than the watering-down.
In the long run - the answer lies in getting our songs and stories accepted and respected by the Education Establishment rather than adapting our clubs to attract the young.
Whew - better leave it there.
Jim Carroll
PS Bryan
"Fintan Vallely, or Con 'Fada' O'Driscoll's 'The Spoons Murder'"
I know there are new songs being written in the UK - I wasn't aware that they were being published to any great extent, and I'm not sure how many are based on traditional forms, which is what I was talking about.