The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #40082   Message #573074
Posted By: musicmick
15-Oct-01 - 11:49 PM
Thread Name: Why are singer-songwriters called folksingers?
Subject: RE: Why are singer/ songwrites called folksi
Ah Kitty, it's years since I heard the name, Dave Calderhead. He was called the Singing Toby Jug. What a sweet and gentle soul he was. I always stayed with Dave at his flat on the Potabello Road, whenever I worked in London. There are many professional folksingers by anyone's definition. Shantymen on ships were folksingers, a cantor in a synagogue is a folksinger (he even gets tenured), music therapists, campfire leaders, choir directers, labor union singers ("songs to fan the flame of discontent") My work is, primarily, as a folksinger. I do classroom programs to illustrate history through song and I can promise you that the students sing as much as I do. I led the campfires at the Philadelphia Folk Festival for thirty years and I never did a solo. I do play-parties for pre-schoolers and they do all the work.(I think that Barney qualifies as a professional folksinger even though I am older than four and a half)