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Is Neil Young a folk singer?
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,Dragonmom Date: 13 Jul 02 - 05:28 AM I agree with you DaveJ. I think the only reason my genaration found him so good was because we were all so stoned. Sorry to say it but the same with Bob Dylan. IMHO. Dragonmom |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: DaveJ Date: 12 Jul 02 - 06:40 AM Kat said:" When I hear his early stuff: Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, which I really enjoy, I don't think folk, I think "hippie," which imo is not a bad thing." I agree with Kat. Neil's earlier writng, playing & singing was (were?) sort of a '60's country-folk-rock. It was (IMHO) enjoyable but definitely not 'pure' folk music (grin). Much of his later stuff fails to even fall into the music catagory. It is just loud, obnoxious feedback and shouting. I'm afraid Neil has Bogarted one to many joints. Dave
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,Ashley Date: 12 Jul 02 - 05:50 AM ... muttering small talk at the wall while i'm in the hall |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Bullfrog Jones Date: 12 Jul 02 - 05:10 AM Didn't say anybody was useless LH -- I just get the feeling that this discussion is a little uh... redundant? Neil Young is what he is. A damn fine songwriter and musician, a ...distinctive(!) singer, a contradiction -- a humanitarian who supported Reagan, a man who takes risks and sometimes fails but has got what it takes to keep on going for thirty-odd years in a fickle business without compromising his integrity. But is he a folk singer? Come on fercrissakes! As for something more useful, how about playing/singing/writing/or listening to music? And how did you trap me into extending this redundant discussion? Curse you and your devilish wiles, Little Hawk! :-} BJ |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Little Hawk Date: 11 Jul 02 - 06:50 PM Do you, Bullfrog? Gosh, well then give us some tips! We're all languishing away here, just devastated about bein' "so useless and all"... :-) - LH |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Don Firth Date: 11 Jul 02 - 06:25 PM Nope. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Bullfrog Jones Date: 11 Jul 02 - 05:40 PM Don't you folks have something useful to do? |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Don Firth Date: 11 Jul 02 - 02:29 PM Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Joni Mitchell are all humanoids. I don't think anyone can go much further than that with any authority. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Jack the Sailor Date: 11 Jul 02 - 08:50 AM Stray Cat Blues would be considered Folk in many circles. It's Trad blues. As would the songs Led Zepplin stole from Willie Dixon. Reworking old tunes is part of the folk tradition. Right? Page and Plant have proof of their folk status. They were successfully sued! The Stones are wannabes, they didn't have to pay Muddy Waters a dime. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Mooh Date: 11 Jul 02 - 06:23 AM Steve, especially if one considers Salt Of The Earth the Stones could be folk. They might even be greater influenced than Neil Young by folk. Either way, compared to, say, Long Black Veil, how long will it take for the debate to include NY and RS songs? 50 years, or just another Mudcat thread? LOL! Now, if I dress in the folk costume, sit, strum a venerable old Martin box, expound on the historical significance of the song, then wheeze away at "Star Star" (Honey I love your two tone kisses, legs wrapped around me tight, If I ever get back to fun city baby, I'm gonna make you scream all night)...can I call it folk? Starfucker ain't Banks Of The Bann, but how far removed are they? Is there a folk satire site I'm missing? Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,greg stephens Date: 11 Jul 02 - 05:21 AM don't see that Neil Young has got much to do with folk but the Stones undoubtedly do.they started off playing folk material exclusively, then progressed to song writing, and their first effort (I think) was "This could be the last time" was a reworking of a spiritual. They were the first to master the new technology of using big PA systems to make big audiences part of the act in a real way. And they developed a whole set of tricks which spread and were used by huge numbers of people creating all sorts of new stuff. Smack in the middle of the folk process I would have thought. Far more so than the average acoustic guitar/sonngwriter who gets classified under "folk" in record shops. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: katlaughing Date: 11 Jul 02 - 03:34 AM Regardless of whether he is or isn't, recently NPR had a fascinating interview of Jimmy McDonough who has just written a biography about him entitled, "Shakey." You can read about the interview, listen to it, and also listen to a NY Sampler by clicking here. When I hear his early stuff: Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, which I really enjoy, I don't think folk, I think "hippie," which imo is not a bad thing. kat |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: alanabit Date: 11 Jul 02 - 01:45 AM Actually Steve, when you hear the trouble that Keith Richard goes to with the tunings etc, you can make a good argument for calling them a folk influenced band at times. Especially as in the examples Mooh gave. I don't reallly like strict definitions in music. To some folks of course, it's a nonsense to see the Stones as a part of the folk process. I guess we will only get our answer if we all live a couple of hundred years longer and see what happens! |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Steve Latimer Date: 11 Jul 02 - 01:06 AM Mooh, Yeah, but are The Stones folk? |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Mooh Date: 10 Jul 02 - 04:28 PM Oh, for crying out loud! Neil Young might be a folk singer if he was ever heard to sing a folk song, which he might do somewhere other than the public eye. But from what I've heard, and I think it's just about everything he's recorded commercially, he's really a singer/songwriter in the pop (including rock) genre. That he (sometimes) plays acoustic and sings doesn't make him "folk". To my ears he doesn't even write in a folk style, meaning traditional, though as previously noted he has written some good protest variety songs which might squeak into the folk definition for some. I don't sense that his song structures are folkie, even if his image appears to some to be folkie. I also don't sense that he attempts to continue a tradition other than his own songs. None of this is bad, and to me much of it is good, but it ain't folk. I had the peculiar privilege of playing in a NY tribute band for a couple of years and nobody ever called it folk. Neil Young is no more folk than, say, the Rolling Stones more acoustic efforts like Let It Bleed or Beggar's Banquet (two of my favourite records, btw). Is NY a folkie, as in a listener/follower/collector/etc of folk music? Don't know, but I hope so, because he, like we, can learn from it. Is he influenced by folk music in any way? You betcha. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Dragonmom Date: 10 Jul 02 - 04:35 AM Neil can not sing for beans. He plays very,very well. But sing, NO! Folk singer? Not in my book. Dragonmom |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,Mojo Date: 10 Jul 02 - 12:49 AM Neil Young is one thing: BRILLIANT |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,Pean O'Graffey Date: 09 Jul 02 - 07:54 PM It's always a bit dicey trying to define one genre from another, and even dicier defining musicians who dabble in diferent genres constantly as Neil does, but the folksinger has to be the defined as the travelling minstrel - the "poor player who struts & frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more..." Neil is not one of them. But, many of his songs will be the folk songs of the future. As someone mentioned earlier, some of them already are. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 09 Jul 02 - 07:39 PM Maybe not a folksinger, but I think he'd pass as a folkie.
I'd see him more as some kind of left-field country singer rather than anything. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: RichM Date: 09 Jul 02 - 07:13 PM When Neil Young was young, he was a folkie...he's still Young, but not young...so maybe since he's no longer young, (but still : Young!) he's not a folkie anymore... |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: alanabit Date: 09 Jul 02 - 05:49 PM Neil Young scored the winning goal for Manchester City after twenty-three minutes and fourteen seconds of the 1969 FA Cup Final. This act of earth shattering significance certainly makes him a folk hero (in some parts of Manchester), but I am not sure whether it qualifies him as a folk singer... |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: John MacKenzie Date: 09 Jul 02 - 04:43 PM Depends on how you spell folk!...Giok |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Arnie Date: 09 Jul 02 - 04:31 PM Well, I hear a Neil Young song pretty regularly in our folk club - that one about the silver spaceships flying in the face of the sun (All in a Dream?). As all the folkies join in with the bits I suppose that passes as a folk song. Neil Young does not wish to be categorised and so changes his style from time to time - wish we were all so versatile. However, as someone said further up the thread, part of him is a folk singer - at least when he wants to be. Anyway, whatever he is, I reckon he's written some cracking songs and I've got all his early stuff and never tire of him. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: catspaw49 Date: 09 Jul 02 - 04:21 PM "Joni Mitchell is what happens when you mate a jazz singer with a corncob pipe... " Hawk, I commend you on that remark. Very insightful and I shall add it to my collection....Right under the one that says Neil Young is the living proof that Eskimos buttfucked caribou. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Little Hawk Date: 09 Jul 02 - 02:30 PM Oh, Dicho! You have risked angering Shane McB---- beyond reason by those insensitive remarks. He worships Neil Young and Shania Twain...particularly Shania. On the other hand, he can't stand Michael Jackson. Still, I think you are treading on dangerous ground. - LH |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Jul 02 - 12:08 PM I must have something in common with Uncle Dave O. I hear of these people on television or see a picture while paging through the newspaper, but if I heard them sing on the raddio, I wouldn't be able to name them- Neil Jung, Shamia Trane, Mitchell Jackson, and about 99 per cent of the other pop starlings. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Mountain Dog Date: 09 Jul 02 - 11:44 AM Thanks, Little Hawk! A fairer description of Joni I've yet to see! |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST Date: 09 Jul 02 - 11:37 AM In Last Trip to Tulsa, Neil sings: Well I used to be a folk singer So he obviously once was... |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Little Hawk Date: 09 Jul 02 - 11:32 AM Joni Mitchell is what happens when you mate a jazz singer with a corncob pipe... - LH |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST Date: 09 Jul 02 - 11:23 AM Who cares ? What does the question mean? Neil Young is an important artists...say no more .. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy Date: 09 Jul 02 - 11:19 AM hey, Joni Mitchell is not a folksinger either!
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Little Hawk Date: 09 Jul 02 - 11:10 AM I wouldn't exactly call Neil Young a folksinger, but...I'd say he's somewhat tenuously connected to the folk music movement, in that he, and some of the bands he was in, often appeal to people who say they like folk music. Neil was most directly inspired by Bob Dylan, who is or is not a folksinger...depending on which side of the bed you got out of this morning. Dylan is not exclusively anything at all, of course, and he has never claimed to be "a folksinger" (quite the contrary, in fact), but I would concur with Jack the Sailor that he carried the Woody Guthrie tradition forward magnificently. Back to Neil. He's a number of things. Folksinger is not the first that comes to mind. He's a pretty good songwriter, a truly weird but sometimes appealing singer, a country-rock musician, a rocker, a stoner, an anti-fashion statement, a well-known Canadian export... Anyone who claims not to know who he is must have been hiding under a stone for the last 40 years. I'd say that about 5 or 6 per cent of him is a folksinger. - LH |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: greg stephens Date: 09 Jul 02 - 08:18 AM Well,let's assume that a "folksinger" is someone who sings "folksongs". So all we've got to do is examine the songs Neil Young sings, and then we'll know if he's a folksinger or not.That should be pretty easy, there must be a thread somewhere that defines what a folksong is. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,j c Date: 09 Jul 02 - 07:57 AM If were talking about about the same Neil Young here - i.e. son of Brigham and brother of Faron - then maybe you could just be right...... |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: catspaw49 Date: 09 Jul 02 - 06:49 AM Bitter? The NYCFTTS is well known and respected institution around here! Many owe their sanity as well as their ability on tiple and noseflute to their stay at the Center. We are also proud of the work being done in the new wing, the James Taylor Rehab Clinic for Catatonic Blandness. BTW, all donations are now tax deductible. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Steve Latimer Date: 09 Jul 02 - 03:05 AM Neil? no. Dylan? Was. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Jack the Sailor Date: 09 Jul 02 - 03:03 AM Sorry Neil's website http://www.neilyoung.com/ Man oh man, I'm listening to his album Passion and I'd be hard pressed to call him a singer! Good songwriter and performer though. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Jack the Sailor Date: 09 Jul 02 - 03:01 AM Bitin' on the guest thread. I'm suckered in again. All guest wants to do is start a fuss but I'm posting anyway ;) For anyone who is interested here is Neil's website. You can listen to his latest album. Is Neil Young a folk singer? Cons
In Winnipeg the bands he was in were rock and roll "Brit pop" bands competing against the Guess Who Pros
He knows Joni Mitchell My evaluation: He is a singer songwriter with a social concious and the prototype for the "grunge" movement. On the other hand I believe that Bob Dylan was a folk singer and possibly still is. I think that Woody Gutherie made the mold for the North American Folk singer and in Many ways Bob fits that mold. In many ways he carries on Woody's tradition. Cheers all jts |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,Pills Date: 09 Jul 02 - 02:18 AM Spaw-baby, why so bitter? |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,Woody Date: 08 Jul 02 - 10:25 PM "It's all folk music, 'cause it's played by folks." - Woody Guthrie |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: catspaw49 Date: 08 Jul 02 - 10:07 PM No...........And Bob Dylan isn't a folksinger either. Pete Seeger is a folksinger. Art Thieme is a folksinger. If you believe Neil is a folksinger then you need to spend some time under the care of Dr. Cojones at the Neil Young Center for the Terminally Screwed. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 08 Jul 02 - 08:54 PM If the mere fact that an artist sometimes eschews the acoustic guitar in favor of electric makes him/her something besides a folk singer, then Neil Young is not one. Neither is Bob Dylan nor John Prine. Hell, I whip out the old Stratocaster myself every now and then just to play "Cowgirl in the Sand" so I guess I'm not a folk singer either, huh? Bruce |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: dick greenhaus Date: 08 Jul 02 - 08:20 PM I always though he was a singing horse. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:48 PM I know whio he his, he has got a crazy horse.john |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: michaelr Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:40 PM Crosby-Stills-Nash and Young? Buffalo Springfield? "The Needle and the Damage Done"? "Heart of Gold"? Nothing rings a bell? HEL-LOO?! No offense, but one must have been hiding pretty hard for all that music to have passed one by... Cheers, Michael |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST,Young Neil Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:34 PM Part of him is, yes. |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:18 PM I am aware of MR. Neil Young, a singer who uses that name on Paltalk. I've been given to understand that that's in admiration or imitation of a commercial singer of some kind by that name. If in imitation, I have no idea whatsoever how close he may come to his model.
I have been a folk song nut (some people don't bother with the two adjectives, though) for about fifty years now. Just never heard of Neil Young. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: michaelr Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:10 PM Even more impressive is living through the last third of the 20th century without having heard of Neil Young! And yes, one half of his persona is definitely a folk singer. The other half is a crazed anarchist rock'n'roll guitarist. Cheers, Michael |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:05 PM so you are aware of every folk singer in the world, John? An impressive achievement |
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Subject: RE: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: John Routledge Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:01 PM I don't know who Neil Young is so that probably proves he isn't a folk singer :0) |
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Subject: Is Neil Young a folk singer? From: GUEST Date: 08 Jul 02 - 06:54 PM To my mind, he is. What do you think? |
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