The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #158987 Message #3765622
Posted By: Jim Carroll
14-Jan-16 - 08:04 PM
Thread Name: The singers club and proscription
Subject: RE: The singers club and proscription
"You should take the blinkers off some time calm down and give straight answers to simple questions."
You have not responded to one of mine Hoot - the double standards of slamming MacColl for something he may have done over fifty years ago while ignoring the fact that everyone was behaving similarly (you have been given at least 4 examples)
The dangers of commercialising the revival as appeared to be happening at the B and B via Malcom Nixon
What happened when the revival became part of the pop scene and then was spat out by the industry (giving examples of what happened to C&W and Jazz).
The fact that the B and B survived a matter of a few years after MacColl left, and The Singers continuing up to at least a year after Ewan died (around 1990)
The contribution that Ewan made with his own songs and the hundreds he researched and put back into circulation
The work Ewan did with less experienced singers while all the other folk superstars got on with their own careers
The fact that, to the end of his life, Ewan continued to champion folk song while others drifted into music hall, poorly performed pop song.... and anything goes (as displayed amply by many examples here)......
All these and more have been put to you and others and you have remained totally silent on them - and you demand an answer to a question I have already responded to.
Tell you what - you show me yours and I'll show you mine
"Yet you seem to feel justified in laying into the present revival in Britain and everyone involved in it."
No I don't Bryan - I say a club scene that claims the tradition has changed but is unable to say what into or why is in a bit of a two-and-eight.
A club scene that passes off poorly performed pop songs that have been largely forgotten by the people as a whole as "folk" has lost its way.
A folk scene that now supports clubs where a traditional song is a matter of humour "Now I joke that I have friends in the room if anyone else turns up and sings a traditional song." is no longer a folk scene
And closer to all this, the fact that any discussion on what constitutes folk song on a forum dedicated traditional songs and music is a no go area and is immediately screamed down with cries of ""folk police" (or "fascist"), "finger-in-ear", "purist"... and a whole string of such epithets.
That abuse appears to now be directed at our source singers, describing them as "out of tune, singing into cheap microphones", "£tit-trousers" (a reference to the way they dress, apparently) and being told that if the likes of Sam Larner were around today their role would be to "sit back and watch how it should be done" (all these put forward during one of these "friendly" discussions).
To say I condemn all is simply an invention on your part - I condemn what the revival has become.
I could produce a long list of singers and musicians I like and admire - many of them not performing because there is no longer an interest in what they do (sure - they could all go to Lewes (do you not know how sadly condemnatory that suggestion is?).
We were amused and not a little puzzled at an incident that took place way back when Pat was still arranging bookings for singers like The Stewart and Walter Pardon.
She was given the number of a "folk club" where Walter might get booked
She was asked by the organisers "What does he do?"
Whan she explained, the reply was, "Sorry, we only book folk singers".
How many clubs do you think there are in Britain now that WOULDN'T BOOK SAM OR HARRY?
Don't you - or anybody dare say I lay into everybody on the scene - I certainly don't
I am appalled at the hostile takeover of the revival that we helped build by many people who appear neither to understand nor like folk song - I have never claimed "all" - but certainly enough to have done enormous, possible irreparable damage to a very important music.
You want evidence of this - go to some of these unpleasant discussions - the wold doesn't end when you leave Lewes.
Jim Carroll