do make me laugh.

i'v benn thinkng along these lines for a while although it took untill a few years ago to really intellectualize them.

in anglo canada folk has been a totally artificial creation west of the ottawa river for decades. run by midle class and acedemic who have all the nasty bigotry they live by. i used to wonder why it was so strange at folk clubs from toronto and vancouver but just shook my head and went and got a gig.(i'm from rural nova scotia,a quarter acadien and three quarters highland scott--we spoke more gaelic than french).

i just posted how stan rogers opened the doors for us.before him folk out betond the ottawa river was ruled by people who dismissed us as ""country"".probvably because the only inroads for maritime music up till then were blazed by john allan cameran in nashville and a bit by hank snow before him(snow was from nova scotia and did record the odd traditional down east song).those inroads were because the country scene didn't have the class and ethnic bigotry of the folk scene and if the music was good the tapped theirs toes and bought the records.

i recently talked to a friend who said of the vancouver folk song society:they broke my heart", and i had to agree they did ot often, she like all thos they humiliated was from a working class background, part prarie french and did thei traditional stuff and they drove her out. she could get major gigs at international events to play prarie folk and not be accepted by the vancouver folk ss as i call them. they used to show up in bib overalls and sing harry bellafonte songs and put down the working class people who woud try to dress up.

my very first visit to vancouver back in the seventies i went to their coffee house and asked to play(i just hitch hiked in and didn't have a bean) the fat bastard at the door said i could get in for free but i coulon't play that maritimes country music. he royally announced"we do real folk"

so i walked up the street and busked.i thought with the folkies going by i might make a bean or two.it was gangbusters.(the fat bastard kept peering out and frowning while id did it) so a few hours later with fourty bucks in my pocket i thought i could be one of the big important people and payed the two dollars to get in.they were singing the banana boat song!!!! day o day o

i didn'tthink of the real implication for yearsi just bthought "gee i never met anyone like that in guysborough county, but they wouldn't say those strange things if they didn't have a reason" what i realized was the reason was class and ethnic bigotry, they wanted a folk to be a secular curch and replace the religious ethics their parents and grand arents had.
this isn't entirely over.in toronto and vancouver they have their "official maritime musicians" of course from toronto or vancouver. and won't allow the real thing without a lot of brown nosing or unlkess you are acceptable middle class. i was aked to gototheir folk song circle many times.i busked in toronto full time for a decade and met a lot of folkies.but when i phoned or e mailed people they always said this is a closed group. a couple repeated the "we don't have maritime country music.

even in the busking scen in the transit system there were torontonians playing maritime music as their schtick who would regularily threaten me,because they were the maritime act and i had no busniss taking the work from ontario musicians.

now i should acknowledge thatmy expeciences in the uk and the us were better. they are more aware of real roots music.i got picked up busking on a berkley california street tppl;ay the berkeley folk festival when i was down there twenty years ago. the guy who offered me the gig siad he recognized i was playing celtic music but he had never heard those songs so he wondered where i was from.AND I GOT PAID.tho american folk is a pop/folk genre..

and in the uk when i have gone to folk clubs i sing canadian folk and they seem to love it. i sang at the cecil sharphouse this year while on vacation and met a lot of very nice people.i supose there werea lot of acedemic types but they seemed tolove to hear something rootsy and new. that's all i ask.

but folk in anglo canada is a show business term.its about making careers on influemce and not knowledge nor realmusical ability.