The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #165660 Message #3977749
Posted By: Stanron
19-Feb-19 - 07:29 AM
Thread Name: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
'Folk Music' and 'The Tradition' are conceptual constructs of 'Western Art Music'. The terms described material that has survived outside the mainstream, sometimes for centuries. If you pare away all the intellectual encunberage, we are talking about 'old songs' and old tunes' and nothing else.
People like me who came across folk in the 60s got it from radio, TV and college and university. It made sense of the explosive changes we were seeing in popular music and took 'community' from the sole province of the church and out into our own informal experience. It got taken up by commercial music and by politics, in quite different ways.
At it's essence it is still 'old songs' and old tunes'. It has also been a vehicle for creative people to comment on current society and some of that will, almost inevitably, eventually attain the 'old songs' and old tunes' status.
As for the arguments, some people will argue about anything, even if no-one else is bothered. It doesn't change the fact that these are old songs and old tunes and I like them.