I'm with Brian on the laughable nature of the premise of this thread.


Glueman, you say: I was hoping to avoid another hack at '54 . . .

Bullpucky. You started this thread to have another hack at '54. You said in your OP: . . . folk requires authority from outside to determine it according to some sources. Is folk self-regulating or decided from above?

Accusing anyone of requiring an outside authority to decide what to play - or even to arrive at their personal definition of folk - is taking a hack at '54, whether you realize it or not.

Clearly there's a link between IFMC 54 and now because performing musicians and singers regard it as a source.

The question is do other forms of music have institutional bodies that have left their mark so deeply on what's actually played now?

I keep asking this and no one answers: Who are these traditional music people that need an academic definition to tell them what to play and how to play it? Which folk festivals program music according to 1954, rather than the tastes and interests of the organizers? Bee-dubya-ell, perhaps you could chime in as well?

It seems to go along with any musical genre that involves overarching lifestyle choices. In other words, if you have to "dress up like a folkie, with a beermug on your belt". . . If you can call upon the authority of a committee to justify your style preferences.... are you going to miss the chance?

SS, you're joking, right? In thirty years of playing traditional folk music I've never seen anything like this. Costumed performers are doing some sort of recreation activity. It really doesn't have anything to do with the music. Or is this an honest assessment of what you think players of traditional music are like?

Given the negativity toward 1954 I'm seeing here, with broad statements being made describing, in a completely unsupported way, a mind-set that no one has actually seen, I have to conclude that SS and Glueman are having conversations within their heads that aren't actually taking place in the outside world. C'mon gentlemen, support what you are saying with something real, or get off it. How many people have to tell you that 1954 is nothing more than a useful description of a social phenomenon before you stop thinking it matters in any way to anyone's life or music making?