The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #135525 Message #3092284
Posted By: Lizzie Cornish 1
10-Feb-11 - 04:24 AM
Thread Name: Bellowhead Win at BBC2 Folk Awards
Subject: RE: Bellowhead Win at BBC2 Folk Awards
"I agree with Lizzie that Duncan McFarlane Band are well overdue for an award. They must be Yorkshire's best-kept secret"
Thanks, levels..
Their gigs from years back are still fresh in my mind, not only at the first ever Sidmouth Folk Week, where they literally brought the town to LIFE! But in Otley too, at that fabulous gig in the wine bar, which was actually Otley Folk Club...I have NEVER seen so many people crammed into one room to see a band! People of all ages, young and old, all shouting and cheering, bobbing up and down as Duncan and his Band gave the full folk rock version of their repertoire...
It was nothing less than SENSATIONAL and I took as much pleasure from watching the audience react, as I did from watching and hearing the band..One of the best gigs I've ever been to. Just wish I lived closer to them all.
Later in the week we saw a very different band, this time giving their acoustic set...gentle and quiet, lulling their appreciative audience into good places. That was some gig too..and so good was the atmosphere, so friendly and relaxed, that I didn't really want it to end...
I tell you who else is WAY overdue for an Award...Reg Meuross. Reg is not just a highly professional performer, but a wonderous weaver of stories into songs. He's got the magical ability to touch the heart with his words and I fully agree with Mike Harding that Reg is one of the best songwriters this country now has.
This is why I get so angry that the same old same old keep on winning. It's hugely under-representative of the rest of the major talent in the folk world, and it's highly unfair too. I don't think there can actually be any other Award Show where the same people from the same Inner Sacred Circle keep on winning, year after year after year...
And to remove the public vote after the first year, as they did, PURELY because they realised that a band from the Outer Circle would keep winning, more than likely, was preposterous and it showed me in absolutely blinding light how corrupt and controlled the whole Folk Awards system is.
Big Fish in a Small Bowl rule it with an iron fist...and even though some headway has been made, it is not nearly enough.
Any other system that behaved in this way would, I'm more than sure, have a full investigation launched into exactly what's going on, but the folk world seems to be above and beyond all...
I like Bellowhead now and then, but I far prefer Spiers & Boden on their own and find the Bellowhead line-up way over the top at times...I'm afraid I cringed when I saw them last on Jools Holland and I do NOT think they are hugely representative of the magnificent talent which lies within the English Folk World.