The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #45461 Message #672008
Posted By: Bullfrog Jones
19-Mar-02 - 12:34 PM
Thread Name: What's wrong with 'Folk Music'
Subject: RE: What's wrong with 'Folk Music'
Got room for me in your waterproofs, Doug? I enjoyed the film and bought the CD straight away and my 13-year old son was wandering round singing Man of Constant Sorrow for ages afterwards. This debate sums up the reason why 'folk' music has the reputation it has. People assume it's just boring buggers with their fingers in their ears singing about a fishing trawler that doesn't leave the harbour for the first tewnty-three verses and spends the next nineteen sinking!It has to change to stay alive, to make new converts. Yes, John Hartford was very good, but his songs won't 'live on' longer than John Prine's, precisely because Prine is more popular -- i.e. more people have heard of him and buy his records, but also because more people are out there singing more of his songs. If Oh Brother made a few people curious enough to go back and listen to The Stanley Brothers or Jimmie Rodgers then that's a bonus --- but it's just a FILM for God's sake -- light entertainment!