Review: Is this Folk?

Subject: Review: Is this Folk?
From: gnu
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 08:54 PM

In the tradition of folk you? A protest song, perhaps?

I just wanted others to hear this in case they might not have seen Pink do anything other than great tunes and entertain.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: gnu
Date: 28 Mar 07 - 09:22 PM

In response to the PM I just got, just in case others have the same comments...that was mild... this is not.... but, if you listen to the lyrics, it might be worth while.

After all... if I have learned anything in this Café in the last seven years... it's that nobody can define folk.... thank the Goddess of Music.

If I have offended any serious folkies, my bad. Hope we're cool.

g

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 05:26 AM

To be honest, I end up hating myself when I contribute to these threads. I can hear myself losing my temper, and invariably - I walk away.

Ruth Archer and Richard Bridge may totally correct in their definitions of folk music - I don't know.

I do know this though - the upshot of it locally is this.

Every semi competent traddy who can just about nearly limp through the Dorset 4 hand reel, or Harvest Home can get a shake on the local radio. A cover version of Martin, or Vin and you're in.

Really important singer songwriters have lived and died without ever darkening the doors of the radio station that is there to serve the community. Clubs that were there all through the miners strike - and people came and sung songs about their lives, and still do - totally ignored. Book an 'A' list guest though - and you've joined the club. And the whole attitude permeates to the people booking the local festivals - of which there are several.

Furthermore, honestly, is it in all conscience about pseudo American accents and Americana being the preferred sensibility of some English people? After all these same people would wet themselves with excitement if they could book Al Stewart.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: greg stephens
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 11:35 AM

Who is stopping songwriters from getting gigs? Surely you can start a singersongwriter festival or club anytime you l1ke? You can listen all day to Radio 2 or Radio1 and virtually never hear a traditional folksong. I would say virtually 99% of mainstream radio output is songwriter stuff. What on earth are you talking about, WLD? I dont ever recall hearing someone playing Harvest Home on Radio1, whether competently or incompetently.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 11:57 AM

I suppose I'm talking about those of us, who were once gratefully accepted as part of the folk community and took out as our inspiration the guitar based stuff - Jansch, Renbourn, Gerry Lockran.

they aren't on radio 2 and they're excluded from all the folk programmes. well we ain't part of the tradition, are we.....

I'm talking about a committment to the acoustic guitar that isn't requited by Paul weller thumping away. A vanished age when an acoustic album wasn't something Eric Clapton fitted in, in his summer holidays.

A lot of the traddies weren't into the guitar - so they threw away the baby with the bathwater - the Grey Cock Club in Brum - wouldn't let you in carrying a guitar. A lot of the traddies who could play well are not active for various reasons ...Tony Rose, Nic Jones.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 12:22 PM

Radio is irrelevant as far as music is concerned. I find CDs of music I like, download from emusic, take the excellent suggestions for music to look for from Mudcat and friends, make compilation CDs of the things I like best or put music I want to sample on an MP3 player and listen to what I choose rather than have someone else choose for me.   If I had access to a station that offered some real alternatives in my truck I might listen occasionally.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 01:15 PM

No. It is a very good performance (in some ways reminded me of Peter Paul and Mary, and Phil Ochs, and so many of the 60s protest singers) and I have long liked Pink's singing and performance. It is a nice song, maybe not wonderful (at least one of that Salford singer songwriter's Vietnam songs was better), but pretty good even although a bit simplistic and, well, childish.

I like it a lot and one could walk into any folk club in the country and perform it. I might do it, or ask my daughter to do it (at least partly to wind people up, as when I do "Substitute").

But it ain't folk.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 01:51 PM

if you need a label, how about "unplugged"?

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 01:53 PM

That would be because the guitar is plugged in and all of the singers are using microphones.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: Tootler
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 09:19 AM

That would be because the guitar is plugged in and all of the singers are using microphones.

I once watched REM "unplugged" on TV. It was recording of a concert. All the guitars were plugged in, They were using a solid electric bass and the singers were all using mics. Did make me wonder about the music business's definition of "unplugged"

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: Ernest
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 11:36 AM

All those MTV-unplugged concerets used microphones and acoustic instruments plugged in - it seemed to become a genre of its own back then...
Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 11:57 AM

What reslly depresses me about these threads is that there does seem to be a very significant number of English people who recognise no qualitative difference between the stuff REM and Paul Weller come up with, and an artist like say Wizz Jones.

Wizz may not play traditional material, but to me his approach, techniques and aesthetic should have an unchallenged place in English folk music. Part of the warp and weft of English folk artistry.

When you think of the really civilised basis of this movement with guys like Sydney Carter, who must have sat through a thousand Quaker meetings listening to all sorts of nonsense - and saying, well that is your appproach to God - I think that's how it should be.

When I listen to a some of the negativity and rejection that is so common place nowadays I think folk music has changed. Its like when you drive past those of those new churches like the Mormons, and you know there all in there - giving up a tenth of their wages, listening to Kate Rusby, giving themselves a slap on the back for being part of the tradition.

My old church is boarded up - I think I'll reopen it as a bingo hall.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: GUEST, Mikefule
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 12:37 PM

P!nk isn't a folk singer, but she'd be a good one. She writes good lyrics, she has a fantastic voice and is genuinely musical. The first time I heard "Hey Mr. President" I was driving and had to pull over to listen to the song, then I sat quietly for a bit before resuming my journey.

Her stuff isn't all feisty aggressive girls-go-clubbing songs.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: Ernest
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 12:48 PM

Well, WLD, I do regard Wizz Jones as folk. Admittedly I don`t know that much of his stuff but what I heard is much better guitar-playing than all that strumming done by those rock/pop-musicians gone solo acoustic. Maybe that is the problem: people seem to think that a single person with an acoustic guitar is just one more of those guys playing pub-rock. The general public isn`t educated that good when it comes to music..
Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 12:49 PM

WIZZ JONES is avery good performer,Ienjoyed PINK,on the basis of that song I would say she is a folk singer.
wizz used to play american traditional material and I still think there is that influence in his playing.

Subject: RE: Review: Is this Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 03:46 PM

no pink is showbiz - not folk. she probably went to the same stage school as Pauline Quirke.

I was reminded when I saw her act on telly of Anthony Sher, when he did Tamburlaine the Great at the Swan at stratford - he did all these speeches swinging upside down on a trapeze.

no whats bugging me is contemporary folk - these guys just don't get it, as a MOVEMENT - like the pre-raphaelites or something.

that you should think James Blunt and REM and Pink ......

Like that old guy said in Little Big Man, you must come to live with the human beings!