The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #137488   Message #3144997
Posted By: Tootler
29-Apr-11 - 06:43 PM
Thread Name: Folk Tribute Bands
Subject: RE: Folk Tribute Bands
It seems to me that the idea of a Folk Tribute band is an oxymoron.

The whole essence of a tribute band is to take the songs made famous by the original band and recreate their original arrangements as nearly as you can.

In folk music the principle is that you take the songs, whether traditional or recently composed, and interpret them in your own way - You make the song your own.

Of course, there are rock/pop bands that do that, but then they are not tribute bands (though some might refer to them as cover bands - often in a way as to imply that performing songs written by someone else is somehow inferior to performing your own original songs; arrant nonsense in my view)

I can't see the point in trying to recreate as near exact replicas of an arrangement of a song, though these bands are clearly popular.