At the risk of getting controversial, and into something that's been talked to death, what defines the distinction between a folkie and a singer/songwriter? The question is not wholly gratuitous--I'm honestly curious. Someone on the Coffehouse thread mentioned that Club Passim is now a singer/songwriter venue with only a few folk acts, and someone else said Falcon Ridge *folk* festival is oriented toward singer/songwriters.

It seems to me that the "folk songs" of tomorrow are the creations of today's "singer/songwriters." We just don't know which ones will survive, and, since the recording industry seems to determine the distribution and popularity of a given music genre, instead of the mouth to ear folk tradition, the quality of what will survive in the minds of the public may be not be the best of what today's crop of singer/songwriters has to offer.

Also, to refer to the copyright police thread, the mouth to ear tradition ensures that improvements and embellishments creep into the songs from the various musicians who perform them (a type of thread creep) so that ultimately, the most interesting/accessible versions are the ones that get perpetuated. I compare this idea with 1) the copyright notion that the *only* way something is perpetuated is *as it is written* with appropriate credit given AND 2) the insistence of the listening public, who seem to want to hear songs *just like on the radio, CD, whatever*)

Comments?

V

That said, here's my response: There IS a difference that is actual and not only generational. Some here seem to need to extend the limits of folk for professional reasons. I think George Jones---a singer/songwriter---would know the obvious difference now that he's been kept off the country radio stations 'cause now-a-days he's not considered to be country. The reasons are meonetary and career-based as well as being credibly academic. If you'd ever been refused gigs or a set on stage one because you "were not a singer/songwriter" (but were a "folksinger"---a "traddie"---a a "folk nazi", well, what can I say? I suggest that you just haven't lived in the 90s unless and until that happens to you.

My other views have been expounded in those other threads. I'm not feeling a need to rehash those polemics but I was glad to see those differences between folksingers and singer/songwriters delineated in the other thread so subtly yet so obviously. It was right on to do so.

Good people, I can say that now
1)because it's true from my/our viewpoint.
and 2) because now that I'm not on the circuit any more, I have no fear of actually losing gigs for speaking my mind in this brave new world where "newspeak" has it's own dictionary that's being bought up faster than bibles.

Affectionately (really, Vixen; controversy is what makes horse races),

Art Thieme

Wow--I didn't realize there were "folk-nazis" or their opponents! I didn't realize that performers were discriminated against (or for) based on others' definitions of what they perform. Now I see why this is such a "hot topic" here.

I'd also like to read the thread you mention...which one(s)? All I need is a keyword to subject search the forum.

Thanks for "biting" enough to enlighten me!!!

V

Sid Kipper explains the evolution of folk music in outline, thus:

"My grandfather was a singer. So he taught my father to sing. But of course, human nature beign what it was, he wanted to keep a few of the best songs for himself. So he did, and he never taught them to my father. Then he died. My father he did the same. And that's how we got left with the rubbish we call traditional"

This thread has been more enlightening to me on this topic than the previous ones...

Nevertheless--here's my dilemma. The tradition I write from is largely Child ballads, Playford tunes, and the Lomax collection. Tim's influence is primarily bluegrass and its antecedents. We perform songs from these genres (in varying porportions) when we play out. The songs we write have a lot to do with our experiences of the world, but in the sense that our experience is what we know--we try to keep the topics humanly timeless (as opposed to topical, though I think topical has a place in the folk tradition), the melodies singable, the chord progressions logically playable, and the lyrics memorable. Sometimes we write songs we like...mostly we write a lot of songs.

We'd both like to make a living writing and performing songs. However, our creative goal is to have people singing our songs around the equivalent of song circles in the year 2099. If we're really good, we'll write the equivalent of a Child ballad or a Playford tune, and people will be performing it in 2350. Does this make us folkies? or singers/songwriters? Does it matter???

V

We all know what we like! Heck, one or two even like "Waltzing With Bears" and Richard Simmons videos. If that's your bag, go for it.

Art (yet again)

Art

Art is entirely correct...one should play, write, or listen to, the songs they like...but in my opinion, they should strive to KNOW what they are hearing or singing...especially in the case of those who want to do it onstage and/or for a living...so that they can be advertised and presented correctly to those that like to hear them..........I DO like a lot of recently written songs, but not a large % of them. The differences are not clear & distinct always, but there ARE differences. There are trends, and there are those who will write ANYTHING if they think they can sell it. This is understandable, legal, but not easy to sort out.

To Vixen...if you 'try' to write to be remembered, you probably wont...if you write from the heart, and are pretty good, and pretty lucky, and meet the right people, then you just might. Funny..I think Craig Johnson wrote much nicer songs than Bob Dylan, but I know who will be remembered longer by the 'general' public.

William Main Doerflinger was sneaking around, a few years ago, at one of the Mystic Seaport Sea Music Festivals, he's such a cute little ol fella that nobody really noticed this guy with his tape recorder, recording not the traditional songs at your traditional type workshop but he was taping only the contempory stuff don't ask me why, ask him, I don't possess near the foresight, debt, taste & class of this giant but then again I'm sure he loves what he does & hears too.

Barry

I'm with Art here, I go to listen to someone perform. I am entertained or I am not. But I try to hear many kinds of music when I can. I play in an Irish band but if I could go to hear anyone I could pick right now I'd choose Grant Rogers. He was an underappreciated jewel in the Catskills bur he had what I would call the best parts of the Singer, songwriter, singer/songwriter mix.

Don

I can tell when people have sung a lot of traditional music because it shows up in the songs, not just musically, but also in the themes of the lyrics.

Where there is also some talk about ducks.

Back in the '50's and 60's there was wave of interest in rediscovering (mostly) american folk and traditional acoustic music that coincided with--and in some ways motivated--a wave of interest in becoming a creator of ones own songs in the acoustic tradition. These two waves were coincident not only in time, but often in geography and in the people who participated in them (For example there was a scene centered on Folk City in New York, a rather bland history of which can be found in a book called HOOT! whos particulars escape me for the moment).

Because of the temporal, geographical, and in some individuals, personal coincidence of these waves of interest, they kind of got mixed up in a lot of peoples minds. Adding to the confusion the fact that in course of trying to sell the recorded work that resulted from these revivls, record companies and distributors, always anxious to target the right demographic, started using the term folk to mean everything from Sonny Terry, to Jean Ritchie, to The Weavers, to Harry Belafonte, to Peter Paul and Mary, to Bob Dylan, to Paul Simon, to Joni Mitchell etc, in the belief, (probably somewhat warranted), that a lot of the same people who bought one would be likely to buy the others. Then to seal the deal, some of the performers thus subsumed in the public mind under the 'folk' umbrella became huge popular icons, and folk became associated more with these big names than with a particular genre or set of genres. After that, when people thought of folk most didn't think of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, or Woody Guthrie, or Gary Davis, they thought of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Ritchie Havens, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, or Judy Collins etc.

Some of these performers do proper service to "real" folk and traditional music, while others have abandoned it in favor of their own creations, and still others have been exclusively committed to their own work. No matter. In the minds of the public the wedding has taken place and singer-songwriters have taken the folksinger family name.

Some have no problem with this, and use the word Folk to mean what we are refering to hear as Singer-Songwriter. As an example I refer you to Alan Rowoth's quasi-daily electronic newsletter, FOLK DIGEST, which deals almost exclusively with information about singer-songwriters.

Still, others, of whom I will single out, begging thier permission, Art Thieme and Barry Finn, have never acknowledged the validity of the union. And to their credit they have certain arguements in their favor. There is a formal academic field concerned with folk music, and it is important to maintain the integrity of that body of work. That integrity rests in part on preserving the true identity of the terms and elements of that work in peoples minds.

Don

Very nice. I thought that's what I was saying, but I think I was just trying to say it & didn't manage to do it. You just said it! Thanks!! And you can say THAT again.

Art

Judy Collins officially divorced herself from folk, in my eyes, when she publicly described herself as more of a chanteuse. Lots of singers did that as soon as "folk" was out of fashion, and, no matter how good they sing, I think they sold out, or were just along for the ride in the first place.

Those of us gathering in the Y basement or our friends' rec rooms to put holes in our fingers on cheap instruments as teens were truly bit by the bug, even if we were listening to s/s like Ian Tyson. IMHO. We were listening to a lot of great stuff, even if some of it was processed, and soaking up some essential critical thinking skills through the likes of Chad Mitchell Trio at the same time.

The ethnomusicologists, I might add, hate all of this. Just to stir and muddy the pot a little more.

-- Mary Ann

THANK YOU!!! Your clarity and concision have bestowed understanding!

V

Me give up music??? What, and leave show business??!!??!!

Love to y'all,

Art

In admiration,

Vixen (lite!!!)

Love, Annap

reminds me of that old monologue about folk music being "of the people" but "the people" don't go hear it because it's too arty. (Midnite Special listeners will know the one I mean. Can't remember the narrator.)

technically, if you are not from the tradition of the song, it isn't authentic, but that knocks most of us out.

What WOULD my roots be as a postwar baby boomer parents-moved-away-from-extended-families Scots-Welsh-French American??

-- MA

It is certain that "Folk" no longer means what it did in the mid 60's when the trad music revival was in full bloom. But I contend that that may not be a bad thing. It may be the means for a 16 year old fan of Jewel to discover Ian and Sylvia, or the Childe Ballads. That kind of cross-pollinization is perhaps folk's best chance to gain converts among the young.

LEJ

Grand to see you here. Congratulations on your successes in recent times doing BOTH sides of your musical coin--trad as well as pop. You and Mary Black are great examples of folks who wear both hats so naturally and beautifully. Must be in your genes... ;-) **SMILE** Hope to hear you in person some day!

Art Thieme

Dan

Does the rest of the world worry quite so much, I wonder?

Probably not.

Dan

Yes, I feel some here are "wrong" and some are "RITE". ***SMILE*** But I'm enough of a Buddhist to see that "what is" is whatever the Supreme Court of public opinion says it "is" at any given moment. In the case of "our music", WE are the final word as to "what is the truth". In religions, they all think that they "KNOW" what the right way of seeing things is. In politics it's the same. Economics too. The truth is a variable thing determined by self-interest, money, dogmas, who wins the wars and who loses--all of it. Why should we, as humans, be any different. I, personally, tend to yell loudest when it's my ox that's getting gored. I do strive to be more fair and open minded. But then I'll ere on the side of being open-minded---start goose-stepping in the name of openmindedness. Might even form a huge organization to push openmindedness on everyone else---the OPENMINDEDNESS COALITION for want of a better word.

Might be best to ere on the side of inclusion---but that'd probably be WRONG! ;-) **MORE SMILES**

Art

I.E. this thread!

Thanks to you all for the great bidet (b-day)party in another thread.

Love,

Art

-- Mary Ann

Paul

Secondly, I think that definitions of style or format (as opposed to genre) are more determined by their audience than anything else. As much as we might dislike labelling music, the process serves a purpose to the listener (usually to a greater degree than the performer). Music as an industry has forced the point. What's the difference, really, between Lee Ann Rimes, Tori Amos and Janet Jackson? Their audience, certainly more than their instrumentation or vocal style or songwriting.

So my last point is, I guess, that if you're having trouble deciding whether or not you want to be known as a folksinger or a singer/songwriter, just decide whether or not you want your audience to sing along.

Secondly, I think that definitions of style or format (as opposed to genre) are more determined by their audience than anything else. As much as we might dislike labelling music, the process serves a purpose to the listener (usually to a greater degree than the performer). Music as an industry has forced the point. What's the difference, really, between Lee Ann Rimes, Tori Amos and Janet Jackson? Their audience, certainly more than their instrumentation or vocal style or songwriting.

So my last point is, I guess, that if you're having trouble deciding whether or not you want to be known as a folksinger or a singer/songwriter, just decide whether or not you want your audience to sing along.

I just got back from one day at the Yakima Festival where there was "Worldharp," "Original folk," "jazz-pop," and a buncha other names I forget. It was like Art's satire. Fortunately, there was enough good stuff that I didn't gag.

Mudjack did a great sing-along set, and I hit the open mike.

--MA

I think things are getting a little violent around here. I mean, I know this thread is Folkies vs Singer/Songwriters, but why did you have to hit the microphone? What did it ever do to you and did it hit you back? There is no need to escalate these things. What next, I ask myself?

-- MA

This is a continuation of my post above.

I left off commenting on the two poles of opinion on this matter without being able to throw in my own two cents.

I tend to think both sides are wrong in their own way.

On one hand, singer-songwriters are typically not creating or performing folk music and probably shouldn't be called folk. This is the scientist/academic truth-seeker in me talking. The part that believes in proper defenitions, rigor, formality and all that stuff. On the other hand, while I'll concede some damage being done by the improper cross reference, I don't see the damage as all that great. Musicology still stands, still occupies its poorly funded and relatively obscure postion in academia, generally unknown to the public at large. Its not undergoing any kind of revolution to accomadate the public's misunderstanding. Nobody's writing texbooks on american folk music that include chapters on Jewel. Nobody's proposing appending American Songbag to include Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot songs. Furthermore, even though musicologists have a formal use for the term folk, it doesn't have a lot of utility as a discriminator between different musical styles, at least for the purpose of common use. Blues, Irish fiddle tunes, Tamburiza bands, Reggae, Australian Digideroo (sic), call and response work songs, a lot of gospel quartet singing, Cajun Dance music, certain kinds of polka, Mountain ballads from virginia, Native American Flute, camp songs and jump rope chants, ad infinitum ad nauseum, all fall under the 'folk' umbrella (And this isn't even adressing the issue of newly created hybrid musics, e.g. Zydeco, that sprout directly from a pure folk form). The term 'Folk', by covering too much, actually defines very little. Adding singer-songwriters to the mix is just adding one more nick to the blade of an already dull knife.

I also think that 'the Horse is already out of the barn' on this issue, and that this debate is moot. Language is a common invention cooperatively owned by all those who speak it. It yeilds to the pressures imposed on it by them over time. There comes a time when the effect of those pressures become sufficiently large and permanent as to be recongnized as a new standard. That is why I give little credence to the comments that try to reduce this arguement to a choice between proper usage and linguistic anarchy, with anybody being able to call anything by any term they want. This is a straw man arguement. First of all you can use any words you want at any time, the question is not only what you mean and what words you use, but what is heard and understood by others. Second, acknowledging that the language has evolved in a particulary way is not making a choice between formal use and anarchy. Speaking alegorically, you can redraw a property line to account for a land shift that occured during an earthquake without declaring all property lines everywhere invalid and open to individual interpretation. In the present case, as much as it offends my sense of formality, I have to acknowlege that the inclusion of singer-songwriters under the term folk has achieved permanent widespread usage sufficient to be considered a permanent shift in the language.

you can put cilantro and goat cheese with horseradish on Tacos, too, and you 'may' be able to sell a few, but some will complain it you advertise it as 'traditional Mexican cooking'...however, look what has happened to pizza and French cooking the last 40 years..(pineapple & shrimp on PIZZA?)

Now all we need is a new one to cover what we really think we are doing! In the same way that Tony Blair has hijacked the Labour party and almost wholly divorced it from its socialist roots (Hmm, interesting, do roots marry and if so how do you divorce them?) and relabelled it "New Labour", I propose "New Folk", partly for the analogy with politics, partly for the analogy with "New Country" (which in the same way that the Lord Privy Seal is neither a Lord a privy or a seal, is neither new nor country, but I still hate it anyway) to include true folk music as defined below, re-arrangements of true folk music with non-traditional instruments (viz. Steeleye Span, and with or without distortion pedals as used by Fariport on "Alison Grimes"), modern acoustic music, semi-plugged same; and semi-plugged versions of established pop songs.

Oh yes, that definition.

Folk Song

In 1954 the International Folk Music Council adopted this definition:-

"Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that. has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) Continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) Variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or group; and (iii) Selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.

The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from the rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular music and art music, and it can likewise be applied to the music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community.

The term does not cover composed popular music that his been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the refashioning-and recreation of the music by the community that gives its folk character."

I like your cooking analogy, except I think deviations from strict traditional forms have to be evaluated carefully, for preservation takes two forms. There is the formal historical preservation by which you maintain a thing exactly as it was, like an orchestra trying to perform an old classical piece with the same instruments it was originally played on. The idea being to recreate it as the composer originally concieved. This is the idea behind museums too. Yet preservation also occurs when elements of a tradition are used appropriately to create something new and valuable but still of the essential flavor as the original. Part of the rationale of maintianing the old traditions in their pure form is to provide the inspiration and motivation for new creation. What irks are those case where a tradition is not expanded but narrowed. Italian cooking is a great example. You say Italian and people think of Pizza, Pasta and Tomato sauce. But Italian cusine is an amazing branch of the culinary arts. Italy is a seafaring, maritime country. The seafood cooking tradion alone is amazing. But if you prepared a classic tuna with peppercorns and red wine dish, most people wouldn't recognize it as Italian cooking. This is a case where the deviation from the full tradition has been one of watering down or oversimplification, and that never assists in the preservation process.

Over-simplification and narrowing of the definition cause far more damage to the body of traditional music than any over-broad definition ever could. Ask the hypothetical person-on-the-street what they think of "folk music" and one likely response is "Oh, you mean like campfire songs . . . 'May the Circle be Unbroken' and 'Down in the Valley." and another is "Oh, protest music . . . Bob Dylan and Donovan (or something)" That's the result of a overly narrow definition. Both of those little nitches are folk music of a sort, but by no means exhaust all the incredible variety. So I'd rather see Jewel and Shawn Colvin marketed as "folk-singers" than cultivate some kind of hyper-exclusivity that would lead people who haven't been exposed to think that "folk music" is some kind of archaic, long-dead form.

B.

Art Thieme

-- MA

Around the time I got my first acoustic guitar (at 20) I started listening to the sort of stuff that's marketed as "classic rock" -- Led Zeppelin and the Stones and what not. And what I found was that I was really strongly drawn to the mellower acoustic stuff that some of those bands were doing. Before long I was listening to Crosby, Stills, & Nash, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan -- all of which I thought of (in some loose sense) as "folk" style music largely because it was sort of marketed in that kind of vein. As years went by and I learned to play this sort of music I became interested in what music influenced these musicians I admired so much. If I liked Jerry Garcia and Bob Dylan and Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, wouldn't it be worth checking out what they were listening to when they were learning to play? So I looked into it and then the names started popping up. Like Clapton (or maybe Page) calling Robert Johnson the greatest bluesman ever. Bob Dylan's great respect for Woody Guthrie. Jerry Garcia talking about learning Mississippi John Hurt songs. Who were these guys? What did they sound like? Well, a few visits to my record store and . . . well, you know. :)

My point is that if these 60's musicians hadn't had their names associated with the term "folk" even if only for commercial reasons, I don't really know if I'd have found this whole new (to me) world of music.

And maybe that's a crass way in. It might have been more noble in some sense to have come to traditional music because I wanted to learn the history of this country through hearing it from the "folk" who shaped it. But whatever, I'm hearing it now.

I respect your desire to maintain the integrity of traditional music. But if using the term "folk" leads someone who likes the sound of an acoustic guitar and a two part harmony down the path I came, the integrity will be preserved, not compromised.

Bryant.

You are correct of course. And Don't get me wrong, your path and attitude are one of the many ways to get here from there. I did it the same way you did in several respects. I went from listening to Bob Atcher on the WLS Barn Dance radio show in Chicago to appreciating the more trad songs of Carl T. Sprague, Mac McClintock, Glenn Ohrlin, Gail Gardner and today, Bob Bovee & Gail Heil & Skip Gorman. We all have unique paths we've walked to make a similar journey. Here at Mudcat I'm just trying to keep bad "truth" from being accepted by too many of the searching young ones. The Freight Hoppers old time band lived in North Carolina where they had good input from the get-go. Might be why they got pretty good so very young. My mission has always been to tell it right (just my point of view) both to shorten the trip and to correct what I see as bad info. My road was closer to yours than you might think though.

Someone once said, "You can take all the sincerity in show business, stuff it into a fleas navel, and still have enough room left over for 3 carroway seeds and an agent's heart." I always stayed away from the "biz" & "glitzy" side of this business (which it wasfor me) just so I wouldn't need to say "NO" so much. Was just a different mindset. Some of it may be the differences between the 60s and the 90s but that's too simplistic. Might be more accurate to see that some of us resist change bacause we know or knew what seemed to be a more satisfying way to view it once upon a time.

As Dylan once said,

"You're right from your side and I'm right from mine,
We're both just one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind."

Art

You are the universal parent trying in vain to teach his children things that they will only learn on their own.

Art can parent me any time.

-- MA

Bryant

Remember the lines from "The Old Man's gone" about the death of Hugill -"There's no-one left to teach it right/Farewell to the master of them all/But he left his life in printed lines/Now the old man's gone"

Maybe everyone will abandon folk and the word can mean traditional again.

I'd say that folk singers are primarily about the music and singer/songwriters are primarily about a career. But that's already been said.

      - Mark

Singer-Songwriters got the rope
On inner outings' microscope
Trendy, Spendy, words to dope
Just spell it out and give up hope...

Just trying I, to folksongs make
With overviews my piece of cake
Detatched and caring, can not fake
This living lives for all to take... ttr

As a performer new to Mudcat who does trad material and also writes, I read this thread with much interest.

As far as I can tell the only proof is in the moment -- when a song is being delivered, if people buy it or not. When I hauled my arse into the downtown clubs of NYC and sang trad stuff, I expected to be tossed out, but wasn't -- not at all! My theory is, in general people like what's good . . .

It's a shame that clubs can be so cliqueish about who they book based on trad or singer-songwriter. I've also noticed this at folk conferences such as NERFA. . . a kind of competitiveness of who's cool, who's blah blah blah. This bores me -- it's social rather than music-related. My resolution is to gun the engines and do my thing without worrying about it too much, and try to exist peacefully in both worlds. All signs good so far.

erica

As a performer new to Mudcat who does trad material and also writes, I read this thread with much interest.

As far as I can tell the only proof is in the moment -- when a song is being delivered, if people buy it or not. When I hauled my arse into the downtown clubs of NYC and sang trad stuff, I expected to be tossed out, but wasn't -- not at all! My theory is, in general people like what's good . . .

It's a shame that clubs can be so cliqueish about who they book based on trad or singer-songwriter. I've also noticed this at folk conferences such as NERFA. . . a kind of competitiveness of who's cool, who's blah blah blah. This bores me -- it's social rather than music-related. My resolution is to gun the engines and do my thing without worrying about it too much, and try to exist peacefully in both worlds. All signs good so far.

erica

and I miss Jack (who is called Jack)

I'm gonna save this thread on a floppy I think.

Onward -- and now to get some sleep.

Art and Carol Thieme

I don't have an academic overview like some here. I was amazed while living in Bloomington In. all those years to run into many folklore students. They had a wide scope of interests. Some were writing their disertations on fiddling, some on stories collected about west coast mullusks, some on just old fashioned lies told in one region of the country pertaining to sheep. It was obvious to me that what I was doing didn't figure into anything that they might have called folk. This sort of left me in mid-air having to define myself. I did play an annual folklorist's convention once. They were interested in the resergance of the macaronic songs we had in our repertoire. Hell I thought we were just singing in 2 languages at once. A common thing for a fellow trying to get by in the music biz. Forked-tongue comes allready installed at birth in my family.

What I'm saying I guess is the average street player (me) must do what he must to survive. I love traditional music, food, stories, and am always ready to hear and play and sup at the table of tradition when it meets my standards of edibility. (very broad). When given money to sing and play I do so. When given money to write I do that. I feel unworthy in both cases but still I must eat. Maybe someday a folklorist will have an interest in music and songs made for survival. There is a certain servicability in the vessel of traditional music. It builds strong songs that can carry very heavy loads for long distances. Made for me.

Art for president,

Luke

It's been said by many before us: The old songs are not good because they are old. They are old because they are good.

Art