Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards
From:
GUEST
Date: 23 Feb 14 - 06:43 PM
My daughter's comments from outside on this - a typical 23 year old, therefore what should be our target market - were that the performances were monotonous, the tales uninteresting. That is the reality of what has been done to the folk world by the Trad school.
It's basically because there's only so much you can do to the that repertoire, and it's mostly been done - to death. Those who did it to death have moved on to writing their own work. It's not so much about where you've been as where you're going. Yes, where you've been is important, but where you're going is vital.
The Imagined Village isn't about Trad repertoire, but taking the spirit of folk music into somewhere that's new. Some of Bellowhead's work does the same. I'm not talking New American, or New Mumford, or New Age, but something which in three hundred years time will be a recognisable descendant of Cecil Sharp's collections, yet not done before. Even the most ancient of folk trad was new once.
Last year a number of folks on stage at the Albert Hall led out on Tapping The Source, setting a baseline for taking folk music forwards, and where they're going is interesting - not on album yet, maybe never, you'll have to follow Radio 3 to find out. Most definitely not Trad, but rooted in Trad. It may become Trad in 200 years, and your successors will most certainly be asking what the heck they were on when they did it. The objective answer is nothing, just shaking the cage.
Now that may not fit the Smooth Operations definition of Folk, which seems rather closer to Wally Whyton's than Full English. I ask you, the Mischa Macpherson Trio? Wasn't that the act not even Nazi Stormtroopers could get off stage in the Sound of Music? Or was it the Melrose Quartet? Nancy, what were you thinking of? The point is that although there is a place for Trad, it should not exclude all else, and there are enough hints in the Tradition to come up with new work which is faithful to the corpus. New words, new tunes, new ideas. Break the mould, get edgy, be surprising.
Heaven only knows what Billy Bragg's opinion of this thread would be. I know what the viewpoint of many performing folkies in the Dalston area is. There's enough to scream about. And all you can do is talk about weaving by steam!
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sj
