It has been a while since I listened to Nic Jones's Canadee I.O. - I'd forgotten why I disliked it
I've made a point of listening to as many of our our older singers as possible over the years - you might say I've made a study of it.
Even the oldest of most pat their prime them, with all the problems that age brings, had a narrative grasp of their songs in common - in the West of Ireland they referred to "telling a song" rather than "singing" it.
Most of them sang in their natural speaking tones, as if they were telling a story.
They sang as they spoke, putting in the commas and full stops where they belonged, and usually, they chose a speed that suited the narrative (dragging our a song too slowly is probably the greatest contribution to the idea that long songs are boring - the narrative of as song should be the decider of the speed it is sung)
Listening to Nic Jones again brought back all the memories of self-indulgence and lack of of any interpretation that related to the contents of the song - a pleasant blandness and total lack of emotional tension.
Jones follows the accompaniment rather than making it a canvas on which to paint your song
You could go to downstairs for a pint and a pee in the time his musical runs take - at least a quarter of the whole song - ridiculous!
Instead of running lines together where the plot calls for it, he leaves gaps in the action - he almost makes it an eight line poetic structure rather than a four like one - one word strikes me in listening to his singing - "gappy"
I am not against accompaniment by any means - when I was singing regularly well over half of my large repertoire was accompanied (by a friend)
When I lost my accompanist (through moving) I abandoned many of my songs - no problem, my interest in collecting and research didn't leave me the time I once had
Now I've started to sing again I find that, while I miss accompaniment for some songs, it is not essential
I have revived around two thirds of my 300 + songs nd so far I have not found one I can't sing unaccompanied - English language folk songs are like that
While I've lost much of my singing "edge" (what I had of it), I can't remember enjoying singing as much as I am doing now - but there again - I'm a sucker for a good story
Peggy Seeger again on accompaniment: "The sure sign that accompaniment is doing its job with an audience is when they only hear it when it stops or it goes wrong"
Sorry - didn't mean to go on for so long but I'm off to Galway for a few days tomorrow to pig out on films that never make it to this part of the world
Jim Carroll