UK Folk Revival 2018

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 07:03 AM

hard case by alan lomax ramblers with maccoll singing sounds skiffle to me and features a lovely clarinet solo

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 07:27 AM

Jim,

The first line of your reply misquotes me. Check your fourth word in.

It's true that Colyer was in at the beginning of the skiffle craze. He and a couple of members of his band would do a few numbers as a trio/quartet doing American blues and folk songs. When Colyer was ejected from the co-operative band Chris Barber resumed leadership they carried on the tradition. Anthony "Lonnie" Donegan continued with Chris as banjo and guitar player. A "throwaway" unplanned recording became a pop hit in 1956 and things took off from there.

Re your statement:
"The Short Lived 'Ramblers' group was an aberration and had nothing to do with the skiffle movement"

Can I refer you to the Skiffle Album by Alan Lomax and the Ramblers.The group included Lomax, McColl, Peggy Seeger and Shirley Collins. You state it had nothing to do with the skiffle movement ???
This group recorded in 1957. As I suggested in a post above this might just be an example of jumping on the band wagon.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 08:21 AM

Compare the album to the Donegan Skiffle group, the Vipers, and all the other washboard and teachest bases that proliferated the skiffle scene
On the EP it was largely american folk with Dirty Old Town and Hard Case (2 MaColl songs) thrown in for good measure Chalk and cheese
The EP was released in 1957 - Donegan had established his name in skiffle at least three years earlier
You count it as 'skiffle' - I do not
Ballads and Blues appeare to be a colpromise to please all the eclectic interests - MacColl walked away from because of Malcolm Nixon'e attempts to commercialise it further *(all rather savegly described in MacColl's

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 08:28 AM

Sorry - finger slipped
No AGENTS NEED APPLY

MacColl's tastes and intentions were already established by this description of his first being 'found' by a man from the BBC

"Ewan MacColl was himself a victim of the Depression. The son of an unemployed Glasgow steelworker, who had moved to Salford in search of work during the twenties, he had suffered every privation and humiliation that poverty could contrive for him from the age of ten. His memories of his early years are still bitter—like his recollection of how to kill aimless time in a world where there was nothing else to do: "You go in the Public Library. And the old men are there standing against the pipes to get warm, all the newspaper parts are occupied, and you pick a book up. I can remember then that you got the smell of the unemployed, a kind of sour or bitter-sweet smell, mixed in with the smell of old books, dust, leather and the rest of it. So now if I pick up, say, a Dostoievsky—immediately with the first page, there's that smell of poverty in 1931."
MacColl had been out busking for pennies by the Manchester theatres and cinemas. The songs he sang were unusual, Scots songs, Gaelic songs he had learnt from his mother, border ballads and folk-songs. One night while queueing up for the three-and-sixpennies, Kenneth Adam had heard him singing outside the Manchester Paramount. He was suitably impressed. Not only did he give MacColl a handout; he also advised him to go and audition for Archie Harding at the BBC studios in Manchester's Piccadilly.
PROSPERO AND ARIEL (The rise and fall of radio, a personal recollection – D G Bridson 1971)

Jim

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 09:41 AM

Three and Six for a cinema ticket!
My Mums wages were eleven bob a week in 1938. Leaving school to work for the borough treasurer's office at 17 with 8 school certificates.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 10:46 AM

Jim.

You will find that Donegan in 1953 was known as banjo and guitar player in the Chris Barber / Ken Colyer bands among the followers of what was known as "Traditional Jazz". That's how I knew him and where I first saw and heard him. It was 1956 when he became a household name.

Can I refer you again to "The Skiffle Album" the printed copy of the material sung by The Ramblers.It must have been Lomax & MacColl I guess that gave it that title. Why?

I would never have called what they did Skiffle. I thought it was as bad as all the other stuff that came along under that banner and I did hear many of them. There were some excellent musicians there but I preferred hearing Bruce Turner and Jim Bray in their normal jazz setting which I did many times live.

May I remind you Jim that you don't like "grave dancing" but you attack Malcolm Nixon never having met the man.

The remainder of your post re MacColl is irrelevant to this thread, we have heard it all before.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 10:54 AM

just a little contextual material...

I was sat on the bog listening to a band I hadn't bothered with for nearly 30 yeras..

nostalgia.. eh...

So I did a wiki search...

"..the *********** **** began rehearsing in his family's front room, but were soon banished because of the noise.
They became prominent in England's emerging punk scene in 1977,
where they auditioned for ***** *******'s record label.
******* signed the band, hoping to cash in on the punk scene that was sweeping the UK
and believing that a more produced studio sound would appeal to a larger market...

ONE MASSIVE HIT LATER

..the success ...caused the band to be pressured into entering the recording studio with producer **** ******
to record a follow-up release before they were ready.
The result was ******** ** ********, their biggest Top 40 success to date,
but an album ..later characterized as "hollow, vapid and weak".
A more overtly commercial effort than their prior recordings, "

This band had a massive USA hit leading to world wide success,
and eventual/inevitable creative dissatisfaction and disillusionment...

No need to name this individual band, as it was and continues to be a high price
for artistic integrity for so many bright young bands and singers of all genres...

Though obviously, many also revel in the fame and money...

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 11:25 AM

You appear to be wanting to make a meal of this
I don't know who named it The Skiffle Album or even when they are supposed to have done so - it certainly wasn't Lomax, MacColl, seeger or even the producers of the album, Decca
I've just dug out my original DEcca recording and "Skiffle" doesn't appear on the sleeve as you can see below

As for my comments about Malcolm Nixon - no - I didn't know or meet him, bus his reputation goes before him
I first read about him in detail in an article by Long John Baldry and was later told by people who did know him of his attempted commercialisation of The Ballads and Blues (as in the song)
Baldry took it a stage further when he related how Nixon left the B&B with the club takings
You among others have no qualms in relating denigrating stories about MacColl so you can hardly be offended when the tables are turned
Jim


Alan Lomax and The Ramblers
DFE 6367 DFE 6367
ALAN LOMAX and the RAMBLERS
Side No. 1        Side No. 2
Oh! Lula (Hurston, Lomax)        Dirty        old town (MacColl)
Railroad man (Lomax)        Hard        case (MacColl)
Alan Lomax (vocal and guitar); Ewan MacColl (vocal)', Peggy Seeger (banjo and vocal); Shirley Collins (vocal); Sandy Brown (clarinet); John Cole (harmonica); Bryan Daley (guitar); Jim Bray (bass); Alan Sutton (washboard).        Recorded London, August 2, 1956.
Ewan MacColl and I were both raised with folk songs like Gypsy Davy and Careless love right in the house with us. Ewan’s father, a Scots iron puddler, used to spend the whole of Hogmanay with his pals singing Scots ballads and drinking songs. Since then. MacColl has wandered over the British Isles as a poet and an actor, picking up songs along the road. When there was no traditional song to fit a scene in one of his-.many plays or radio pro¬grammes. he composed one. like a true Scots bard, drawing upon a heritage of tunes and verse forms he acquired before he could read or write. Dirty old town, which catches the nostalgic mood of love in bigtown, and Hard case, which is couched in absolutely accurate convict lingo, are examples of this kind.
As for me, my father, John Lomax, who was America’s first ballad hunter, the collector of The Boll Weevil. The Dogie, Home on the Range, and thousands more, brought me up to take over where he left off. Out of our recording trips all over the South grew the Archive of Folk Songs in Washington, and came the songs like Rock Island Line (recorded in Arkansas in 1936), Take this hammer (recorded in Virginia in 1934), Stewball (recorded in Mississippi in 1933), and hundreds more that are now beginning to be popular in Great Britain.
On this record the Ramblers belt into their Scots, Irish and English songs with the same lack of in¬hibitions that characterise a Memphis jug-band or a Kentucky mountain square dance orchestra play¬ing boogie-woogie. Sandy Brown, a ballad-loving Scotsman, sings through his clarinet. Johnny Cole, an aircraft parts worker with a real genius for the harmonica, sings his part on his small reeds. The rhythm section is composed at times of washboard and bongo drums, but it always rests upon the firm beat of Jim Bray on bass and Bryan Daley on guitar. Shirley Collins, from Hastings, sings the high parts and the soft love songs. Peggy Seeger has an uncanny instinct for accompanying every¬body. Occasionally I am permitted to sing some American songs the way I heard them in the South and West when I was very young—and out of this came the new songs Oh! Lula and Railroad man. But we are all united in our hope that some day, and that not faraway, the British people will again be singing their own folk-songs, which are the most beautiful and varied of Western Europe, and that the Ramblers will have helped.
ALAN LOMAX

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 12:08 PM

Not offended Jim, just reminding you of your usual complaint when somebody mentions your hero.

As I mentioned above I was referring to the printed copy called The Skiffle Album. published by B Feldman & Co. Ltd. I have a copy here and if you wish to see a copy there is one on page 252 of Billy Bragg's recent book "Roots Radicals and Rockers". The photograph of the group shows Bruce Turner to be the clarinet player which I believe is correct but Lomax's notes confuse things by calling him Sandy Brown.

Re Long John Baldry, I knew him very well. Did he really make that accusation in print? Malcolm never left The Ballads Blues. It was Ewan and Peggy that left in 1961. Malcolm continued until 1965

The thought that anyone would run off with the takings from a folk club is laughable. Even you can't really seriously believe that.

On the closing night of the Ballads and Blues Club 1965 the main guest was Long John Baldry. John was represented by the Malcolm Nixon Agency. When we closed the agency John continued with the same man who had been his manager at the Agency one George Webb. George put John together with Rod Stewart and Julie Driscoll and the Brian Auger Trinity to form The Steam Packet. All three vocalists went on to have big hits in the pop market. Pretty irrelevant here but just to make the point that Long John Stayed with Malcolm Nixon until the agency no longer existed.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 12:15 PM

Well, Jim. Having never heard me perform my primarily traditional material or never having attended the primarily tradition folk club and festival I ran for almost 30 years you have decided that I am to blame for the destruction of traditional folk. How does that work then? And, for the record once again, Swinton Folk Club has not 'bombed'. It is still going strong as I said earlier.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 12:42 PM

"you have decided that I am to blame for the destruction of traditional folk"
Why on earth do you do this Dave - I really thought you better than this?
I have never suggested any individual or their singing ruined folk (if I have, have the decency to point out where)
I said that what destroyed folk (among other things) was the fact that people were robbed of their choice of what they wished to listen to when they went to a "folk club"
You appear to be suffering with a persecution complex

Hoot
I don't give a toss who called the group "skiffle" (a 'Hoot' even)
Lomax laid out perfectly in the sleeve notes I put up what the intention of the performers was
Bertrand Feldman was a music publisher - not known for their insight into the music they produce nor for consulting the artists

As for Nixon's running away with the cash box - I never heard this from either Ewan or Peggy
It was part of an overview of the scene back in the day - shortly before the club finally closed
I have no heroes, but if I had they wouldn't be those who tried to commercialise folk song (oe ran off with the takings!)
Jim

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 01:18 PM

Jim. I refer you back to your post of 26 Aug 18 - 04:15 AM. You start quoting something I had said so you were plainly addressing me. You then go on to say

You could have got your own clubs and called them something else - you chose to take over our description

...

It's not as if you were successul at what you did - your clubs bombed just as ours did. Ours had a good reason - people couldn't find folk music in folk clubs - your's bombed because you couldn't make up your mind what you were trying to sell - you tried to please all of the people all of the time and ended up pleasing nobody

...

The fact that you allowed standards to drop as you did meant that what you put on was a badly performed unidentifiable mish-mash
Your music has no future because it has no definable identity

...

Can your point out one single publication containing your 'folk song' - no you can't
Can you provide a track record - a genealogy - a history... of your folk song - of course you can't - it would be like trying to bottle fog

...

Hand on heart - can you say thay?
Of course you can't - you can't even describe what you represent as folk music
You're like these big Multinationals (except you're not big) who moved into the East Anglian farms, tore down all the hedgerows, farmed the land bith their monster machines, until, after a few years the East Wind blew off all the topsoil and made the land a desert

Now, if you can explain how this is not blaming me for something (although I am not sure what exactly) I am willing to listen to reason. As to a persecution complex. Nah, not really but when someone I consider a friend makes an unprovoked personal attack on me I do worry.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 01:26 PM

"You could have got your own clubs and called them something else - you chose to take over our description"
The Royal "you" Dave - you have alligned yourself with those who justify not presenting folk songs in folk clubs - you claimed to have moved on

The same with the rest really - you say there's nothing wrong with the scene, yoiu seem comfortable that they have driven away thousands because of their policies

Is this notwhat you (not you personally) have done/
"There is always room for traditional music but the fact remains that unless you move with the times, you stand still and get overtaken by something better. "
Something better ?
So it's our fault for expecting to har folk song
You seem to be taking evasive action to divert from your previous statements
Some of us don't believe that there is "anything better" but I'll be fascinated to learn what you believe is

Isn't 'hoist on your own petard' appropriate here?
Jim

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 01:50 PM

Jim - a lot of us out here believe there is loads of 'better' music [personal tastes vary],
but we still value and enjoy trad folk...

That is an undisputable fact in the 21st Century...

Our concern is that trad folk continues to be valued and enjoyed by generations to come,
alongside all their newer future music yet to be written/produced...

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 02:09 PM

No evasive action here, Jim. I always understood it someone says 'you' they mean it personally. I have heard of the royal we. Never the royal you. But I accept you explanation. I do however need to point out the error in your logic. Your being personal in this case. I have pointed out time and time again that the club I ran was, and still is, sucessful. It is primarily traditional but we are acceptant of other types of folk music. It has never sold out to commercialism. It has never been anything other than a folk club. It is the only club I have ever had any way in running. If you chose to allocate blame to anyone for the destruction of your idea of folk music, make sure you are aiming at the right targets.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Ebor Fiddler
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 02:44 PM

I'm still not very sure what this thread is all about, apart from continuing a slanging match between two gentlemen old enough to know better. Please gentlemen, cease this unseemly behaviour, find yourselves a settle in a good pub, and make friends again. DON'T argue about who's going to buy the first round either! (Stamps foot.)

Chris B.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 02:46 PM

:D But what do you mean by 'yourselves'

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Cj
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 02:51 PM

So often and here again it comes down to what one considers "folk". As soon as anyone with an acoustic guitar singing anything was accepted into that definition, a new one should have been made for traditional music. Though I suppose again the belly fluff singers would want to encroach on this new name, to enhance their credibility and perhaps give them an audience.
Traditional folk will never be able to compete against the Ed Sheeran / Bob Dylan / Paul Simon wannabes, but so long as it stays living and breathing, that's good enough for me.
I hate going to folk clubs and hearing earnest new songs about broken hearts tho', I find it torturous. Why couldn't these wallopers have considered themselves jazz, instead?

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 03:09 PM

"Never the royal you."
That's what I meant Dave - creative langage)
t should have been self explanatory in what I said
You have castigated us from the beginning - "nothing wrong" - "change with the times or something better will take over"
I don't think I have misunderstood you - not deliberately anyway

"Jim - a lot of us out here believe there is loads of 'better' music [personal tastes vary],"
No problem with that - À chacun son goût
The problem arises when you start calling it folk music

This is about the Clubs - in my opinion the dustbin philosophy is what ruined them

Why should anybody wish to compere with Dylan/Zimmermann - he's a pop singer and doesn't pretend to be anything else?
Paul Simon the same
Ed Sheeran - a failed C and W singer
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 03:12 PM

I only wish I could fail as well as Ed Sheeran :-)

Subject: RogerRE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 03:24 PM

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
What a load of cobblers.
Roger.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 03:39 PM

'But we are all united in our hope that some day, and that not faraway, the British people will again be singing their own folk-songs, which are the most beautiful and varied of Western Europe, and that the Ramblers will have helped.'

sort of early Brexiteers, before we even joined up with those foreign johnnies...

Quite right though! We are by far the best. I'm backing Britain!

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 03:52 PM

Quite right Mr Whittle.
Them there foreign johnnies don’t like the cold steel up ‘em.
Rober

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 04:02 PM

I think you may find the old school Bullingdon boys do like it up 'em...

:-D

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 04:11 PM

You do remember that was Bruce Forsyth, don't you Big Al?

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 04:27 PM

This thread is about the effect of commercialisation on the uk folk revival.
I have given some examples.
Traditional song and dance are suffering because of commercialisation,venues are disappearing because of commercialisation,because pubs decide they can make more money, they get ridof folk clubs.
EFDSS could start a festival and perhaps one club, they have a data base of members, the festival and club would be promoting tradtional song and dance[ONLY] and would have the support of its members any profits ploughed back into the festival and club or the society.TRADTIONAL DANCE AND SONG IS IN DANGER

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 07:24 PM

what was Bruce Forsyth?

How come Sandman and Jim - both living in Ireland, have come to such diametrically opinions?

One of them says that kids are flocking into seminars to gain access to the ancient culture and
One of them says TRADITIONAL SONG AND DANCE IS IN DANGER

Its confusing, I'm confused.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Aug 18 - 08:29 PM

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There you go, making commercial sounding folk music is as easy as letraset and fuzzy felt...

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 03:09 AM

I was referring to england not ireland

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 04:02 AM

"I only wish I could fail as well as Ed Sheeran"
Depends on what you want to be good at
Ed Sheeran fills massive arenas here - - with people more interested in Frank Sinatra than they would be Frank Harte
IF THAT IS HOW YOU SEE THE ENGLISH CLUB SCENE , I think you have made my point
Festivals city stopping concerts for screaming fans, - my, my - now that's going to fill our clubs !!
I think I get your picture for the future of folk song
Sorry lads, not mine
Jim

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 04:06 AM

'But we are all united in our hope that some day, and that not faraway, the British people will again be singing their own folk-songs, which are the most beautiful and varied of Western Europe, and that the Ramblers will have *helped*'

But not, perhaps, by releasing an EP with two songs written by MacColl and two written by Alan Lomax, with music sounding mainly like Acker Bilk mixed with Hank Williams on Speed!

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 04:25 AM

Hmmm.... the Iberian Peninsula is in Western Europe I seem to remember.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 05:01 AM

Pseud,

I notice too that in the printed album of eleven titles the traditional songs are sometimes labelled "music arranged by" and "words and music arranged by".

It also contains the music, guitar chords and fingering. All done in the good old British tradition of course.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 05:04 AM

Good grief, Jim. If you see an aside about Ed Sheeran as my views on Folk Clubs there really is no hope.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Joe G
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 05:08 AM

Well last night at Shrewsbury FF Jon Boden and the Remnant Kings gripped two of my non folkie friends by their rendition of traditional folk songs along with Jon's original songs. Exciting, vibrant and passionate. That's what folk song should be and it is the younger generations of performers that are making it so. By contrast the Irish 'supergroup' of the older guard were technically brilliant but comparitively passionless

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 06:06 AM

well I'd give Ed a floorspot.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 06:20 AM

" If you see an aside about Ed Sheeran as my views on Folk Clubs there really is no hope."
I don't Dave - you weren't the fanzine who raised him as a comparison to traditional singers

"I notice too that in the printed album of eleven titles the traditional songs are sometimes labelled "music arranged by" and "words and music arranged by".
THat is commonplace with folk song nowadays
John Reilly's ' Well below the Valley is now copyrighted by musician, Phil Coulter
Ironically, John, an impoverished Traveller was taken from a derelict house in Boyle and taken to hospital, where he died of malnutrition

"But not, perhaps, by releasing an EP with two songs written by MacColl and two written by Alan Lomax,"
You can't resist taking a poke at those dead devotees who set this music on the road, can you?
Seeger, MacColl and Lloyd were instrumental in creating a revival that lasted for decades - MacColl alone breathed life int 175 of the Child ballads, hundreds of Scots and English folk songs and made at least 300 songs using folk forms
He and others helped build up the edifice that your friends are now attempting to tear down
Lomax if renowned throughout the world for his contribution to world traditional music
However they sang six decades ago, it was vastly superior to the pretty-pretty breathy little-girl singing that Steve Roud seems to regard as good singing - go and look them up
HERE'S ONE
AND ANOTHER

I'd stick to knocking dead singers and your "foot-tapping ballads" if I were you

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 06:27 AM

>>>>>>pretty-pretty breathy little-girl singing that Steve Roud seems to regard as good singing<<<<<<<

Evidence please!

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 06:46 AM

Brenda Wooton was big in the West Country 40 years ago, she was on our local telly a fair bit.
Me and a mate went to see her live at an arts centre.

These days it's difficult finding CDs of her singing, at a sensible price.
But by chance found 2 collections on Amazon Prime Music...

So last night I persuaded the wife to have a listen.
She was curious to hear how Cornish sounded compared to Welsh.

My mrs is a big fan of more recent female singers - particularly Kate Rusby...

After a few songs, she told me to stop playing her tracks
as Brenda Wooton sounded "too scary"...

From my point of view, now that I've heard her again afer 40 years,
these 2 collections seem a random collection of some really good recordings in a style I like [the scarier ones..],
but too many are delivered in a trite comic style that was popular decades ago..
[perhaps still is in folk clubs...???]

So it seems Brenda is not a singer to be easily recommeded to ears atuned to 'modern' folk singers...???

Shame her back catalogue is not more widely available at a fair price.
I'd like to hear the 1970s LPs that were well regarded back then,
not these hotch potch compilations..

But maybe they also sounded variable like this...???

..one good track followed by a couple of excrutiating duds...?????

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Vic Smith
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 07:26 AM

The Library and Archives Director of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library is one of the most knowledgeable, impressive and enthusiastic young people that I have had the pleasure of talking about traditional song to. She has a deep understanding and wide knowledge at her fingertips. She is proving to be a worthy successor to her very impressive predecessor, Malcolm Taylor. She is also one of the finest of the rising generation of young singers. Her singing shows that she knows what traditional song is all about.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 07:26 AM

"Evidence please!"
Bit cheeky from somebody who refuses to supply any
Go look it up Steve - they both get honourable mentions in one of his interviews
Jim

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 07:46 AM

Jim, you said to me, 27 Aug 18 - 04:02 AM IF THAT IS HOW YOU SEE THE ENGLISH CLUB SCENE , I think you have made my point (In caps but was a link to an article about Ed Sheeran)

Me: If you see an aside about Ed Sheeran as my views on Folk Clubs there really is no hope.


Jim: I don't Dave - you weren't the fanzine who raised him as a comparison to traditional singers

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 07:49 AM

Sorry, didn't finish. I am a real loss as to just what it is you actually are saying and to who, Jim. As my post above demonstrates you seem to address a comment to me and then when I respond you deny it.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 08:41 AM

Dave
This argument appears to have divided neatly into two sides - I'm afraid as far as I am concerned, if you aint for us, you are agin us - sorry if you've got caught in the cross fire
It might have helped that, instead of pointing out how successful Ed Sheeran is, you'd have shared my outrage at his being identified as a better singer than our traditional ones (along with Robert Zimmerman) - but there you go.

All this is a bit of a diversion anyway - we were discussing the state of the clubs and whether they were in need of repair, not our own personal tastes
I have no doubt of your own commitment to traditional song - I don't need your assurances on that one
What you are prepared to tolerate in a 'folk club' is a different matter
Jim

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 08:56 AM

jim.
Despondent of slough seems to be refrring to festivals as well as clubs, he she refers to the uk folk revival, which seems to be as many festivals as clubs, festivals such as shrewsbury and cambridge which have little or few trad performers.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 08:56 AM

If people want to follow up the Brenda Wooton ref, there are a couple of albums on Spotify, which you don't have to pay for. Some of it a tad screechy, perhaps, some more listenable.

As it happens I quite liked the MacColl Lomax hybrid. I am happy with my description of it. Again, people can listen using Spotify if interested and check it out for themselves.

It really is surprising how much material is available from Spotify free of charge at the click of a button.

There was an interesting programme on the radio which had a section about how MacColl and Seeger trained female singers to select particular types of 'tone' (for lack of a better word) for particular songs. It is discussed on thread 142157 here and is still available on the BBC radio iplayer. Enlightening, and including some examples of MacColl himself speaking. That was a real eye-opener for me.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 09:28 AM

Perhaps somebody could suggest a MacColl song or two done without accompaniment and without regular rhythm?

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 09:31 AM

"There was an interesting programme on the radio which had a section about how MacColl and Seeger trained female singers to select particular types of 'tone' (for lack of a better word) for particular songs. "
Your display of ignorance is n=breathtaking as is your capacity to persist with it
MacColl (not Pegg) was approached by a group of singers in the early sixties to "take classes"
He refused and instead, set up a self-help" group (which eventually became the Critics Group, which met weekly in their home for nearly ten years
They/we ( I was a member for a couple of years, my wife was part of it for most of its existence) on the one hand,experimented with various voice and relaxation techniques in order to improve their performances.
They also examined the history and social significance of the songs in detail
By the time the Group finally disbanded in the early 1970s, some members had become voice trainers and teachers themselves, others major songwriters and others still prominent singers in the Revival - Pat and I went on to research the music we have been inspired to examine closely
One of the earliest members, Like Kelly, became a leading figure on the Irish scene, Sandra Kerr was part of a music course in Newcastle University, Frankie Armstrong, apart from being a respected singer in her own right, taught voice
John Falkner and his then partner, Dolorous Keane became household names on the Irish scene
The Group left behind a couple of dozen of the best examples of folk singing ever produced in the revival - London songs, Sea songs, Songs of the 19th century Industrial Revolution, Women's songs - all solo or group researched and sung gems
On top of that, the Group participated in the making of two sets of combined poems and songs for schoolchildren along with some of Britain's most prominent actors/readers - a folio of around 30 albums in all

Can I suggest that, if you are gong to make this yet another MacColl hate-fest, you avoid making a fool of yourself by showing you know something of what you are talking about
No wonder you are a Steve Roud fan
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 09:31 AM

"There was an interesting programme on the radio which had a section about how MacColl and Seeger trained female singers to select particular types of 'tone' (for lack of a better word) for particular songs. "
Your display of ignorance is n=breathtaking as is your capacity to persist with it
MacColl (not Pegg) was approached by a group of singers in the early sixties to "take classes"
He refused and instead, set up a self-help" group (which eventually became the Critics Group, which met weekly in their home for nearly ten years
They/we ( I was a member for a couple of years, my wife was part of it for most of its existence) on the one hand,experimented with various voice and relaxation techniques in order to improve their performances.
They also examined the history and social significance of the songs in detail
By the time the Group finally disbanded in the early 1970s, some members had become voice trainers and teachers themselves, others major songwriters and others still prominent singers in the Revival - Pat and I went on to research the music we have been inspired to examine closely
One of the earliest members, Like Kelly, became a leading figure on the Irish scene, Sandra Kerr was part of a music course in Newcastle University, Frankie Armstrong, apart from being a respected singer in her own right, taught voice
John Falkner and his then partner, Dolorous Keane became household names on the Irish scene
The Group left behind a couple of dozen of the best examples of folk singing ever produced in the revival - London songs, Sea songs, Songs of the 19th century Industrial Revolution, Women's songs - all solo or group researched and sung gems
On top of that, the Group participated in the making of two sets of combined poems and songs for schoolchildren along with some of Britain's most prominent actors/readers - a folio of around 30 albums in all

Can I suggest that, if you are gong to make this yet another MacColl hate-fest, you avoid making a fool of yourself by showing you know something of what you are talking about
No wonder you are a Steve Roud fan
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 09:35 AM

Sorry, I should have added and not one he wrote himself.