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When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Margo Date: 20 May 00 - 12:58 PM When I heard Lou Killen singing sea shanteys. Fell in love right away. From there the path let to old ballads, the American folk songs of my youth, and Rabbie Burns' songs! Love 'em all! Margo Lou Killen is superb!!! |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: The Shambles Date: 20 May 00 - 12:51 PM HYMNNS and folk tunes |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Mooh Date: 20 May 00 - 11:29 AM The Shambles (great handle btw), If you like Slane, check out some of the better hymnals (which will list tunes as traditional adaptations), for other tunes from the folk tradition. Some of them can be kinda dancie even. Cool thread, eh? Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: mactheturk Date: 20 May 00 - 11:09 AM DECEMBER 25, 1963. I got a guitar for Christmas. The first song I learned was "Pretty Mary" by Peter Paul & Mary, next "Where have All the Flowers Gone." Figured out "Don't think twice, it's alright". There was a show on T.V. called "Hootenanny". Barry McGuire sang "Eve of Destruction." Peter, Paul and Mary sang "If I had a Hammer" with Martin Luther King in Washington. There was a lot going on. It was a great time to be thirteen! MP |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: gillymor Date: 20 May 00 - 08:16 AM The soundtrack to the earliest part of my life, that I remember, was provided by the recordings of The Weavers, Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio and Burl Ives (as well as Gershwin, Cole Porter, Kern etc.) thanks to my Dad. I guess it all fermented until I was about twenty when I heard a friend of a friend playing Rev. Davis' Candyman which prompted me to go out and get a guitar and to fall in love with all kinds of acoustic music. Frankie |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: The Shambles Date: 20 May 00 - 07:55 AM I would have said Skiffle and Sonny Terry and all that wonderful American stuff.
But I do remember that the Hymnn, Lord Of All Hopfulness, was the fist song/tune that I really liked. Earlier in the thread Slane, was mentioned and this was the tune to that Hymnn. Interesting. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GUEST,bbc at work Date: 19 May 00 - 11:43 AM I'm a relative newcomer. It was one of the good aspects of my divorce, about 12 years ago. I dated a man who had lots & lots of Folk Legacy recordings & took me to a few concerts--Bill Staines, Lui Collins, Priscilla Herdman, Schooner Fare, & the like. After a year & a half, we broke up, but I sure kept the music & the love for it! Thanks, Sandy & Caroline! best, bbc |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: tgreenie Date: 19 May 00 - 01:28 AM For me it was the blue yodler, the singing brakeman, the father of country western, Jimmie Rodgers |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Terry Allan Hall Date: 18 May 00 - 06:30 PM I was about ten, I guess, so this would've been about '66...somehow I managed to aquire a Bros. Four album...started me on a life-long obscession for acoustic music of the folkie variety! |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GeorgeH Date: 18 May 00 - 08:30 AM Hey, McGrath, we must stop this agreeing in public . . George |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GUEST,BillH Date: 17 May 00 - 06:41 PM So, there I was about 10 years old and I hear Phil Harris and "That's What I like About The South". Me and my wind up record player. A wannabee DJ with my li'l ole record player. Certainly not folk---then came "country"--if you are from the NY area you may remember Don Larkin---Harkin To Larkin Barkin. WAAT--circa 1950. Something was missing===then came The Weavers (to me)and it all fell into place. The mental gate opens to the likes of Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and all those people who have something to say through music. Things that speak to a human condition. From there it is not a far reach to try to find where it all came from---from the Spirituals to the Protest Songs. From the LaMar Luncefords to the Carters. And we have now a current crop of people who write and sing to the human condition----my own favorite in this generation in this genre---the writer of a bunch of classic pieces (perhaps the most famous being And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda)---ERIC BOGLE. But let us not forget people like Pat Humphries, Magpie, and Kim & Reggie Harris. I respect and admire them just as highly. Bill H
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Hollowfox Date: 17 May 00 - 06:30 PM I was raised with a solidly eclectic musical base (bass?); opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, Burl Ives, Kingston Trio, hymns - they all carried equal weight (my parents only censored me in one respect. They hid their 10" Tom Leherer record. I guess they thought I'd get into trouble at school by singing "The Old Dope Peddler". They never worried about, say, "Unfortunate Miss Bailey", though.) My switch got thrown twice. About a week after I started college, I went to the first meeting of the folk music club, and I heard an appalachian dulcimer for the first time. That wild, nearly feral version of Shady Grove was like nothing else. Through that club, I went to Pinewoods Club folk music weekends, and figured out pretty fast that it was stupid to treat performers like a different breed of human; it was a lot more fun to become friends, regardless of what they did for a living. I discovered the pure heaven of late night sings, and found myself a happy part of this huge folk network. The second time the switch got flipped was the first time I went into a real coffeehouse (our college one in the Methodist fellowship hall was a nice try, but...) The minute I came through the door of the Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, even before I went up the stairs, even before I saw Lena greeting the customers, I knew I was home. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Irish Rover Date: 17 May 00 - 06:09 PM I must have been about 11 in a music class they played some old Irish ballads. I went home and told my folks they said oh you mean...... and started to play them I was hooked. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Kim C Date: 17 May 00 - 05:21 PM It was all my husband's fault. He's 12 years older than me and was a teenager/folkie/bluegrasser in the 70s. when we met we realized we liked a lot of the same music (mostly rock & roll then). He mentioned some folk & bluegrass people I had heard of but never listened to. Well, back then, our local NPR affiliate aired a show called Folk Sampler. (Gawd, I miss it.) One night, not long after we were married, we crowded round the radio on a Saturday night (that was nearly all the furniture we had at the time!) to listen to Norman Blake play Lincoln's Funeral Train. And that was IT. I ain't never looked back since. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 17 May 00 - 04:58 PM Irish music was always there in the background. But the penny dropped really when I went on my first Aldermaston march. H-bombs thunder, and so forth. By the second one I went on I had a guitar and could sort of play the songs.
GeorgeH has already said what I wanted to say about the crass comments about Eric Bogle at the start of the thread.
Riverdance was great as the interval for the Eurovision Song Contest, which is where it started. The blown up stage/telly version has some great stuff too. Since the apotheosis of Michael Flatley I believe it's partly recovered. (I just consulted an anagram finder - it came up with 15318 anagrams of Michael Flatley, including some quite remarkable words...I can just imagine him reading through everyone of them.) |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: L R Mole Date: 17 May 00 - 09:36 AM Oh, Tom Dooley (Dula, really), I guess. Thence the Limeliters. Chad Mitchell (Lizzie Borden!Super Skier!)With and without the young John Denver, ne Deutchendorf!)Then PP&M, Bobby D, Woody, Pete, and off into the roots and branches. One nexus I haven't seen explored is the barbershop-Four Lads,Kirby Stone Four, Four Freshmen, Lettermen-Kingston Trio (and, in another direction, Beach Boys)- harmony trail.Sometimes our hands and strings push our voices out of the mix, which is too bad: I like a good country third-and-fifth as much as anyone, but there's fun to be had without turning into the Swingle Singers. (Joe Queenan refers to Riverdance as Celtic hopscotch,but he's about the meanest man now writing.) |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GUEST,Sam Pirt Date: 17 May 00 - 06:01 AM Mine switched on 20 years ago!! When I was Born Cheers, Sam |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Banjer Date: 17 May 00 - 05:56 AM I think my switch got flipped in junior high school, (middle school nowadays) when a lot of kids that I wanted nothing to do with were listening to the local rock 'n roll station. You could about set your clock to the music they played each day. They might have had 100 songs and you knew it must be 10:15 if a certain song was playing. I wanted to be different and started listening to the local country music station which played what many of us knew as country music before the 'cosmopolitan' sound became popular. Hank Williams (the original, not his upstart imitation) Red Foley, Roy Acuff, even some of the old Carter family were played a lot. From there it was just natural progression to the current songs of the 60's, Blowin' In The Wind, Puff The Magic Dragon, Where Have All The Flowers Gone, and other Viet Nam era protest songs. I guess it just all boils down to not wanting to "fit in" with the crowd. I always gravitated away from what everybody else was listening to. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Peter T. Date: 16 May 00 - 06:59 PM Correction Max: best site in the world. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: KathWestra Date: 16 May 00 - 04:19 PM The pump was primed by my mother when I was a preschooler in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the late '50s. We listened twice a week to "Festival of Song," a live show with a studio audience produced by the University of Michigan radio station. That's where I absorbed loads of folksongs -- from "Marching to Pretoria" to "Skye Boat Song" to "The Ash Grove" and many others. She bought me a Folkways record by a group called the Folksmiths. (One member of that group, Joe Hickerson, became my husband many years later.) She played me that and many other records of folksongs.
In 1969, I spent some magical summer time at Camp Keewano ("place of the eagle, by the water, under the moon") in Newaygo, Michigan. All our counselors were deeply embroiled in the "folk scare," and campfire singarounds were full of songs learned from the Kingston Trio, Weavers, PP&M, Bob Dylan, etc. I bought a baritone ukelele and kept singing when camp ended. However, the serious love affair with folk -- the irrevocable "switch flipping" never-turn-back event -- was hearing Sandy and Caroline Paton for the first time in 1970 in a concert they gave at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They introduced me to a whole world of friends, musicians, and songs that have been the mainstay of my life for the past 30 years. (AND they rescued me from Grand Rapids and Calvinism, a true good deed -- just ask Big Mick!) Long live Folk-Legacy, Sandy, & Caroline! Kathy |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Mbo Date: 16 May 00 - 03:02 PM Love the website, Larry! Great concept, and funny too! --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: InOBU Date: 16 May 00 - 02:56 PM PS that should read come HEAR Sorcha Dorcha, and if you cant get to NYC and need your folk switch switched, here is an into into the process.... Sorcha Page . Larry |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: InOBU Date: 16 May 00 - 02:54 PM Born into it... and if your folk switch has not yet clicked on... Come here Sorcha Dorcha! Wendsday May 17! 8 - 10 PM the New Age Cabaret 23 Saint Marks Place (8th Street betwn 2nd 3rd Ave) NEW YORK CITY!
All the best |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GUEST,Ickle Dorritt Date: 16 May 00 - 02:27 PM The Graduate - loved that film, loved that music bought a simon & Garfunkel album then moved onto Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen -all of which happened 25 years ago. Then someone said you could meet really nice men at folk festivals and so I went to Cropredy and did not meet any, BUT discovered Fairport Convention...... |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: MAG (inactive) Date: 16 May 00 - 02:13 PM I was a young teen in the early 60's during the Folk Scare. My good friends Dave simpson and Bob Matson and others would get together and we'd sing "Four Strong winds" etc. ad infinitum. Heady says of youth. Rudy Reber brought Dylan into the mix. At the time he opened up a new world. Caroline brought in Baez. She sang beautifull. Dave was (and hopefully still is) a musical genius and could lead us in anything. I was a big Smothers Brothes fan and the flap over Pete Seeger and the blacklist made a deep impression. My parents are pretty right-wing and I was into covert rebellion big-time. Getting involved in the civil rights movement and later the anti-war movement led me to Joni Mitchell et. al. In college my best times continued to be sitting around with friends singing to guitars. When I moved to Chicago I made a beeline for Old Town School and the Lincoln Avenue clubs. My best buddies Stel and Bob once gace me a Bach record for christmas, saying, "Mary Ann, we think you listen to too much folk music." (This, from a red-diaper baby!) I just wish I had bought a smaller guitar about 25 years ago ... Hi Phil; say hello to Margaret for me. (Voice like an angel, folks.) Mary Ann (Aural Trad., Chicago Storytellers Guild, etc etc.) |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: black walnut Date: 16 May 00 - 01:41 PM i would LISTEN to fiddle music (don messer, on tv) with my grandparents. i would LISTEN to my father practise his bagpipes. he'd play them on the high rocky hills when we were at the lake up north. i would LISTEN to excellent folk singers and instrumentalists at concerts and folk festivals, beginning with Home County Folk Festival in London, Ont., way back at the beginning of the festival (27 years ago?). meanwhile, i was collecting a classical music degree. i began PARTICIPATING in folk music 6 YEARS AGO! when i went for the first time to The Woods Music and Dance Camp at Lake Rosseau. since then i've enjoyed 6 years of wonderful folk music and folk friendships. this year we had to put a two-storey addition onto the house in order to fit all of the instruments i've aquired.... ~black walnut |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Jon W. Date: 16 May 00 - 01:36 PM From rock to blues to acoustic blues. Stuck there for several years. Then this guy where I was working (about 1991), says I ought to try some Irish stuff, all that blues was harmful to my brain. He lent me Planxty's "The Woman I Loved So Well." The song "Little Musgrave" from that album blew me away. It wasn't long before I started liking the jigs and reels as well. He lent me several more albums and let me keep them, since he didn't have a turntable any more. I owe my braim and my norbalcy to him. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Whistle Stop Date: 16 May 00 - 12:50 PM My switch was flipped by my Dad when I was three or four years old. He had a guitar and some rudimentary skill, and he had Pete Seeger's book "American Folk Songs and Ballads" or some such title (little blue songbook; used to see it everywhere). My Dad would bring out his guitar, gather me and my brothers around, and sing "The Fox" or "Tenting Tonight" or "Wabash Cannonball" or "Big Rock Candy Mountain," and we ate it up. Eventually I latched onto the Beatles when they came around (I was five when they hit the US), and the Stones, and whoever else played an electric guitar on the Ed Sullivan show. Then I heard "Like A Rolling Stone," got seriously into Dylan, and started to backtrack to his early solo acoustic stuff. Got a guitar of my own, took lessons, became af arily accomplished classical guitarist, and played in rock and roll bands. Went in every direction I could with music, and it's been a lifelong passion. I had some difficult years with my Dad in adolescence and early adulthood, like a lot of people do. But we became very close in more recent times, until he passed away last year. Those times when my brothers and I gathered to hear him play and sing along were a gift to all of us, and I find myself recalling them a lot these days. Sorry if this is too sentimental a remembrance, but thanks for asking. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GeorgeH Date: 16 May 00 - 12:34 PM Hey, your all so busy telling us how you got off on this stuff that you're going to let the thread originator get away with such nonsense as describing "Willie Macbride" as "pretentious" and Bogle's output as "mostly hot air" . . I reckon that guy's from another species . . As for "Riverdance" - I've never seen what the fuss was about . . but at least it's not as bad as the infantile choreography / continuity of "Lord Of The Dance" . . And Flatulence is one of the most ignorant individuals it's ever been my misfortune to see an interview with . . But to answer the question . . age 17, on a sailing holiday with the school - we were asked if we'd like to go to the local Folk Club to pass an evening . . Well, it was in a pub so despite the "no drinking" rule (we managed to get round that, too) we went. Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. And, as others have noted, life's never been the same since. Discovering a music which embodies committment and real meaning . . whether in "Sweet Thames . ." or an anti-Vietnam war ballad. And able to switch from one to the other as consecutive songs . . G. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Rick Fielding Date: 16 May 00 - 12:01 PM Friend says, I got a spare ticket to see this guy named Seeger at the concert Hall...wanna go?. Lights go down. One little yellow spot comes on. Skinny guy in red shirt comes out and sings "John Henry was a little......." Game over. Life, as I knew it, over. World opends up! Rick |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Mbo Date: 16 May 00 - 11:25 AM And we are all eternally thankful for that flip-on, King Max! Thanks so much man! --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Max Date: 16 May 00 - 11:22 AM Growing up, my folks had hundreds of records. I remember every Bob Dylan album to date; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; John Denver; Peter, Paul and Mary; Joan Baez; A BeeGees album, some Motown, and something I think was called a Folk Box. My father listened to Bob Dylan with surprising intensity, a rare display of passion. I listened to see what moved him so. I remember Bob singing and me hearing about Woody and Sonny and Cisco and Leadbelly and Pete Seeger. When I opened the Folk Box, there was 4 or 5 different albums, listing the names of those people I had some how heard of. I listed to the Folk Box here and there, only partially remembering its contents. I, like my father, became a Bob Dylan fan. Around the same time, I had a music teacher in elementary school that probably was a folkie, cause she was teaching us Woody Guthrie Songs and all kinds of Traditional songs that I only recognize now. Fast Forward, In high school I became a fan of Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, The Grateful Dead and the like. In interviews, I kept hearing them talk about a fellow named Robert Johnson. Always one to figure out influences of whom I respect, I went out and got The Complete Recordings of Robert Leroy Johnson. I owned it for 2 years before I understood it, and grew to be mesmerized by it by college. In the years to follow, I began finding new magical music, Leadbelly, Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee... seemingly blues, but apparently down that line right between folk and blues. Then Woody and Pete Seeger, Big Bill Broonzy, Tom Paxton, Bill Monroe and Doc Watson etc. I would order Smithsonian Folkways compilations and discover a new great one every time. Color me a fan. Then one thing happened to seal the deal with me and folk. I went to a gathering! The people I met and the music I heard had to be the finest in the world... and they were people like me. I knew that this was right... Then I started this little thing called the Mudcat Cafe, the best folk Web site in all the world. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Mbo Date: 16 May 00 - 11:13 AM Ron, Michael Flatley plays the flute in "Feet of Flames", the final production of Lord of The Dance with him in it. He plays a gorgeous tune called "Whispering Wind"...was was a multi-time Irish flute champion in his home town of Chicago. This is especially amazing since he suffers from an acute form of asthma. --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Jed at Work Date: 16 May 00 - 10:56 AM interesting comment, Bert - my earliest memories likewise include my Dad singing us to sleep .. and all those wonderful old Irish/American songs .. I have begun adding them to my repertoire one at a time, over the years. So many times when I introduce a song I start by saying; "this is a song my Dad used to sing to us ... " |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Bert Date: 16 May 00 - 10:43 AM My earliest memories are of my Dad singing us to sleep. So I just loved singing. When I was about three I was going to marry Vera Lynn. At school English folk songs were the norm. We learned 'The Nightingale', 'The Keeper', 'The Ash Grove' and so on. And in the Fifties came Lonnie Donnegan - WOW! Then I got involved in American Square Dancing - Yes there's a lot of it in England. 'Sets in Order' magazine ran a series by Terry Golden of Colorado Springs called 'Americana'. It was American folk songs with a page or so of history about each one. I have a few of the articles still around somewhere. I wish they'd publish the whole set again. Little did I know that years later I was to live in Colorado Springs and getto talk to Terry Golden and to tell him how much I had enjoyed 'Americana'. My first wife was a folk dancer, mostly international and Russian. So, for many years we did a lot of dancing. RIVERDANCE - Good dancers but I hate watching them. 'Cos the worst torture you can inflict upon a dancer is to play dance music and not let them get up and dance. When I first worked in The Middle East I picked up a book at the local book store. I think it was called 'Folk Songs' and it was by Tom Glazer. There was a chapter in the back on 'How to play guitar' So I had some spare cash and a lot of time on my hands so I bought a guitar and learned a few chords. And things have gone from bad to worse since then. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GUEST,Ron Olesko Date: 16 May 00 - 10:26 AM Would we knock Oklahoma because it isn't American folk music? Why knock Riverdance? Might as well knock Who Wants to Be A Millionaire or WWF wrestling - none of them are connected with folk music but if people like them- great. Why get bent out of shape? I've seen Riverdance, it is a wonderful show and I had a good time. I also got a kick out of Star Wars. Neither one changed my life, but that is me. The media hyped both and lots of people received enjoyment - so what is wrong with that? If people find their way into the world of trad and folk music because of Riverdance, that is wonderful. That is not the purpose of the show. Riverdance shouldn't be looked at as trad music or expected to be a representation of traditional Irish music. Incidently, I have a wonderful album of trad music that Michael Flatley recorded in the early 80s. He is/was a decent flute player and has/had a respect for the tradition. I wonder why the album was never re-released with all the hype surrounding him in recent years. Too close to the source for comfort perhaps?
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Allan C. Date: 16 May 00 - 10:13 AM I think that in another thread I traced it back to my very first music teacher in elementary school who was the first person I ever heard to describe a song as a "folk" song. But after thinking about it for awhile, I have realized that it goes back to a 45 rpm record player that my brother was given when I was about four years old. My parents bought a Roy Rogers double record set which contained a few snatches of some western basics like, "Streets of Laredo" but with different words. The records were featuring Roy along with "Gabby" Hayes who were explaining all about how to be a cowboy. So the words they sang to "Laredo" were,"Mount up on the left side. Get down on the same." And later in the song, "Don't bother nothin' that don't bother you." (I was a fairly big kid before I knew that those weren't the words to the song!) Another two-record set came soon after which featured Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. On it were songs such as, "The Navajo Trail" which, although not a traditional folksong, captured my imagination with such lines as "I love to lie and listen to the music when the wind is strummin' a sagebrush guitar". I nearly played the grooves off of those records. Between those records and the songs my family always sang while taking long drives in the car, I had all I needed to flip my switch. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GUEST,JulieF Date: 16 May 00 - 09:57 AM The problem with Riverdance was not Riverdance itself - which was a clevery executed piece for the middle of the Eurovision Song contest. The problem was the media phenomena that it became. Lots of kids have started dancing after Riverdance, especially boys and that was great. The problem was that everything was expected to be exactly like it. Many people responded with a traditional backlash. At least it let my daughter's hobby be socially aceptable to her friends for a few years. Michael Flatley , however, I can do without. Julie |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GUEST,dan evergreen Date: 16 May 00 - 09:49 AM Actually, the Mudcat. I had progressed from 60's folk to country. A year or two ago I was sick of country and started trying to learn some old love songs, pop songs, show songs, etc. One day I was looking for some lyrics and accidently landed here. I was fascinated at some of the threads. I ordered a few recommended CDs including Jean Redpath's Robert Burns songs and a good one by the Irish Tenors. My search for a musical genre was over. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Mbo Date: 16 May 00 - 09:32 AM No, it isn't a mean word. I love Bill Whelan's music...I have all the song lyrics and monologues memorized...I could care less about the dancers looks, but that percussion is awesome to listen to on the car stereo. I can tap out "Rolling Thunder" completely, I know all the rhythms. Yes, and I like Lord of The Dance too. Not because of Michael Flatley, but just the overall thing. Love to play "Siamsa" on my fiddle. Hey, I told you I ain't no folkie! --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: catspaw49 Date: 16 May 00 - 09:26 AM RIVERDANCE??? RIVERDANCE???? RIVERDANCE??????? (I leave it to you to say that "Riverdance" is a "mean" word......I didn't) Spaw |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Mbo Date: 16 May 00 - 09:18 AM Well, after being obsessed with Riverdance the first time I saw it in early 1997, at age 18, (one mean word against it, and POW! mind ye) I started listening to the NPR program "Thistle & Shamrock". After hearing Andy M. Stewart sing "Donegal Rain" I knew I'd never be the same again. But after listening to the Clancy Brothers' Greatest Hits, I realized that I wanted to play this music myself! And, well, here I am! --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Wesley S Date: 16 May 00 - 09:12 AM My older brother started listening to the first Peter Paul and Mary LP's in the mid 60's. I always - and still do - prefer them to the Brothers Four and Kingston Trio albums he bought later. Jack Linkletters "Hootenany" show was a big influence also. Then he got this huge cannon of a 12 string. A Gibson B-45-12. It has a bass like an echo rolling down a canyon. The sound seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. I loved it even though I could barely get my fingers around the neck. We still have it over 30 years later. It's in my temporary custody until he gets some stuff figured out on his boat. When I combined that 12 string and the songs of Fred Neil I was in heaven. My Louden 12 string is excellent but it pales in comparison to my first discoveries on that old Gibson. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Ella who is Sooze Date: 16 May 00 - 09:00 AM I guess for me it was at infant school and doing set dancing classes and having to dance with the boys when we thought that boys were yuck and protested about dancing with them. Before that though it was in the family. Then after infant schools from the set dancing days, it was a bit dormant, when I did Classical singing etc at high school, and up until I left university, and I went one evening to a local Catholic Church fund raising event to send someone to Lourdes. I was bullied into going (not really interested in church) by a very strong willed older (matriarch) of the community. And I heard an Irish group and was asked to partner someone for a set dance. It re awoke my interest, and I joined a comhaltas group and learned to play the Whistle, the bodhran and guitar etc and I'm now in a group myself. Essentially though I think it is part of my family lifestyle which is where it all started and where I was originally encouraged to play an instrument. E |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: JedMarum Date: 16 May 00 - 08:20 AM when I was 10, 11, 12, I began to pick out my favorites from the Hootenany TV show; Theodore Bickell, Johnny Cash, Chad Mitchell Trio - my interest was peaked ... but I'd hafta say my folk switch was turned when I first experienced the live shows of Tom Rush, Jaime Brockett, Bill Staines and a couple of other New England folkies. when I was 15 years old I played at an open mic at the Y-Not Coffeehouse in Worcester Massachusetts. Bill Staines was one of the feature performers there, in those days, and I was so impressed with his finger pickin', flat pickin', singin' and stroy tellin' - Many many years later after developing some of the same skills, I ran across some old recordings of Bill and was shocked to realize just how much I had emulated what I'd heard that night, right down to even some of the songs I'd forgotten he'd played! - That must be an example a folk switch being tyrned on! |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Spider Tom Date: 16 May 00 - 08:17 AM I LOVE music, especially music that connects with me on some emotional level, folk music does that. I probably started out with the odd folk song via the school choir, but as I grew found songs you could sing sitting on a bus or around a fire etc. I was born in 1950 and prior to T.V. in Australia, it was common to hear people singing while they worked. My Grandmother was half Irish (the singing part I think) she was always singing and telling stories, My uncle was a piano man in a pub, and my Dad played the Harmonica a little, he also had Quite a collection of 78s.,a lot of which were old folk or country. I sing a bit and always favour records of songs I can sing myself so that keeps me in the folk line to some extent, I also love good lyrics and the thought of singing something that has a true meaning, is inspiring. But I keep mindful of the fact that FOLK MUSIC is music of peoples through time and dosn't have to be archaic, as some would have you believe. When did I start listening to folk? Spider Tom Probably just after being born. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Mooh Date: 16 May 00 - 08:13 AM Phil Cooper, Hi, it's Mike from Goderich. Hope you're well. Regards to Kate and Margaret too. We will miss you here this year! I grew up on church music and some of the tunes that stuck were the folk ones like Slane, Kingsfold, Martyrdom, and the like. I also heard alot of humourous songs of my Dad's, Mum's Scottish influence, and older sibling's 60's folk and rock taste's. Campfire songs. Acoustic blues and rock. Jethro Tull. The Friendly Giant. After I started playing guitar, I always fought between acoustic and electric styles, and though I still play both, I treat them as very different animals, and I've always preferred acoustics. Fate introduced me to folk minded friends in high school, then bluegrassers, and later celtoids. Was 17 when I went to my first folk festival. Always had an interest in other acoustic instruments. I might have been born with the bug but I still need a regular fix. Cool thread folks. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: GUEST,JulieF Date: 16 May 00 - 07:47 AM I can't remember not knowing some traditional Scottish songs in the same way that I can't remember not being able to read music. I went to a very small village school in the very late 60s/ early 70s. We did not have much resources but I do remember the Singing together programs which had songs from different lands. This sort of sining continued when we went to the larger Primary School two miles away. Although I loved music we were not a family that were steeped in music ( unlike the way we are now) and it wasn't until my mid teens that I started discovering all sorts of different music - I believe I started with Queen and Steeleyespan. The high school had a folk club for a short period of time. A group of us A Level Scientists played rock music in the sixth form and then it was the excitement of live music. There is still nothing better than jumping up and down to live music. My musical tastes are wide ranging but I can't help thinking that some of the Scottish traditional stuff is routed deep down somewhere. Julie |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: AndyG Date: 16 May 00 - 07:37 AM Like RtS and Bron above I actually came into contact with "folk music" through school radio programmes1. However, it wasn't given that name. I didn't know I liked Folk Music for many years.
In effect it was just there, all the time, but when the revival happened I got told what I liked !
Ho hum.
1 And my mum, who was a primary school teacher and sang2 all the time.
AndyG |
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Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on? From: Bugsy Date: 16 May 00 - 07:29 AM At 15 I discovered Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and Dylan. (that's back in 1963.) Couldn't get to grips with the guitar then saw Bill Clifton at my local folk club in Hertfordshire UK. Bill had an Autoharp, and said "If you can't play one of these, then I'm afraid it's the triangle for you." I pestered my Dad, and he bought me an Autoharp for my 16th Birthday. (All my other mates got Motor Scooters) From then on I was hooked. In reply to GUEST,Mrbisok@aol, and whilst not wishing to start an arguement (perish the thought),I know Eric Bogle pretty well and with far from finding his music pretentious and mostly hot air, would like to assure you that he feels very strongly about the songs he writes and carries out in depth research before putting pen to paper. Most of his songs are written from personal experience or from experiences passed on to him first hand. That's what puts the magic into his work. Anyway, I'm glad he got you "turned on" to folk music. Cheers Bugsy |
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