Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience

Subject: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 12:18 PM

Folks, I would like your suggestions if you're willing, and hopefully this can turn into an interesting thread.

I'm posting this based on the observations of two songs: "Mary from Dungloe" and "The Soldier's Fairwell".

I dearly love both of these, and yet while "Mary from Dungloe" seems to go down OK to a pub audience, it doesn't generate much in the way of comment. On the other hand, "The Soldier's Fairwell" AKA "The Blue/White Cockade" often attracts comments along the lines of "play that song again". Of course it could just be the way we play 'em :-)

I'm thinking though that there's something about the lyric to the Soldier's Fairwell: especially the um "venom" in the penultimate verse that gets folks attention:

Oh, may he never prosper
Oh, may he never thrive,
Nor anything he takes in hand
As long as he's alive;
May the ground he treads fall under him, the grass he bends ne'er grow
Since he has gone and left me
In sorrow, grief and woe.

So has anyone else noticed specific songs that grab folks attention like this?

Regards, John.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 12:24 PM

Well..... I think that what you noted characterizes most of the good/popular folksongs that populate this forum.... of which there are thousands upon thousands that could be named.... and that if you are looking for material to use, yourself, your best approach will be what I suspect everyone else does and that is to follow your taste and try things to see what works.

I also think there is no such thing as a non-folkie audience. I might have agreed with you, once upon a time, that there is; but my experience has been (both singing and being in audiences) that folkies are everywhere, and that people who might SAY they don't like folk music have not heard it done in a style that reached them-- yet. Because good music is good music, and it transcends expectations.

So-- your version of your songs (the ones you choose) might be JUST the music they'd love to hear.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Wesley S
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 12:52 PM

Susan - I'm not so sure that I would agree whith you that "there is no such thing as a non-folkie audience". I hope you're right but observation tells me otherwise.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 01:04 PM

Thanks for the comments.

Susan: most of the people I end up playing to haven't heard much if any folk music: they're more used to VERY LOUD pub bands, so a rather laid back guitar and mandolin duo come as a bit of a shock ;-)

I noticed from the "where do people play these days" thread that a lot of folks seem to be in the same situation, so I got curious.

Of course I am just trolling for material, so feel free to tell me where to go :->

John.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 01:18 PM

" also think there is no such thing as a non-folkie audience. I might have agreed with you, once upon a time, that there is; but my experience has been (both singing and being in audiences) that folkies are everywhere, and that people who might SAY they don't like folk music have not heard it done in a style that reached them-- yet"

so does this mean that because of The Imagined Village, we'll have the hordes of "clubbers" pounding down the doors at Cecil Sharp House.........? Just asking.

The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (waiting outside Cecil Sharp House to see what happens)

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Celtaddict
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 01:19 PM

Welcome, John, and why not join us (for free) and continue interesting discussions?
I certainly have seen 'non-folkie' pub audiences sit up and take notice to traditional music and often it is related to a rather contemporary arrangement and sound, not so much the actual song itself. This is of course a matter of taste, but a number of individuals and groups have made excellent livings from 'folk' treated in a contemporary fashion. Some past ones might include Peter, Paul & Mary and Simon & Garfunkel. Some newer folks doing similar work include The Mammals.
I wonder if finding some relatively obscure material and giving it a new setting would help keep interest up in some of the settings you describe? The songs that have survived for many decades, or centuries, have to have something powerful going for them and your audiences may be quite ripe for them, even if they never consider themselves 'folkies.'

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 01:39 PM

It may be a shock to them, but it isn't that the people aren't folk-equipped, it's that the venue is booking a certain genre and that's what they expect. It's the stereotypes about the genre people are against, usually; if the music is GOOD they will usually respect it.

Unless they're too drunk to be paying attention.

~S~

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: RTim
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 01:41 PM

Sing what you love to sing - if it is good, they will listen!

Tim Radford (who mostly sings nowadays for Non Folk audiences)

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 01:48 PM

Sing the faster rather than the slower unless you have very funny lyrics, I would recommend...

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 02:29 PM

Having been 'Doing' Corporate and such like gigs for the last ten years , there is most certainly a 'Non Folk' audience in The U K !
As far as I can see , no matter how good I (Or Any One Else) thinks a Foldk song is , we always get a better response for something poeople are familiar with - So the Tart With The Cart (Molly Malone) or My Bonny Lies Over The Ocean or EVEN (Lord Help Us) The Wild Rover will go down better than most other songs !

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: polkadots
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 02:34 PM

"I also think there is no such thing as a non-folkie audience. I might have agreed with you, once upon a time, that there is; but my experience has been (both singing and being in audiences) that folkies are everywhere, and that people who might SAY they don't like folk music have not heard it done in a style that reached them
yet. Because good music is good music, and it transcends expectations."

This comment I felt I had to respond to. I used to sing when I was younger, and folk songs were my favorites, they told stories that people can relate to, understand and also giggle at! The words are expressive, but in a obvious manner. I think there is a style out there for all to enjoy within folk music...I've noticed that there are more and more folk/popular singers starting out. Exactly, good music is good music...couldn't put it better.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 03:03 PM

I think that there very definitely is a "folkie audience", meaning that raggle-taggle bunch of individualists who frequent folk clubs, folk festivals, and such things. Given that, I take Susan to speak to a different issue entirely, which is that, intrinsically, folk music (however you want to define it) can be played for, and enjoyed by any audience.

Which is all a lead up to my story:

About ten years ago, I was sitting in a casino in Las Vegas, eating expensive burgers, and listening to one of those bands that plays constantly to everyone and no one. The band was a generic show band--guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, reed player--except that they were playing songs that I had played and sung in coffeehouses, back in the late 60's. "Today", "Get Together", "Where have All the Flowers Gone?", "Changes", "SF Bay Blues", and such things.

I didn't talk to them, they were on a stage high above the slot machines--and the only conclusion that I could come to was that the leader had come to Vegas and seen that they would pay a lot for music (most casinos have four or five stages with bands playing 24/7, seven days a week) and threw together what he could remember from college--

Maybe it wasn't the best audience, but no one was arguing with them about whether it was folk or not--

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: the button
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 03:11 PM

Lyrically, I think "The Blacksmith" (A blacksmith courted me, nine months and better....) is good, because it's such a superb angry song, & the "plot" moves quite fast. And it's a superb tune as well. It's certainly what I would open with if I was playing to a non-folk audience. Something I've recorded for a radio "session" for a non-folk internet station, in fact.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 04:18 PM

'Sing the faster rather than the slower unless you have very funny lyrics'

yes and keep moving round in case they start throwing chairs and bottles.......you become a more difficult target. duck and weave, duck and weave,......

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: the button
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 04:20 PM

Always a challenge singing with a gumshield, as well.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: cptsnapper
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 04:31 PM

I have played a wide variety of music in a wide variety of venues & sometimes I've included songs which I suspect the audience hasn't expected. In one instance I was booked to play at a pub called the Musgrave Arms, near Luton & it inspired me to finally learn the song which I used to sing there. Mind you, one person's reaction did give me cause to wonder if it was worth it because he came up to me & said that he thought that it was a great song but then asked what it was so I asked him what he meant & he said " What is Little Musgrave? Is it a horse!!?

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 06:48 PM

These days, in the USA, there are many folk audiences and venues that prefer folk songs not be sung.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 07:52 PM

I'd be interested in what songs transcend the folkie crowd? I have sung some material
that I thought only a folk-oriented audience would like only to be surprised. I find that
audiences like the stories behind the songs. It would be a musical mise-en-scene.
People are surprised about certain songs that they may have heard but didn't know about.

The most sucessful guy I know doing folk music for a living is definitely not singing
for folkie audiences. You will not have heard of him but he is making a very good living doing this. He is entertaining and knowledgeable. He is in demand at schools, libraries,
museums and house concerts. He is a fantastic promoter and agent for himself, however.

There is an expression down here amoung musicians in the South that applies. "Nobody knows how famous I am".

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 04:34 AM

'There is an expression down here among musicians in the South that applies. "Nobody knows how famous I am".'

LOL well that's certainly true :-)

Thanks for the comments everyone, looks like there are quite a few of you making folk songs work for non-folkies so that's certainly encouraging!

I haven't needed the gum-shields yet, but the mandolin can always be used to bat things away if needs be :-)

Regards, John.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: joseph
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 05:07 AM

Might i suggest a few songs which always go down well.
Limerick youre a lady
The Cavan Girl
The Water Is wide
Isle of hope isle of tears
Red is the rose
For Ireland Ill not tell her name]
Dublin in 1962
Ringsend rose
You cannot gowrong with songs like these

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 05:30 AM

Hello,

I think it might be a mistake to get hung upon whether a song is folk or non-folk. For the artist, a song is either a good song or not. If it is a good song, then, hopefully, they will sing it to every audience they meet. Because they believe in it, it will go over well. Those in the audience will put the song through their own filter...is it a good song or not. That is their right! I can think of artists who play 'pop' songs in the style of 'folk' songs and 'folk' songs in the style of 'pop' songs. Any unbiased audience of sobriety will react to good material performed with integrity!

Hello Art! What did you mean by your comment?

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: joseph
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 07:26 AM

hi pete , iam inclined to agree with you. I think your comment is very relevant

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Hamish
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 07:41 AM

I did a pub gig last night in Worthing. It'd been billed as a folk night, but I mixed in some poppier stuff. My (fairly limited) experience is that the non-folk audience can cope with a suitable mixture, but give them too many songs that are unfamiliar in a row, you start to lose them.

It was a pretty quiet night, very wet and stormy which may have stopped a few from venturing out - but sufficient. In a way it helped because maybe I wasn't trying too hard or something. (Cos I know I sometimes do try too hard) but it was a great vibe

There were enough who clapped now and then and/or seemed to pay particular attention and/or engage in a bit of banter. But nobody who was going to join in lustily on the choruses. It didn't seem to need it on the night.

I also do some stuff on a loop station which helps, too, cos it's a good gimmick and breaks things up. Two sets of each about 55 minutes from 9 until 11. In approximate order they were:

Willin'
Katy Cruel
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard
Tracks of my Tears
Prickle-Eye Bush*
Mrs Robinson
Route 66
Bunch of English Country Dances*
Down Where the Drunkards Roll
You Picked a Fine Time*

Bold Riley
Hares on the Mountain
Nellie the Elephant
Pants of Peace
Bonny Breast Knot*
Annabelle
House of the Rising Sun
Eggs in her Basket**
In my Time of Dying medley
Lion Sleeps Tonight*
All Along the Watchtower
Big Yellow Taxi

*Looper
**Looper with trumpet in a Mariachi band style a la Susan McKeowan.

So, maybe not terribly heavily folk-oriented now I look back at it. But six trad, and a few more which are definitely suitable for folk club audience...

Dunno if that helps or not, really.

--
Hamish

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 07:44 AM

if your audience is polite enough they will put up with anything.

That's why its a healthy discipline to work a few tough audiences in ones career. if you've banged your head on a few brick walls you will get to appreciate what a courtesy a good audience is extending to you.

The kind of guy who stands up infront of an audience, unrehearsed, unprepared deserves much worse than he gets from most English folk club audiences. perhaps it would be a good idea to ask whoever is collating this non folkie audience who they are likely to be - age group, ethnic mix, any special interests -obsessions....The name of the game is making contact - give yourself the best chance, the songs of whatever type, can't do all the work for you.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: ossonflags
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 08:17 AM

Irish Rover
fields of athenry
dirty old town
black velvet band
fairy tale of new york............they will all work, but dont sell yourself or your audiance short.We played a venue the other night and we might just as well have been wallpaper - or so I thought.I ahd tried everything to no or little respnnce so I sang "Tolpuddle man" to great applause.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: topical tom
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 01:35 PM

I believe there is such a thing as a non-folkie audience but I'm not sure why a folk performer would be singing in front of one.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 01:58 PM

...except maybe to earn some cash Top-Tom?

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: GUEST,wayfarerer
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 04:10 PM

Here are some "folk songs" done in a non-folk setting: i.e. keys & a drum machine - yikes! But don't fret, there's still guitars, fiddles & mandolin as well. Modernized yet still organic!

"myspace.com/awandererplays2007"

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 10:21 PM

Since there are more "non-folk" audiences than "folk" audiences, prudence dictates an accomodation. We can't all make our way by playing for village weddings anymore. Even the village idiot is taking out of town bookings;-)

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: jonm
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:27 PM

If they're a listening audience, telling them part of the story can get them into ballads (I've also nicked Spiers and Boden's idea of casting the movie....) or giving some history behind the song or the times it comes from. Intros need to be snappy and witty and the songs should probably be faster than in a folk club.

If they're not really listening, I wander off into country, rock'n'roll and classic (aka nauseating) stuff like the Wild Rover. Danny Boy doesn't fit my limited vocal range in any key, thanks.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Marje
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:54 PM

I can't think why anyone would NOT consider it appropriate to sing folk songs to a non-folkie audience. I really enjoy getting the chance to do this and seeing people respond to it, often surprisingly well. You need to select suitable material for your audience but that doesn't mean you have to dumb down.

If we restrict our music and songs to settings where they're already accepted and understood, and don't take the chance to perform to wider audiences, we can't complain if we don't get the attention, media coverage and - on occasions - money that we think our music deserves.

Marje

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Mikefule
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:35 PM

I'd say don't patronise them by doing anything "dumbed down" or corny. On the other hand, don't try to educate them or impress upon them how "authentic" or "worthy" it is. Let them draw their own conclusions.

The first thing with any audience, but especially a non-folky one, is to entertain. Songs that tell stories, songs with easily pick-upable choruses or refrains, and songs with genuine humour. No novelty songs, interminable ballads, or "action" songs. And parodies are a waste of time if they don't know the originals.

Within those guidelines, almost anything from a typical folk repertoire should do.

Don't underestimate the audience. The Skids (a 1970s punk band) did an unaccompanied version of "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" as good as any I've heard in a folk club, and they were performing to an audience that at first glance couldn't have been less folky.

Subject: RE: Folk songs for a 'non-folkie' audience
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:31 PM

Well i'd go the other way - be as patronising as hell. In fact, it helps if you're not all that smart to start off with.