The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #119547 Message #2596278
Posted By: Jack Blandiver
24-Mar-09 - 01:49 PM
Thread Name: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
*Sigh*
Sigh?
So what's the problem with differentiating between Traditional Song and Folk Song? We might agree to hang the stuffed corpse of Traditional Song out to dry on the 1954 definition but it no longer accounts for what is being sung In the Name of Folk in folk clubs, festivals, singarounds, CDs etc.
"I like bread. I like sausages. Therefore, sausages are a kind of bread." The fact that it is possible to put the Wild Rover and Eleanor Rigby into a category together(or maybe many categories together) does not necessarily make them both folk songs.
A folk singer might well do both of these songs in a floor spot, just as I might wrap up my sausages in some bread and make a sandwich; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This has nothing to do with what I want (although right now I could kill for a sausage sarnie) rather it is to do with the reality of a situation in which Traditional Song (and by implication the 1954 Definition) has less & less to do what is happening in the name of folk.
That belief will just make it awkward when you are trying to discuss folk music with other people.
No it won't because most of the Folkies I know sing mostly non-traditional material and yet are quite happy to call it folk. This is what raised the issue in the first place.