the uk folk revival in 2019

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 11:09 AM

Is there an agreed definition of folk music that you agree with, Jim? If so, what is it?

And you still haven't said which part of my definition is true.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 11:13 AM

"Maybe if the 'folk' is still not revived, it's time to accept it's not going to.."
's up to you if you want to do that Guest
We are in the middle of a huge revival of traditional music here in Irland, song is now beginning to move in the same direction
I would hate to think the same thing can't happen back home
It won't if people sit on their bums and watch it slip down the pan
To borrow from the L'Oréal ad - folk song is "worth it" - in my opinion of course
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 11:54 AM

Can I just remind people of my permanent offer
Some time ago I purchased a lump of PCloud which I am using to share some of our archive of traditional song
I filled I started to distribute it some months ago and have had an encouraging number of takers right up to the present tim - still dipping in regularly
Anybody who wishes to help themselves to what's on offer can do so by giving me their e-mail address to enable me to link them to the box
The beauty of sharing digitised material is that it never runs dry
If anythone is seeking anything specific - If I have it, it's yours for the asking - no strings attached
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 01:12 PM

"Even if we still had some traditional singers around appearing on a good stage in a good setting with a knowlegeable compere (few of those around) with or without alcohol you would still have a problem finding an audience. It just isn't there."

I think there could be if it could be promoted. It would have to start small and grow.
Alcohol precludes youngsters from participation. Folk music is in its tradition often a family affair. Songs are generated through the aural fashion, lullabys, sketches of songs, even ballads handed down by parents to children.

My contention has always been that people who are exposed to folk music have to own it. One way, the way I've found, is to teach it through songs, instrumental accompaniment on folk instruments or a cappella. If people can use it in their own lives, it becomes appreciated when others perform it.

The reason it endures regardless of its mass popularity is that it contains human values and emotions that we can all identify with. The themes are those that when released from the popular music idea which is it has to be liked because it's popular, is a tautology that can be broken by educating the public.

Ewan and Peggy had an effect on introducing people to folk music who were not fans,   as did the Kingston Trio in America. Those popularized performers grew out of an interest in folk music by small groups of people.

For me, folk music is experiential. I had to learn to listen to it to finally enjoy and understand it. My mind had to slow down to a different time when technology had not robbed people of their leisure and created problems that it was intended to fix. The fast cars, cell phones, computerized data processing world can find relief in a simpler pace, a human transmission of emotions on a less manufactured scale. We can be trained to enjoy and listen to a song sung without excessive production values or basic accompaniment. Trying to define folk music is the old blind man with the elephant. Parts of it mean different things to different people. However, the main point for me is that once I hear it, it engenders a sympathetic vibration and it defines itself. I can be absorbed in a story/song/ballad with many verses done a cappella or with musical tasteful accompaniment that doesn't require a light show, dry ice or loud electronic noise. It's kind of like learning to enjoy the taste of a good organic apple instead of a meal laced with preservatives, chemicals and artificial flavoring.

I like simple and subtle rather than complex and crude in music. Folk music does that for me.

Many classical or musically sophisticated composers have agreed with me. Bartok, Vaughan Williams, Beethoven....you name it.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 01:32 PM

its not a question of academics coming up with a definition.

Its common usage that defines the meaning of words.

there are people who disagree with the meaning we have ascribed to the word 'gay'.

they write to the papers. they get worked up. they say its a sign of degeneracy.

sound familiar....?

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: r.padgett
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 02:01 PM

I do not think a definition of "folk music and song" is possible ~ except maybe in very broad terms ~ that is an agreed one!!

Ray

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 03:02 PM

Spot on both Al and Ray. Words are defined by popular usage and folk song cannot really be defined in any meaningful way. There are so many facets of it it would be like trying define beauty!

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 03:19 PM

Frank

The thing that introduced people here in the UK to folk music that were not fans was Skiffle courtesy of Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber and their version of a Leadbelly song. I am sure that you already know that.

Skiffle clubs started up and some morphed into folk clubs, some to rock.

Ewan, Peggy and Alan Lomax jumped on the wagon and formed and recorded as part of a skiffle group which included a couple of jazz musicians.

One club in London became the Ballads & Blues Club. Ewan & Peggy became residents.

In my opinion without skiffle Ewan might have found it hard to find an audience and probably never have met Peggy.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 03:22 PM

"I do not think a definition of "folk music and song" is possible"
Too late - it's been done and written up
If it hadn't been possible we wouldn't be here talking to each other
You don't really need a set definition - you can tell by the sound of the songs that they are something special

"Its common usage that defines the meaning of words."
There is no common usage Al - we never won enough hears and minds for there to be one
There goes that Brexit-like populism again
These changes have been brought about not by "common usage" but by a bunch of ageing folikies who neither understand folk song or care about it
Bye-bye 'The Voice of the People' which will remain the Elephant in the Room as long as the present diminishing revival is around
No one on you have come up with what this so-called "common usage" has re-defined folk music to mean - any takers
Won't hold my breath - too wheezy nowadays
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 04:19 PM

The meaning of words are changed for a purpose usually.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 05:26 PM

No such thing as common usage. I'm sorry I thought it was our appropriation of the word that was causing you such heartache.

Believe me, if I could make it mean what you wanted it to mean in ordinary coversation. I would. just to see you happy.

Meantime let me cheer you up with a folksong written by Roger Whittaker.

best wishes

Al

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 06:36 PM

So, what definition of folk song do you agree with then, Jim? Not mine obviously. The 1954 one? Your own one? The one that goes "you can tell by the sound of the songs"? Who judges the sound of the song? Me? Al? You?

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 07:03 PM

I just got back from a swim after work and will read the rest tomorrow, but re Jim on me just once in private trying chords on Johnny Todd - "It is a perfect song for introduce people to the practice of singing - if you like it, using it in this way won't spoil it"...no thanks; I shall continue to sing it and the rest of my e-trad repertoire either unaccompanied or by doubling the melody on keyboards, after, nearly always, introducing the tune on my tenor recorder (and I have won a couple of folk festival competitions in Durham and Northumberland, by the way).

As said above, English folk music, at least, is all about the tune, and that is what I keep working at - playing and singing the top/only line melody.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 02:46 AM

Matt Milton answered the question and geve some examples what proprtion is that of t total guest booking us or existing clubs both guest booking and non guest booking?
Walkabout you consider yourself authority on english folk music?

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: r.padgett
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 03:09 AM

"I do not think a definition of "folk music and song" is possible"
Too late - it's been done and written up
If it hadn't been possible we wouldn't be here talking to each other
You don't really need a set definition - you can tell by the sound of the songs that they are something special

Oh has it ~ by whom?? the term Folk was initially a term for songs and music ~ "from the people by the people" and really evolved with story telling to tell a story ~ the tunes of course helping memory and the conveying of that story

People are people (folk is folk) and all have their own ideas and definitions ~ "already defined" oh yes when where and what gives them that right prithee?

Something special does not necessarily equate with "folk"

Ray

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 03:16 AM

"no thanks; I shall continue to sing it and the rest of my e-trad repertoire either unaccompanied or by doubling the melody on keyboards, after, nearly always,"
Your choice of course, but you need to bear in mind that it was a children's song to be sung, or even chanted, in the Liverpool streets
You are free to do with it what you will
I always like to compare it with the versions of 'Bonny Light Horseman', and he children's 'Broken Heated I Wander' - one story, two entirely difrerent approaches
I know from personal experience that 'Johnny Todd' can be used as an exercise and still be enjoyed as a serious song - the last, somewhat disgruntled moral' verse gives it enough of an edge to lift it above the usuasal lament
English music may be all about the tune, but the songs have to be mainly about the words - theer are too many of them to be ignored, and their essence is in the stories they carry
As so many of them in the later days of the tradition were learned from print, it is not possible to claim any song was intended to be sug to a specific tune - the singers simple snatched an existing tune to fit the words
Many may have been anble to read the words but hardly any could read music, even if it had been available

"So, what definition of folk song do you agree with then, Jim?"
I don't need a "definition" Dave; I, like you, were you of the mind to, culd take any of the collections that have appeared over the last century and a half and the 'definition' would be staring at you in the face in the song
The secret lise in the two names out songs are recognised by. "folk" and "traditional" - two sides of the same coin.
"Folk" refers to the social group that probably made them, identified with them, and took ownership of them as being 'local' or Norfolk' or 'family' songs
"Traditional" refers to the way they were manipulated and adapted to suit the particular singers and their communities - the journey they take from their original composer(s) through their existence
The origins of these songs are unprovable and usually untraceable further back then the earliest printed versions, but even that doesn't guarantee that that's where they started
I'll be talking next week about the Ballad, 'Get Up and Bar the Door' - I have no doubt that some bushy-tailed academic can give you an earliest published date, but in fact, the story dated back as far as ancient Egypt and is told about tomb robbers eating stolen figs and arguing which of them should close the tomb door in case they are found out
That story lasted as traditional right into the 1970s and I would be surprised if it hadn't appeared regularly as a story and a song in the intervening years - it certainly turned up in "Ancient India" according to one anthology
Now that's what I call folk
That is why it is nonsense to claim that 'folk' can't be defined - the definition lies in the journey each song takes and the process it undergoes
Jim



Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 03:42 AM

Sorry ray - ised this
"Oh has it ~ by whom??
By the people who sang them and acrried tem through the ages - that's who
One of the great myths abot teditional singers is, because they sand all typse of song, they didn't differentiate between the different types - the songs are different and it is insulting to suggest that the singers were incapable of recognising those differences
WE spent hours talking to England's last 'large repertoire' traditional singers about how he categorised his songs
He sand all sorts but was adamant about which were folk and which weren't - he even attempted to analyse the difference musically using his Melodeon
He would have been mortified to found some of "that other old stuff" had been given a Roud number to identify it as a folk song
Blint Travelling singer, Mary Delaney, had a large repertoire of traditional songs which she referred to as 'My daddie's songs" - even though he probably knew lass than ten - she was referring to the type of song rather than its source
She had many dozens of Country and Western songs which she refused to sing for us "You don't want them old things - I only know them 'caose they're the ones the lads ask for down in the pub"
Non-literate Traveller, Mikeen McCarthy from Kerry divided his repertoire into three parts, the "street songs", he used for busking, "pub songs" which were sung in crowded pubs, often for pennies and "fireside songs" which were sund in the open air around a fireside to listeners who would give their full attention to what was being sung
Three different types of song, three different styles of singing
We got the same type of information from more-or-less every singer we talked to

The only reason not to to define a folk song is to choose not to - that has become a convenience used by people who appear not to be satisfied with the folk repertoire any more and want to give themselves an excuse to sing something else at a folk club
That is why the clubs are bombing at a rate of knots
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 05:16 AM

that's an interesting point

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 05:27 AM

Thank you Jim, unless you cross-posted !!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 05:40 AM

"Get Up And Bar The Door" - Thanks for the information on that Jim - It is one I sing as my "Christmas Song".

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 05:42 AM

All this navel gazing is tiresome, before the second revival proper, there was a revival of traditional jazz...I remember it well, and today in the US there is another revival of New Orleans style street music led by an amazing group of musicians called Tuba Skinny....positive and inclusive...I love them, especially the little "leader" Shay and the fantastic singer Erica Lewis.   This is the folk music of Black America, full of life and sometimes pathos.....Heads UP...and give it a listen!

TUBA SKINNY

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 05:43 AM

I `ad old Eric Tebble in my cab once. `e was raised in Deptford but moved out to Basildon and married Ethel Spelter, the last of the Essex women `ot dip galvanisers. She wrote that book, "Zinc or Swim" with all the songs she collected. Essential reading.
I said, "Morning Eric. Long time, no see. `ere, I know you post to that Mudcat. There was a bit about Deptford in it. when you were a kid at school there did you `ave anybody to come and sing folk songs for you?"
`e said, "Yes Jim. I do recall we `ad this geezer come along one time, a right charmer, `e was. `e `ad us all singing songs from "English Folk Songs for Schools". I`ve still got my copy."
I said, " Did you find it educational?"
`e said," I suppose so. But more for the `eadmaster."
I said, "Go on then."
`e said, "When they all came in the next morning they found `e `ad `alf-inched the pianner!"


Whaddam I Like??

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 07:07 AM

I don't need a "definition" Dave

And yet a few posts earlier you insisted that a definition was required if we were to preserve and grow it. Which is it be? Do we need a definition and, it so, which one do you agree with?

I just had a Star Trek moment.

It's folk, Jim, but not as we know it.

:D

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 08:52 AM

"And yet a few posts earlier you insisted that a definition was required if we were to preserve and grow it."
As a singer, I have a loose definition that makes sure that people who turn up to hear folk songs will hear them or songs based on folk syles - that was always the case with principled (as distinct from the minue few purist) clubs
Someone who turns up to hear 'The Flying Cloud' is going to be a little pissed off to be given Jarvis Cocker-alike sounds if they have a modicum of taste (and vise versa, of course)
My need for a tighter definition comes when I am writing or talking about the songs, especially as I am now interested in them as our social history carriers
Nobody turns up to a classical music recital is going to be too happy if they are given jazz instead - why the **** shouldn't the same apply to a folk club - isn't it worthy of that level of integrity ?
You no longer have the excuse that the 'anything-goes' approach works - the lubs ar bombing
In my opinion, this is because nobody knows what they will hear anymore, and the standard of what they are given has steadily declined

WE have a permanent definition and have had since '54 - it needs re-visiting, but it has worked for over a half century and nobody has come up with an alternative so far
If someone asked me where they could find a substantial represtitive collectiion of Folk Song, I would send them to The Penguin Books, or the Singing Island, or Greig Duncan, or Kennedy's British Folk Song collection, or Sharp/Karpeles - or the many and varied collections that have been coming out for over 100 years
Thare are as many articles, and analyses to satisfy anybody interested on any level

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 08:56 AM

Sorry - didn't quite finish
WHERE WOULD YOU SEND THEM?
Answers on any sized postcard you need, but I doubt if anything much larger than a postage stamp would be needed
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 09:30 AM

I dug this out for the talk next week
It explains how the old crowd differentiated between the different types of their song
It's from the time Appalachian singer Jean Richie was recording songs from singers in Ireland in 1950 - a definition using recognition and comparison

“I used the song Barbara Allen as a collecting tool because everybody knew it.
When I would ask people to sing me some of their old songs they would sometimes sing ‘Does Your Mother Come from Ireland?’ or something about shamrocks.
But if I asked if they knew Barbara Allen, immediately they knew exactly what kind of song I was talking about and they would bring out beautiful old things that matched mine, and were variants of the songs I knew in Kentucky. It was like coming home.”
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 10:08 AM

But I have never suggested that anything goes, Jim. You are tilting at a straw man there. I also "have a loose definition that makes sure that people who turn up to hear folk songs will hear them or songs based on folk syles". I gave it to you earlier. Both yours and mine are subjective though. The only objective definition you quote is the 1954 one and, as you say, that is flawed. It is little wonder therefore that the layman is confused about what folk music is if a definition cannot be agreed by the aficionados. They may as well just listen to what Mark Radcliffe tells them.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 10:13 AM

"But I have never suggested that anything goes, Jim"
Oh - come on Dave
You have kicked against a definition and demanded mine
Your "healthy" revival descenede into pop song renditions at one time
Stop prevaricating - where would you send someone looking for fol;k songs ?
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Howard Jones
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 10:40 AM

We've been over all this many times. The clubs in their heyday included a broad range of music, not all of it traditional or even in a traditional style, but it all seemed to rub along and was broadly acceptable to the audiences.

I don't think it can be as simple as the other music driving out trad and trad-sounding songs, or we would still have a thriving club scene but with a different balance of music. However I think the open-mic movement stole our clothes - they saw how the folk club model provided an opportunity to perform in front of an audience, and adapted it to include a wider range of music than had been typical of folk clubs. Perhaps some of these were folk clubs which, deliberately or otherwise, broadened their base and haven't got around to changing how they describe themselves.

The other feature I see is that the standards of performance now cover a far greater range. At the top, I see far more people capable of playing and singing to a far higher standard than was the case when I started in the 70s. It is understandable that audiences, accustomed to high standards in other genres, expect the same and don't want to be subjected to mediocre random floor singers. That inevitably leads to more controlled events without floor singers, and in concert rather than club conditions.

At the other end of the scale, the philosophy that everyone should be allowed to sing has resulted in sessions with appallingly low standards where people who would never have been given a floor spot are encouraged to keep coming back. The needs of the performers take priority over those of the audience. It is hardly surprising that these tend to be shunned by both audiences and more accomplished performers and become remedial self-help groups of people singing badly to each other.

I deplore both these directions, but I'm not sure how they can be reversed.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 10:57 AM

Oh - come on Dave

Feel free to provide a link to me staying anything goes, Jim.

Stop prevaricating - where would you send someone looking for fol;k songs ?

It's difficult to see how I can have prevaricated over a question you have not asked before but, once again, please feel free to link where you have. Anyway, seeing as you ask now, I would send them to Skipton folk club on a Monday. Bacca pipes in Keighley on a Friday or the Topic in Bradford on a Thursday. I cannot say for other areas as I am out of touch.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Vic Smith
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 11:33 AM

Howard Jones wrote:-
The clubs in their heyday included a broad range of music, not all of it traditional or even in a traditional style, but it all seemed to rub along and was broadly acceptable to the audiences.

My first love have always been traditional folk music, song and dance. Throughout the decades that I ran a weekly folk club, the tradition was at the heart of what I wanted to present, though I never wanted to exclude the songwriters who were inspired by the tradition, those who were skilled in monologues and others who enriched the diversity of what was on offer
Having said that, I must say that Howard's summary of what - in general - he found in folk clubs concurs with my own memories of what they were like in the 60's/70's. It seems to me that to regard these years as a glorious halcyon era where the mass of those attending were seeking the true 'voice of the people' sounds like an attempt to rewrite the history of these years as a Golden Era, because that is not the way it was.
I wonder if there are any people who have been to (or compered) as many folk club evenings and concerts between 1962 and 2019 as I have - perhaps the likes of Carthy and Kirkpatrick who have been career folk singers. Certainly, there are fewer clubs and the average age of those attending has risen but overall - and this is only an impression - I would say that you are more likely to hear traditional song and tunes in the folk clubs that I still attend regularly now than in the days when the folk comedians, the music hall aficionados and the introspective singer/songwriters held sway.
The reasons for the decline in the number of folk clubs are complex and include a mass of inter-related socio-economic, political and societal reasons. The world has changed a great deal in my lifetime - probably more than in any other period of history.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 11:38 AM

I suggest you turn to the thread where names like The Kinks and ED Sheeran were bandies about and 'Galway Girl was put up as a folk song
If you really adhere to the real folk songs styles you claim you do why do you spend so much time jumping down my throat every time I say what I exopect from a folk club
Whay have you argued that my folk is no longer relevant
Why do you keep talking 'populist' and saying that the conception of folk is different nowadays
Do I detect a 100 mph backbeddling dieplay
A simple question to ignore, along with the others - why do you spend so much time disagreeing with me if you agree with me
I give oyu my definition by pointing to the books where my folk songs are to be found - you have yet to give me yours
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 12:15 PM

I don't think anybody has ever attempted to suggest an idealised picture of how it was Howard - I certainly am not
In Manchester, if you wanted tardition or tradition based, you went to The Pack Horse or one of Harry Boardman clubs, if you wanted singing pullovers, The Beggarmen ran a club, and if you wanted singer-songwriter, The Shakespeare Head - Christie Moore had a club somewhere
Liverpool earlier and London later were similar
The clubs co-existed without threatening the position of each other
Occasionally, you would get a stranger finding him/herself in the wrong venue but there was no doubt among the locals that thee were certain places to go if you were selective
I don't remember much "finger-in-ear" or "purist" nonsense thrown about and the nastiness of "folk police" or even "folk fascist" never occurred in my hearing
I don't think I remember anybody going around with a signboard saying "Nobody knows what folk song is"
Any claim that would 'the people have changed the meaning of folk" would have been laughed out of London Road or Piccadilly - we were fully aware that our interest was very much a minority one
This 'Utopian' image is a bit of a red herring
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 12:24 PM

Vic, I agree with you completely. I attended folk clubs in London regularly from around early 1957 until 1965 and ran one for over four years of that period and remember them as described by yourself and Howard Jones.
Most audience where I attended enjoyed a considerable variety of material in addition to traditional song.

On the odd occasion that I go to a club now I find a similar variety of material being performed and enjoyed.

Jim, with regard to the second line of your post above can I just say Pots and kettles come to mind.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: r.padgett
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 12:46 PM

The secret lise in the two names out songs are recognised by. "folk" and "traditional" - two sides of the same coin.
"Folk" refers to the social group that probably made them, identified with them, and took ownership of them as being 'local' or Norfolk' or 'family' songs

Nope ~folk song and music continues and does include the traditional~ but is being written and continues to expand and evolve ~ contemporary folk song ~ including industrial song and songs of social comment ~ you stick to your ideas Sir but the word is still very much in daily use and is properly used ~and yes I agree you can tell what is a folk song just by hearing it ~ pop or popular song and music is just that! and sod the folk programme guys

Ray

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 12:58 PM

My first love have always been traditional folk music, song and dance. Throughout the decades that I ran a weekly folk club, the tradition was at the heart of what I wanted to present, though I never wanted to exclude the songwriters who were inspired by the tradition, those who were skilled in monologues and others who enriched the diversity of what was on offer
Having said that, I must say that Howard's summary of what - in general - he found in folk clubs concurs with my own memories of what they were like in the 60's/70's. It seems to me that to regard these years as a glorious halcyon era where the mass of those attending were seeking the true 'voice of the people' sounds like an attempt to rewrite the history of these years as a Golden Era, because that is not the way it was.
I wonder if there are any people who have been to (or compered) as many folk club evenings and concerts between 1962 and 2019 as I have - perhaps the likes of Carthy and Kirkpatrick who have been career folk singers. Certainly, there are fewer clubs and the average age of those attending has risen but overall - and this is only an impression - I would say that you are more likely to hear traditional song and tunes in the folk clubs that I still attend regularly now than in the days when the folk comedians, the music hall aficionados and the introspective singer/songwriters held sway.
The reasons for the decline in the number of folk clubs are complex and include a mass of inter-related socio-economic, political and societal reasons. The world has changed a great deal in my lifetime - probably more than in any other period of history.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This, this, THIS!!

Jim, your posts come over very London-centric and Ireland-centric, and you seem to be making your judgments based on those scenes. Those of us who live far away from those idylls don’t have the luxury of being able to choose from numerous clubs and venues, every night of the week, each presenting its own Individual style of music - we may have a couple, maybe three, sometimes only once a fortnight or even monthly, and often with an hour’s drive at each end of the evening. Those clubs have found that, in order to survive, they have to cater for a range of styles falling within the broad church of folk- and folk-styled music, and that insistence on adherence to one style only would soon sound their death-knell.

Those of us who attend and still perform in those clubs understand that, and we accept that during an evening we may hear songs in styles we’re not especially enamoured of, but we make an allowance for that because, otherwise, if we insisted on ‘our preferred style’ only, we’d soon be singing to an almost empty room.

Even in the one fairly-local club which had a strong reputation for being ‘Strictly Trad’, there has had to be a change of policy, because the Traddies either died off or buggered off. This one is now highly successful and is packed every week.

I can’t imagine anything worse than having to sit through an entire evening of Jolly Plough Boys, except having to sit through an evening of Teenage-Angst sung from an iPhone. But an evening of varied styles, including Trad and ‘Contemporary’ (for want of a better word) is perfectly acceptable for me and the many others who attend the clubs I frequent.

You may not like it, but that’s the way it is. As the Brexit-Bunch are wont to say, “Get over it”.

I repeat Vic’s final sentence - the world has changed a great deal in my lifetime, probably more than in any other period of history.

The usual disclaimers apply......IMHO, YMMV etc.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 01:07 PM

"Nope ~folk song and music continues and does include the traditional~ but is being written and continues to expand and evolve"
Yup - I'm afraid Ron
Yes - newly written songs were included in the traditional repertoire - all songs started somewhere, but it was the process that made them folk songs, not their being sung
The logic of your argument is that every song a traditional singer sings must be folk necause he/she sings it, so if Sam Larner sang Nessun Dorma, it would automatically be a folk song
One of the overwhelming tendencies of the tradition was that nobody knew where the songs came from - the authors were forgotten and the became 'anon'
The moved on and appeared in variants, adapting and taking root wherever they landed
Invariably they became the property of the area - a Scots song becoming Norfolk or West Country...

One of the findings I have never quite come to terms with is the large number of locally made songs that appeared throughout Ireland during the lifetimes of the singers we recorded - we recorded a dozen or so, but were told of hundreds
One old singer (now approaching 100) told us, "If a man farted in church someone made a song on it"
We have been unable to find the name of the maker of a single one of these songs.
This appears to have been the case throughout Ireland
All part of the song making tradition
The adapting of written songs is included in the '54 definition, but it is qualified by the necessity of 'the folk process'
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 01:19 PM

"Jim, your posts come over very London-centric and Ireland-centric,"
My conclusions were drawn from working with Travellers and in West Clare - the former still had a living tradition and the latter was still within living memory
The tradition in England began to die when the Industrial Revolution began to break up the rural communities and cause a shift to the town, literacy, commercial entertainment and technology dealt the coup-de-grace
Sharp et al reported that the live tradition was moribund and Tom Munnley in the sixties described his as "A race ith the undertaker"
This makes the information received from Travellers and rural Ireland so important
Walter Pardon was interesting as he was never really a part of a living sining tradition, but he learned all his songs from relatives who were
He sang what that taught him and he reached his conclusions from what his Uncle Billy and his father - repeated first hand information
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 01:52 PM

Galway Girl was put up as a folk song

Not be me it wasn't, Jim. Nor were the Kinks or Ed Sheran put up as folk singers. The nearest I ever said was that some of Ed Sheran's songs could be acceptable at folk clubs, and this next bit is very important, if they were performed in a traditional style. I have no idea who mentioned the Kinks but there are certainly some of Ray Davies's compositions that would lend themselves to be performed in such a way as well. You are putting up straw men once again. I have said this before and will probably say it again. The performance of a song is as important as the content to me.

As to why do you spend so much time disagreeing with me

Because I cannot agree with your analysis of folk clubs in general and because you keep misrepresenting my position. And because you enjoy it :-) You have said as much. I think you would leave it everyone began agreeing with you.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 02:15 PM

Think I misunderstood you Baccie
If you were talking just about the clubs, my experiance spreads over three major British cities and things that have been argued for as 'folk clubs' on this forum and in some now defunct magazines (I believe Froots went belly-up recently)
Not only is the Trad scene dying but some here seem to be saying 'good riddance - it's no longer a valid music'
Your point about a trad club being forced to change it's policy rather makes my point - from a folk club to a bums-on-seats club
Whatever the reason, it's no longer a folk club - I suggest that maybe my poing anot people coming to hear Sam Larner and being given Jarvis Cocker might have somethign to do with it
Those things tebd to happen when bums-on-seats becomes an issue - you really can't please 'em all Grand Opera founs themselves having to sit through big lumps of Taylor Swift
Pretty soon they's piss of elsewhere
Ireland has never really had a folk club scene
I wonder how the regs at the ROH would react if, they came to listen o

Dave
Not interested until you start answering basic questions -
Your point about Ed Shearan's un-folk-like repetitive, non narrative songs where the characters are shadows and cyphers makes my point perfectly
Instead of ducking and diving - what are your objections to my arguments - if there are none, why do you spend so long opposing what I say ?
Where would you send a newbie inquiring where they could learn about your brand of folk songs
I'll keep asking this as long as you keep ignoring it
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Acorn4
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 02:16 PM

The East Midlands Folk Magazine recently changed its title from "Folk Monthly" to "Folk and Acoustic Monthly" which seems to reinforce some of the points made above.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Acorn4
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 02:17 PM

Should have been "Midlands"rather than just "East Midlands" being published in Birmingham.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Nemesis
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 02:28 PM

DTG this song comes to mind as an addendum to your last post 01:52

Though my old man's a dustman he's got a heart of gold
He got married recently though he's 86 years old
We said 'Ear! Hang on Dad you're getting past your prime'
He said 'Well when you get to my age it helps to pass the time'

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 03:03 PM

"Walkabout you consider yourself authority on english folk music?" (The Sandman)...I got into it after a visit to the THE 35TH MORPETH NORTHUMBRIAN GATHERING - SPRING 2002 with a major in anthropology behind me; and whilst, frankly, I don't have the repertoire of some who have put more time into it, I'm sure I have a good understanding of the definitive factors, such as those I mentioned above.

More broadly, I also genuinely believe that the best way forward for humanity is my way, having been born in Saint Mary's Hospital, Manchester, the day Alf Ramsey's English team won the FIFA World Cup, been very highly trained in Australia, well travelled, and thoughtful.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 04:02 PM

I may not be the first to have the thought that I would not particularly want to hear a song about somebody farting in church. But when you are faced with an 'investigator' with a clear interest in finding out traditional stuff and about ordinary people who made up songs, then such is human nature that you will provide for him what he wants, keep him happy. Observer bias.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 04:04 PM

It's like Jim's methods are a casebook example of how not to do it in the first place coupled with biased interpretations of the data thus obtained, with a dollops of self-contradiction and verbal pugilism built into the write-ups.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 05:10 PM

Where would you send a newbie inquiring where they could learn about your brand of folk songs
I'll keep asking this as long as you keep ignoring it

1. Already answered you, Jim.11 Oct 19 - 10:57 AM

2. If you put up some proper points against what I have actually said rather than against something you imagine I said, I may start to respond. If you were to actually read what I put it may help. See point 1.

As much as I don't like to say this, I think you and I speak a different language.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 08:04 PM

Calling The Beggarmen 'singing pullovers' seems a bit harsh.

I only saw them once but I thought a pretty slick professional act. If you couldn't afford the Dubliners for your club (and who could by the 1970's) they had a fair stab at that sort of material.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 08:47 PM

"Calling The Beggarmen 'singing pullovers' seems a bit harsh."
Not really Al
It was't meant to be an insult; it was, I think, a term conjured up by Billy Connolly, to describe a type oe watered- down folk song that some peole cut their folk teeth on
I enjoyed it occasionally but, like The Liverpool Spinners, who introduced me to folk songs, it was afar to samey and unimaginative to hold my attention
Folk song is a largely unexploited mine of enjoyment, information and social hostory - these groups so the most superficial of it's aspects and used it as lightweight entertainment
You might have difficulty with this, but I once heard Luke Kelly say this one night when The Dubliners turned up to see Ewan one night as the singers club
Luke still thought the sun shone out of Ewan's arse right up to his death

"I may not be the first to have the thought that I would not particularly want to hear a song about somebody farting in church. "
But you're quite happy to hear a song anout a daughter's loverr having his hart ripped out and served up in a glass of wine, or a young servant accused of accosting a Lord's wife ripped apart by horses, or a ploghman being put to death by having his back broken across a plough coulter.... how quaintly selective -all part of Traditional Balladry, and are pretty offensive
I wonder how you feel about a young woman being raped, having her tongue and eyes torn out and her hands cut off so she couldn't identify her assailants (who were then killed, baked in a pie and served to their father) - Shakespeare at his most crowd-pleasing !!
It makes a fart in church pretty tame in my opinion - but that's high culture for you
One of the first local recitations I heard around here (never got to meet the reciter) was called 'The Farting Competition' - I can still smell it

"biased interpretations of the data thus obtained, with a dollops of self-contradiction "
Why the hell do you have to resort to unqualified personal insults all the time Pseud - are you really that insecure ?
Please stop fouling up these discussions with this unnecessary personal nonsense - it's what get threads closed, as we have learned
I haven't insuted you, please return the favour

"11 Oct 19 - 10:57 AM"
So you would send them to a club that can't tell the difference between Joe Heaney and Ed Shearan - must write that down

" If you put up some proper points against what I have actually"
You have been very unclear in what oy sauy Dave - one minute you vehemently oppose my view on folk song and demand how I define it, the next you are saying you are talking about whether the folk scene is healthyy or not
"I think you and I speak a different language."
No we don't Dave - we have different views on what constitutes folk song - I tend to take the one that has been fully accepted (up to comparatively recently) for around a century, yours appears to have been cobbled together by groups of folkies(sic) who can't provide a consensus for what they have come up with and can't even explain the terms 'traditional' or 'folk'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Oct 19 - 02:53 AM

So you would send them to a club that can't tell the difference between Joe Heaney and Ed Shearan

Let me by this straight, Jim. You reckon that neither Skipton nor Keighley nor Bradford folk clubs can tell the difference between Joe Heaney and Ed Sheran? Have I got that right?

As to your last point. Yes we do have different views on what constitutes a folk song. I accept that there is room for different views. Can you say the same?