The current state of folk music in UK

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Raggytash
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 02:43 PM

In the past 5 years I have visited Essex, Devon, Cornwall, Lancashire, and North wales.

I found folk clubs for each night we where in those counties.

When I am North Yorkshire there are two weekly clubs close at hand and in the town I live in their are sessions EVERY night of the week.

That seems pretty healthy to me.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 02:50 PM

"That's insulting and patronising"
"If you aint with Jim exactly, you're against 'im..."...???
"But you are lining up with middle class folkie snobs"
THink were're finished here - don't you ?
I've told you exactly where I'm coming from - over and over again
You have obviously made up your own mind on that and nothing I'll ever say will change that
That little diatribe along with the ungainly rush for the 'thread drift' escape hatch just about finished me for now - I really have had enough
I'd happily continue this till Tim Henman takes the Mans' Singles, but not under these fouled-up circumstances
I'll leave you to it
- for now at least
Enjoy
Jim

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 02:59 PM

Perhaps because posters here are relatively old, few if any posts have referred to University Folk Clubs. I have googled and quickly found evidence of clubs at the following unis:
Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol, Durham, Glasgow, Nottingham

Some of these specify that they are interested in a range of folk music, not just that deemed to be of UK or British Isles origin, but this is within the range of the subject line of this thread. So that is a positive, I hope. Some seem to run events open to town as well as gown.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Vic Smith
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 03:03 PM

Jim wrote:-
Not at my best today - I returned from Belfast with a streaming cold as well as a load of books

I can suggest a remedy for your first ailment but I'm afaid there is no cure for your second one; I suffer from it myself....

OOPS! Both off topic! Slapped wrists for both.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 03:07 PM

Or perhaps the folk club regulars could haul their arses out of their comfy armchairs

I'm a folk club regular, Jack. Sing a bit. Play a bit. Not particularly talented but I enjoy it. Until about 7 years ago I helped to run a weekly club and annual festival. I have been involved in ritual dance and drama in the community. I have booked acts from across the globe to appear in free community events. I worked full time until July of this year and juggled the needs of an extended family with health issues, high pressure support work and moved house in the meanwhile.

I now just want to enjoy my visits to local folk clubs and have a good few years retirement. I am sure you will excuse me if I no longer want to haul my arse out of my comfy armchair and would like someone else to have a go for a change.

Perhaps Mudcat contributors would get better discussions if they stopped using antagonistic phrases?

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 03:10 PM

I'll leave you to it

If only, Jim. If only... ;-)

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 03:24 PM

Well..

Jim's had his say,
jumped to the wrong conclusions again,
and still continued having his say regardless of what we actually meant and posted..

..whilst insisting other folks here have closed minds...???

He's a good bloke, but he can be so disagreeable to be in agreement with...????????

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 03:44 PM

OK Dave, I get it.

The point about university clubs is a good one. There's one in Edinburgh too. I noticed a sign in a window about them when I first arrived in 1976, but the sign and window were so grubby I assumed they'd closed years before. I only found out different about 5 years ago - they're still going and fairly active, but they don't bother having a public profile.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 04:07 PM

Thanks, Jack. Much appreciated.

Continuing the uni club theme I used to occasionaly enjoy Keele uni folk club when my eldest lad was there. There was a young lady fiddle player called Fluff who was absolutely brilliant. Some years later I had the good fortune of catching an Incredible String Band concert in Brighton and who should be playing fiddle for them? Yes, Fluff!

Thread drift complete... :-)

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Vic Smith
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 04:15 PM

There is also a club at the University of Sussex - very active from their intranet website (which I can access as a Sussex graduate) but now exclusively for students it seems and steering more towards workshop and learning skills than club style performances.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 05:39 PM

Well visiting clubs in different counties provides you with experience to some degree, Raggytash,
but does not alter the fact there are a lot less guest booking clubs, particularly weekly booking guest clubs than there used to be. I regard that as not a healthy sign..
I would base my argument on this phenomenon, resident singers and floor singers appear to try harder when there is a respected national guest,such as Carthy, NicDow Wilsons JohnKirkpatrick,PeteCoe conversely singers clubs that allow many unpractised paper plonking practitioners seem to drive away practised performers

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Raggytash
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 06:04 PM

I can't disagree with you Dick that fewer clubs book weekly guests.

In my youth in Manchester and surrounds, late 60's through the 70's and early 80's most clubs had a weekly guest.

Hindsight being a wonderful thing, many of those guests were not much better than your average floor singer today.

A few more songs perhaps and a lot more "bottle" certainly!

I don't consider myself to be a great musician or a great singer but I would suggest I'm as good today if not better than a lot of people who got bookings then.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 06:18 PM

The guest + floor spot format is definitely in decline. I know a couple of clubs that have abandoned floor spots and gone to guest + booked support and others have moved more and more away from guest nights.

This is in terms of overall numbers, there are still good clubs out there with weekly guests and floor spots so the fact that club X is doing well every week doesn't meant that clubs Y and Z haven't stopped booking and turned into singarounds!

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 07:23 PM

"If only, Jim. If only... ;-)"
That may come with a smile Dave but it's still a snide comment along with the rest of them
I'd vey much appreciate if you didn't talk behind my back
Jim

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Joe G
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 07:33 PM

I'll keep insisting on the best behaviour Jim - and I am sure Dave was being affectionate rather than snide. There is absolutely no need for us to fall out. Always remember that things said on any form of social media can be misinterpreted or can be expressed clumsily - it's more difficult than a chat in the pub where we know when we are joshing each other. As I keep saying let us continue with the spirit of friendship and tolerance that the folk scene is (well not always admittedly!) renowned for :-)

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,JoeG
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 07:43 PM

Sorry to miss you in Whitby, Dave - would have been good to have met up for a beer! You should try to get to Musicport - it really is very special - we have been going for 16 years now and it is the one unmissable event in our music calendar! A superb mix of music from across the world including plenty of great stuff from the UK. This year we were especially blessed with Reg Meuross, Joe Solo, Jim Moray, Commoners Choir, Belinda O'Hooley, Joshua Burnell and several other UK artists

If you are ever heading to York let me know!

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 08:01 PM

Well - how is the guest plus floorspots a loss - so many people despise the kind of music that someone like Brimstone, Alex Campbell, etc played.

Despised as a dilution of the tradition. It was a tradition that had somehow bypassed our parents. It was only to be found in obscure enclaves and in University libraries. Folk music frankly wanted nothing to do with us.

Folk music has changed its focus. The skills of minstrelsy and entertainment are out of favour.

There's nothing much to be done about it. Its a bit like thinking of starting a mining industry forty years after they've closed it down.

Its no use wishing for the audiences back, you sent away as too stupid to appreciate folk music.
Folk music will maybe survive, but it won't be in the way that we knew it.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 08:32 PM

Al - I can reasonably surmise that my ancestors were living, working, and carousing,
in the towns and villages where Cecil Sharpe was collecting songs...

If those songs were a vital element of their culture and social lives,
it certainly was no longer the case by my childhood in the early 1960s.

In my small town my only exposure to anything remotely 'folk song'
was the few times I was dragged to Sunday School,
and a weird looking uncle who played guitar and sang Burl Ives songs
at a cousins birthday party..

Perhaps it's not unreasonable to speculate that west country factory fodder workers
living in small town council estates,
just didn't like old fashioned songs their grand parents may have sang in fields
when Victoria was still on the throne...

That is until Adge Cutler and The Wurzels scraped into the pop charts in 1967...???

My experience is of a radio and TV folk revival in the late 60s, early 70s...
..and a few Art centre 'folk' concerts by the likes of Jake Thackerey and Brenda Wooton in the mid 70s...

Scrumpyshire may have been a mother load of songs for the Edwardian collectors,
but those olds songs must have lost their appeal to us locals within a few decades later...???

Who knows.. ask an expert...

All I know is TV and radio played a major role in getting me and my schoolmates interested in them again...

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 08:45 PM

Though if, as I suspect, folk song and country dance did exist as a minority interest hobby
in the posh villages and toff manor houses...???

It's not a part of rural society we ever had had any contact with...

well.. maybe my uncle when he may allegedly have been on their land
with his dog, ferrets, and shotgun...

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 02:16 AM

The advantages of the guest floorspot system was that it gave many the chance to do a small showcase and improve., and unlike the paper procrastinationg singers seen at some of todays singers clubs they did improve
I would disagree that the standards of guest singers was lower,I remember Stephane Grappeli doing a guest spot at a folk club[ yes the jazz musician]RalphMCtell,Donovan,MacColl,Seeger, Paul Simon Martin Carthy Julie Felix, all of whom became household names.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 02:28 AM

Sorry if you felt that addressing a post directly to you in the full knowledge that you would read it was behind your back, Jim. Now, maybe we can get on with discussing the current state of folk music in the UK. Will you really "leave us to it" this time?

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: r.padgett
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 02:44 AM

Certainly where a guest is booked in a folk club it can cause problems if the MC feels duty bound to put on his/her regular floor singers/audience /supporters of variable experience/talent ~ the state and constitution of the club can a limiting factor!

Frequency and venue of the club will also have a bearing on how the night is configured and expected quality of the paid for entertainment and of course the audience knowledge and expectations

Joining in with choruses can be off putting if not in a familiar venue, for audience members who are not expecting it!!

Ray

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 02:55 AM

"Will you really "leave us to it" this time?"
It might come as a surprise to you Dave, but I find that far more insulting than all the name-calling and snide
I can't promise, of course, but I'll see if I can find a bell to hand around my neck so you can here me coming
Jim

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 03:12 AM

I thought not.

I shall finish there in the hope that we can continue the proper discussion. If you feel the need to vent your spleen further, Jim, feel free but don't be surprised if you get ignored.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Iains
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 03:45 AM

Back in the 60's and 70's "folk music" was frequently in the charts and thus got plenty of exposure in the UK both on radio and TV:
Julie Felix on Frost and later with her own TV series
The Spinners with a TV series
Joan Baez in the charts
Chris Christopherson
Gordon Lightfoot
The Strawbs
Fairport Convention
The Dubliners
These are just off the top of my head without researching the subject.
An eclectic mix of contemporary and traditional Folk.
The music was very much in the public eye during this period and other modern media forms were not available - the transition from 78 to 46 records had only just occurred (my first record by Elvis was on a 78)
During this same time period tertiary education leapt from 3.4% to 8.4% from 1950 to 1970. These numbers also aided the growth of college folk. The same is not true for the explosive growth in higher education numbers post 2000.
But it must be remembered that society has changed over the last 50 years as have entertainment mediums. The state of the music is a very different beast to the state of the clubs, yet the two seem to be treated as the same by a minority posting here. As has been stated, a person can be a closet folk aficionado and no one would be any the wiser. Therefore there is no way of counting them. If those with a heavy involvement say the scene is healthy who are we to argue. This is a subject where google can give conflicting answers.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,P.Dant
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 04:27 AM

Chris Christopherson ? 46 ? You might want to correct that.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 04:43 AM

Though if, as I suspect, folk song and country dance did exist as a minority interest hobby in the posh villages and toff manor houses...???

It's not a part of rural society we ever had had any contact with...

Probably depended on where. In Scotland, the toffs were so spread out that they could only have toffs-only gatherings while based in their city flats for the winter. On their estates, gatherings were much less exclusive. Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus describes how it worked in "Memoirs of a Highland Lady", for the Eastern Highlands in the early 19th century.

Inclusive might not have meant fun. Most of the big ballads are heroic glorifications of aristocratic families in their petty sadistic feuds. You can bet their peons were expected to sit quiet and listen approvingly while the laird's tame bard went through 37 tedious verses of grievances against the landowner in the next glen.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 04:54 AM

I think that as in all things in life, we're best off putting our focus on what we do ourselves, not on finding fault with what others are doing. I know my own inadequacies very well. Many times, I think I'm not good enough to sing in front of other people. But if I get past that and stand up and sing, I lose my fear and find my audience is having a good time - and so am I.
Would it be better for me to listen to the real and imagined voices who say I'm not good enough? Isn't it enough, for us to forget all the negatives and just have a good time with the music?

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Iains
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 04:56 AM

Guest P. Dant
I would debate your point but I draw a wide boundary as in below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WaLZt11D7E&list=PLg10TRfvxFqokuBiEbERg5mr450uyfIEw&index=12&t=0s

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 04:56 AM

Ians

Somewhat surprised that you omitted Robin Hall & Jimmie MacGregor from your list. In the early sixties they were on five nights a week on alternate weeks in the early evening news/current affairs programme "Tonight" on BBC television and were responsible for introducing the music to a very wide audience.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 05:10 AM

"Back in the 60's and 70's "folk music" was frequently in the charts and thus got plenty of exposure in the UK both on radio and TV"

I agree completely Iains. I knew at, least something, about folk music before I got involved in it due to the different types of exposure on the TV. Most Saturday night variety shows would include spots from non-mainstream pop. I also had an inkling about some World genres such as Flamenco, Latin American, Calypso. Equally, I knew what jazz was and could distinguish modern from trad jazz. I knew of Oscar Peterson, The Dudley Moore Trio, Buddy Rich, Kenny Ball, Acker Bilk and many more.

It's sad that this doesn't happen these days - even the mainstream pop is no longer authentic.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Iains
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 05:22 AM

Hootenanny. The omission was not deliberate and you are quite correct about Robin Hall and Jimmy Macgregor. As I said the list was off the top of my head from what I could remember. The Corries were another group of that era and there were many others. It is hard to imagine today that the Dubliners starred on Top of the Pops.
I would still be interested to hear from someone to tell me where modern "traditional" folk is created, would I've got a brand new combine harvester qualify?

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 10:18 AM

"I'm enough of a showman to have learned at least this: If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them." (Sol Hurok)

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 12:38 PM

When I was approx 13 and spending my pocket money on my first 45rpm singles,
the two main pop chart infuencers on my emerging music preferences
were Glam Rock and Folk Rock...

Any UK mudcatters now in their 60s may recall a similar mass media lead entry into folk music...???

This primed my curiosity for exploring the Trad Folk LPs in the town library,
later on when I was at 6th Form College,
and listening to Pentangle LPs at a local hippy squat...

Nobody here disputes the importance and need for folk clubs.
But, some may be over-estimating their influence on the state of UK folk music
since their own youth in the 1950s and 1960s...???????????????????????



[Is that enough "????"s...???
but apparently need to make it very very clear when I am posing a question,
and not stating it as fact, or provocation...]

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 12:48 PM

Well the Wurzels are still - despite their great age - very popular in the Dorset area. And they have inspired other bands in that genre. Notably the Skimmity Hitchers.
Round here if you start Where be the Blackbird To? - the whole pub joins in.

Of course the IRA supporters used Combined harvester for their song about Army Boots. You used to hear it a lot in Irish Pubs.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-I8bB3K07c

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 05:07 PM

I thin PFR raises an extremely important and profound point.

He says the generation of his pareents and maybe before - perhaps really didn't like the old folk songs.

I can remember finding myself on a recording course i the early 80's with a wonderful old black guy called carl Kirton.
Carl used to record all sorts of gigs round London. I went to see him record the sax player Dudu P'kwana and the trumpet player Harry beckett.
Carl proudly showed me his record collection, and said - I bet I have every kind of music here - you name me an artist..
So, i said Big Bill broonzy
He said, No - i can't stand that kind of music - that relates to a time my people were being treated like that. And its still going on...

Also I remember the artists on The Blues Project Album saying that black American people were rejecting the country blues, and looked forward to a 'Baldwinian future'. this was in the mid 60's.

So perhaps something similar happened in England. From round about the 1870's when American artists were very popular in the English music halls. Perhaps the old music represented a time when when people lived on the edge of starvation, when there was no opportunity to break out of your place in the almost feudal society.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 07:20 PM

I have much enjoyed music by Katherine Tickell over the years. It seems to me that the tradition of Northumbrian pipe playing is relatively strong. For anybody interested, there is a society dedicated to it which you can find via Google. Here a link to an example of that music:

https://soundcloud.com/user-717826690/richard-butler-reels

The history of Northumberland is interesting, going back to the ancient 'kingdoms' of Bernicia and Deira, the former of which went a long way into what is now Scotland.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 11:49 PM

Yes I think the North East has always had an almost separate identity.

Quite exotic for the rest of us. Its almost like people like Johnny Handle and Jez Lowe have the aura of emmissaries from a far off land.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 01:56 AM

My parents liked folk music.In fact my father used to sing the bold feninan men[ and he was english.
When i compare singers clubs in ireland with singers clubs in the uk, the standard in ireland is much higher, i do not see anybody reading from notes in irish singers clubs ,people have practised their songs, i think jim carroll will confirm this.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 02:11 AM

the standard of song accompaniment in uk guest booking folk clubs is higher thasn the standard i hear in ireland, wheras in my experience the standard of instrumental tune playing is higher in ireland, or rather there are more players of a higher standard per general population in ireland than there are in england

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 06:43 AM

When I was a teenager getting into folk on the telly and radio
back in the early to mid 70s,
I associated folk music with Northern accents...

That's something I only just remembered, but I can't recall exactly why..
Apart from the most blatantly obvious Lindisfarne signature sound.

At that time I didn't even know
that the folk revival was to a large extent founded on songs
collected in my own region..

We did have Brenda Wooton prominent on local TV shows,
but her accent seemed a quaint oddity to us.
Even though I was a west country lad,
Folk just sounded 'right' done in a Northern accent...???????


But in 2019..
The current state of folk music in UK,
folk seems increasingly public school English accent...???

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Allan Conn
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 07:30 AM

"The history of Northumberland is interesting, going back to the ancient 'kingdoms' of Bernicia and Deira, the former of which went a long way into what is now Scotland."

I think you're really meaning that Northumbria rather than Northumberland stretched into what is now Scotland. Northumberland being the English county of the second millenium and Northumbria being the earlier ancient kingdom that at one time stretched from the Forth to the Humber.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 07:31 AM

But pfr, and I know this is controversial, the great Child was crystal clear that in his view the original and great old Ballads had been written by the elite and not the lower ranks. This point has been made, with references to what Child actually wrote, on this thread and elsewhere. Child didn't imagine that they came from the lower ranks and villeins any more than he imagined that the classics of Ancient Greece came from slaves or plebs.

'The people', or 'the folk', yes, in Child's view, but for him this meant 'the people' as in the whole civilisation/culture, not in any way the lower orders. Child was explicit about this.

So whatever we might feel about 'public schools' (for US readers this means private non-state schools) and the products thereof, I don't think we can dismiss it as non-authentic in terms of the national tradition for public school accents to be singing it. However, I agree that more or less everything sounds better with at least a Midlands accent if not a downright Northern one.

But I think we can agree that folk music is being played by a lot of middle class people in the UK today. That point is relevant to the thread as I see it.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 07:39 AM

Allan you are of course right about Northumbria. Perhaps I was being lazy, I was of course not claiming that the modern county of Northumberland dated back to the time of the Angles or the original British. I was using the term loosely to refer to an area of the country. I was on the island of Lindisfarne recently, the place where the first Viking attack is supposed to have taken place (in 793). I have been reading a couple of books about the Anglo Saxons which go through the complicated history of kingdoms in those times.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 07:58 AM

I can confirm that you do find people reading song lyrics from mobile phones or ring binders and I don't much like it either, though if it helps convey the song via oral communication there may be something to be said for it. Better than nothing if that is the choice?

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 08:28 AM

"the great Child was crystal clear that in his view the original and great old Ballads had been written by the elite and not the lower ranks. "
I intended not to get involved in this at present but I feel compelled to correct this
"The great Child" said no such thing and, as he had little or no contact with the oral tradition, whatever he said would have totally immaterial anyway
The fact is that nobody knows who composed the ballads and probably never will, ut the probability is that, due to their vernacular make-up, their familiar use of folklore, which didn't become a studyable sciemce until the fist half on the 19th century (much later than the youngest of the ballads were composed), the fact that some motifs used go back as far even as Homer, possibly Ancient Egypt, and their relationship with the art of oral storytelling, it is highly likely that most of them were orally composed by the 'common people' - but, as I said, nobody knows (as they say on QI)
Regarding Child's authority, on previous threads mentioned Child's scholarship, including that on formal poetry, came in for a great deal of kicking by those who are happy to use him as an authority when his opinion coincides with theirs
Nuff said on that for now

"i do not see anybody reading from notes in irish singers clubs ,people have practised their songs, i think jim carroll will confirm this."
Absolutely concur Dick - I also believe the standard of singing and instrumentation is far higher here, especial among the youngsters who are now taking both far more seriously that in the UK
Sorry to interrupt
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 09:10 AM

The big ballads often state their origin explicitly. They are frequently glorifications of aristocratic thuggery - we know of some songwriters among the gentry themselves, but it seems more likely that they paid their more literate retainers to write for them, in the same way that many lairds had their own musicians (where music was often only one of their jobs, as with William Marshall's employment by the Gordons of Huntly). Why would any farmworker want to write a song praising his master for fighting a feud? (Sometimes the power of the elite is treated as a problematic matter, as when the heroine of "Lord Gregory" ends up pointlessly dead; Kipling followed the same path when writing about how the British in colonial India fucked things up for themselves - but Lord Gregory" is not a call for revolt against the patriarchy any more than Kipling's descriptions of disastrous marriages were).

A really interesting treatment of the way elite ideas get circulated and transformed in non-elite cultures is the work of Carlo Ginzburg, in "The Cheese and the Worms" and "Ecstasies". The relationships are not at all simple, but you can get definite answers about where intangible cultural artifacts came from.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 09:14 AM

Sorry if you want me to read long posts, please proof-read them so that they make sense on first reading.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 09:15 AM

In Stuart Gilbert's book about Ulysses - he advances the idea that the ballads originated with the 'bareserks' sort of seers , members of the Vikings skilled in ballad making.

Gilbert says they had Viking feasts, where the berserk would go into a trance (under the influence of booze and he had a theme but he would extemporise for days at a time sometimes. Apparently if he was interrupted, he got very violent and killed people.

It was all part of Joyce's vision of Dublin as the omphalos; the belly button of the world.

Subject: RE: The current state of folk music in UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 09:26 AM

"please proof-read them so that they make sense on first reading."
If it's mine you are referring to anybody capably of pronouncing on the origins of ballads can surely manage to interpreting two (sorry - three) typos
Perhaps some statements might be worth a second reading
Jim