The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #119636 Message #2596035
Posted By: Jack Campin
24-Mar-09 - 08:56 AM
Thread Name: Are Folk Clubs untraditional?
Subject: RE: Are Folk Clubs untraditional?
Glee clubs date back to the middle of the 18th century, but their repertoire never had much in common with what is now sung in folk clubs.
There were singing clubs in the late 19th century that were much closer. I found an advert in the Dalkeith Advertiser from the 1870s for one that met weekly in Newbattle, the core of modern Newtongrange, the village outside Edinburgh that I live in. Newtongrange still has a folk club (weekly singarounds, monthly guests). The 19th century club's repertoire could virtually all have fitted into a present-day singaround night without anybody noticing anything unusual. The only real differences were that they announced what they were going to sing a week in advance, and had a piano instead of everybody bringing their own guitar. I would suggest looking at the adverts in local papers from the late 19th century, you might be surprised what went on.
There are clear descriptions of quite definite solo performances of Scottish folk songs back to the early 18th century, by singers who had a reputation for the way they sang certain numbers. Obviously not everything was done that way, but things like the big ballads seem more likely to have come from a small class of "trained" singers (meaning they came from a lineage of performers and consciously worked at doing it) rather than being common property from the start.