the uk folk revival in 2019

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: r.padgett
Date: 05 Oct 19 - 04:23 PM

I would say not exactly deteriorated Jim ~things, people and attitudes have changed ~

It is not the folk scene of the 1950/60/70s it is a new millennium indeed 2019 and though traditional songs and contemporary song is the new remit of the youngsters, there is nothing to stop the singing of songs for pleasure by we oldies and the continued enjoyment of singing and playing of songs and tunes

It seems to me that instrumentation and accompaniment of songs is what the young artists are at nowadays and good luck to them

I certainly would hope that the "oldies" can teach the youngsters some thing or other!

I would add in passing that songs learnt from books by the young thruster seem to my mind lack the feel of songs from recorded sources ~ they are bland ~ however accompaniments do often add a great deal to the original material ~but not always ~ and not necessarily a good thing!

Ray Padgett

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Oct 19 - 08:50 PM

Things have changed. They multi-multiplied. Like Topsy, the folkscene growed and growed,

Have you seen the number of folk albums released every issue of Rock and Reel. As Michael Caine said in Zulu, farsands of them!

You no longer have to go round to see an artist half a dozen times to 'get' a song. You no longer have to read a review by dear old MGM, or Karl Dallas.

You can get lyrics and chords if you just put the words you do know on the internet. You can see most artists on Youtube, and decide for yourself if they have anything for you.

Your kind of folk clubs have all but disappeared. I sympathise - so have mine. I'm sure some people from your folk clubs came into my folk clubs and hated it. I know damn well many of my friends.ventured into the traddy folk clubs and weren't enraptured.

I still find singers, I like and respect though. Amazing singers. And they're there because we were there.

And the world is smaller - you can link up with singers in Texas or Russia, or Australia - with a few clicks of the computer mouse.

The scene is out of our control, and that's how it should be. We wouldn't have wanted our parents laying down the law everything rattling on about how they knew everything. Not that it stopped them...

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: r.padgett
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 02:46 AM

well said Big Al Whittle

Ray

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 03:12 AM

"I don't mention any kind of music, Jim."
You have in the past Dave
Al
You have just confirmed my worst fears
Those who took up the voice of the people and formd the clubs and sang the stuff themselves are no longer of interest unless they make an album or even have human contact with one another
The music that was made by and relied on human contact is dead
Do I have that right
How ********b depressing to know that we have all turned into recipient audiences who have to pay for our songs and music
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 03:32 AM

Incidentally Al - the one thing missing from the 'Brave New Folk' world you describe is the very thing the revical was set up to provide CHOICE
We were pissed of at the 'Pink and Blue Toothbrushes' that were being pumped at us so we went and took up our own stuff
We enjoyed what we did and we enjoyed doing it in company - what a great time we haven't managed to manage to pass onto our kids - at leat - you didn't pass on to your kids
This little one-street town in the rural west has live sessions six nights a week at present - I'm not sure how many exactly, around ten, I think
Tonight I can go to two sessions where round-the-room singing will take place - one devoted entirely to singing (and singing has yet to catch up with the booming music scene)
Come in - the water's lovel
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: theleveller
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 04:03 AM

"I could see no mention of teaching organisational skills or encouragement to teach how to run clubs or festivals?"

Why should that be part of the course? Most Humanities degrees are non-vocational - they are about studying the subject, not how that knowledge will be applied. Application may come later, with perhaps a Masters, PGCE or whatever. My son. for example, took a History and Politics degree then went to work for Nestle and Northern Powergen. Only later did he decide to go into teaching and took his PGCE. If every degree course had to include practical ways of applying your degree you would wipe out the entire Humanities syllabus.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Joe G
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 05:32 AM

Well said Al! The opportunity to listen to folk music from across the world is far greater now than it was previously - and contrary to what Jim says often at no or little cost other than a broadband connection. As Jim does say however there is probably less opportunity to participate in performance on a regular basis - though many festivals have sessions and workshops

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Joe G
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 05:39 AM

I would add though that here in Yorkshire there are many thriving clubs, sessions and singarounds so here at least the situation is not as bleak as Jim appears to fear. That is confirmed by the number of young artists who are still coming through the folk clubs and moving on to be touring musicians. Not as many as when I was first introduced to folk admittedly but along with all the other people performing folk there are enough to ensure a thriving scene

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 06:03 AM

Internet folk is like internet sex - it's what you watch others do
Maybe that's what the modern crowd prefer - it never suited us (either music or sex)
Strangely enough, the only real folk music on the internet I find satisfying was never done for putting on line - it is of live performances or films made to encourage others to become involved - 'The Singer and the Song', 'End of an Old Song' ot the filmed Radio Ballads..... - masterpieces all
The home made, poorly produced stuff leaves me cold because it appears to have no objective other than to promote itself
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 06:31 AM

You have in the past Dave

What is the relevance to my comment on this thread?

You are just stirring up old arguments. Why?

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 07:07 AM

"You are just stirring up old arguments. Why?"
I'm not stirring up old anything Dave
The future of folk song rests on how it is presented to the world - that folk clubs call themselves "folk" yet quite often claim that that title no longer means anything, is a major issue which will and never should become "an old argument unitl it is resolved
Sorry - wasn't having a pop at you personally - It's an important, as yet unresolved problem
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 07:33 AM

Apology accepted. Thanks. I shall repeat my post then as it seems to have been lost down some sort of unintentional sidetrack

As the song says...

Things ain't what they used to be

Whether that is a good or bad thing is the point of contention.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 08:10 AM

One of the differences today is that there is no obvious political influence in the development of the music. In the early sixties, Communists and socialists like Seeger and MacColl tried to manipulate folk music to serve their political ends.....in doing so they attracted a large number of young people who simply wanted change without regard to the fact that we were in the throws of a huge economic and manufacturing revolution, many complicated issues to be overcome simply by singing about the perceived injustices.    Fortunately their false gods like Dylan and other popular celebrity folkies soon showed that they were, like most of us, more interested in personal advancement than in changing society, to the fury of the politically engaged.
The folk movement today is all about personal advancement. The great traditional songs were not about changing society, but were a celebration of all the facets of humanity, a pride in the hardships to be endured...competitions of strength, ability to do hard jobs like mining, farming, fishing and even soldiering. Many of the songs of poor working conditions were a celebration of human spirit over adversity.
Today's society has lost everything that folk music celebrated.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 08:22 AM

"Seeger and MacColl tried to manipulate folk music to serve their political ends."
No they didn't - the movement was lauunched by left wingers before either appeared on the scene - WMA, Topic
Ewan and Peg and Bet and Leon Rosleson... and all the other left wingers took up the music as 'The Voice of the People and concentrated largely on presenting that music well
Everbody has the right to express their own views - our tradition is often about the same workers rights and suffering that the later songwriters wrote about - transportation , social misalliance, starvation and xploitation
Not much to 'celebrate' there
I do wish this right wing propaganda would take a long rest
"Things ain't what they used to be"
But folk reamins the same until somebody comes up with and agrees on a new identity for it - "Nobody knows" may be fine for Q.I. - it doesn't help when you're running a club
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 10:37 AM

I did not say that Seeger and MacColl launched it, but that they manipulated it. It was seen especially by Seeger as a means of making extreme left wing socialism popular with the younger generation.
Most of the folk performers of the fifties and sixties before the revival were seen as members of a niche minority group, and the new young folkies like Baez Dylan etc were looked upon as Messiahs for the cause, Of course, it turned out that they were not Messiahs, but very naughty boys and girls. The real strengths of traditional music to enhance life and society were subsequently diminished.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 11:03 AM

Music of the people in its beginnings was carried from place to place by minstrels of various skills and abilities. I'm sure that a Darwinian process worked itself out as to who was listened to and who wasn't. However, the advent of mass communication starting in the 1800s has grown so much in recent decades that local minstrels can be broadcast to the world, but unless the subject matter resonates with the listeners the minstrel will be ignored to a greater or lesser degree. I am reminded of Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' movie in which people memorize books in order to preserve them, printed matter being a crime in the novel. The diminishment of people like Dylan does not obviate their popularity, and the fact is they became very popular with their respective audiences. As is obvious from this thread, there is no general agreement even among the scholars who post here, so some arguments are a hiding to nowt, because it seems we still struggle to say what we mean while concomitantly connecting with the reader. It's the same in many ways with the music itself I think.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 11:12 AM

Starship, I had no intention of diminishing Dylan, in fact I own many of his LPs from the sixties and seventies. What I mean is that Dylan and other did not follow the route planned for them by the politicians of folk music; they being the ones who diminished traditional music and obscured its true purpose.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 11:27 AM

"but that they manipulated it."
Please don't do this Ake - he did not - the revival was hevily politicised from day one
The Topic Choir was singing The Red Flag and The Soviet Airman's song lang before Ewan appeared on the scene
Politics has been a a part of the songmaking tradition as far back as the 12th century when they were making songs about the evil King John
I never heard a left winge complain about the glorification of the slaughter of pressed ploughboys and factory workers at Trafalgar, or the btchery of ordinary soldiers who were unfortunate enough to be in the front line of the harge of The Light Brigade - political songs all
It's not politics you people complain about but the slant of the politics
The strength of traditional song is that it encompasses every aspect of human experience, from vicious cruelty to high achievement - society, wats and all

My favourite ballad, Tiftie's Annie is typical; on the surface a tragic love song, but on examination, a close up study of how women were regarded as chattels to be used to climb the social ladder, a peep into a society that ws shifting from not very benevolent feudalism to the rise of the new tradesman class, with a pinch of the witch-trals thrown in for taste - superb social history
Our poaching songs deal with the seizure of common land and the resistance to this by land-dwellers who used it to feed their families
Press gang song, transportation and forced conscription, appalling working conditions brought bout by the new Industrial Revolution
How dare anybody describe songs about the bomb,Apartheid, Vietnam, Chile, anti Thatcherism, anti McCarthyism as "extreme" - you have to be an extreme right winger to do that
It seems you are not objecting to politics (how could you) but just fighting your corner
MacColl, Rossleson, Seeger were humainsists - none called for violent revolution but pointed out the evil things that were happening in the world as songs have always done
In the States, the folkies lined up with the Southern Blacks to get the vote - even Bobby was reluctantly dragged onto the 'ride-ins when Theodor Bikel paid his fair down South)
I do hope you don't thik you have the rght to censor what we want to sing about - surely not ?
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 11:27 AM

I wasn't saying things are great Jim. I was just saying that's how they seem to be to me.

I got asked to play at a folk club this morning - by text, naturally! (I still haven't learned how to text - my wife told me, I'd got the text - I wouldn't have known).

I feel like a fossil.

I don't see anything wrong with the internet being the medium of folksong and the agent of social change. Perhaps there are Chinese citizens even now who are getting inspired by stories of Woody Guthrie.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 11:55 AM

No problem, Guest, akenaton. This will be interesting methinks: https://www.mixcloud.com/mike-norris3/classic-folk-383-first-broadcast-30th-september-2019/?fbclid=IwAR3kSkM5XEZRh9SI_PTIokWJt-G2t1A7beS2QeOJzCPyxmddyLgvJ_F4K_I

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 12:11 PM

"I was just saying that's how they seem to be to me."
And I was suggesting that rather than lay back andf think of England we should try to do something about it so our kids have the same opportunities to get as much pleasure and satisfaction from folk song as we did
For me, it's a personal commitment because we promised all the lovely old singers we met that we would do our best not to let their lovely old songs die (can't find the correct spelling but in Irish folklore it's called 'an geasach- binding pledge)
"I feel like a fossil."
Wouldn't bother - I've tasted one - they taste rotten
There isd nothing wrong with the internet being used to communicate songs - far from it
It's when it's put up as an alternative to to clubs that it becomes problematical
I'm sure someone said the same about print at one time
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 12:16 PM

Thank you for that Starship, I have played one track and will look at the whole link later.
Jim, please don't lecture me, I was a YCL member during the last revival and understand exactly what was happening. There was protest and even revolution in the air, civil rights in America and anti-nuclear/anti war protest in UK, the left tried to tie folk music to a political agenda, fortunately the young musicians were not interested in totalitarianism and bought into personal freedom. It took me many years to work out that the trade off worked in the negative...something that Seeger and MacColl never came to terms with.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 12:21 PM

None of these shenanigans had much to do with the ethos of traditional music.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 12:31 PM

"Jim, please don't lecture me,"
Wouldn't dream of it Ake - I'm responding to what you said, not what you used to be
Please don't describe Anti Apartheid, Anti-Bomb, Anti-Thatcher as "totalitarianism" - it's not nice, nor is it accurate
The young people I knew took to the streets in their hundreds of thousands in support of such causes - and Travellers, and the Miners, and against the Greek Royals' visit to London, and the massacres in Chile - I was scared shitless standing next to Peggy in Grosvenor Square on the historic day that helped drive the Yanks out of Vietnam - a proud moment for me
The thing I remember was how many of them jammed into The Singers Club later to laisten to Ewan and Peggy sing - on that and many other memorable occasions when we managed to "Overcome"
Still got the segs on the soles of my feet from Aldermaston, Faslane and South Wales
Extremism - how dare you !
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 01:23 PM

'I was scared shitless standing next to Peggy in Grosvenor Square on the historic day that helped drive the Yanks out of Vietnam - a proud moment for me'

Yes it was scary. Got to admit though - I thought some of the people I was marching with were pretty scary. I often wonder what became of the young ones. One American lady standing near me said,' if this was in America someone would be dead by now'

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 02:13 PM

Jim, I only mention this for your information, I was pro civil rights, anti/nuclear, and at one point, anti/thatcher, most of the young people of our generation were, but the road being outlined by the likes of Seeger and MacColl headed straight towards a Chinese Russian style totalitarianism which has been roundly rejected by those young people who, as I believe Al is gently reminding us, became the boring old farts of today.....us.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 02:38 PM

I really am not interested in discussing this with you Ake
You were thrown off this forum because of your appalling extremist behaviour which means yopu can't post below the line
I'm damned if i'm going to help you strut your your extremist stuff above the line
I've told you what Ewan and Peggy are and where their political and humanist sympathies lay
You want to discus the political and social implications of our folk songs, do so
Otherwise, as I've told others, please allow the thrirty years dead to rest in peace - MaccOll is not here to answer for himself and I doubt if he'd have bothered with this if he weer still around - he was far too busy promoting the folk songs he loved

"I was marching with were pretty scary"
Me too, especially the crod I saw hurling banners at the police like spears on the front line and next minute standing shoulder-to shoulder with the bobbies in their human chain, keeping the marchers back
Nevr quite worked that one out - well - I ahve really
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 02:42 PM

I must say I shit blue ollies when I learned later that, had we broken through the barricades, there were armed American soldiers waiting to shoot us down inside the Embassy if we had tried to get in (pretty much as they did the students at Kent State)
We would technically been on American soil
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 03:38 PM

When a pop festival is on in England, I often use the hashtag and post something like "anyone who thinks American pop and rock are somehow above English folk and classical music is a fruitcake, frankly."

And, when ladies in the office are about to go for some Indian yoga, I ask "are you about to go for your English clog dancing session?"

The ocean is made of many drops.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 03:47 PM

I'm desperately trying to remember the name of the rabid Sots communist who ran a folk club in (Oxford Street) London in the 60's. Talk about left wing folk ;) (Bruce? )

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,John Bowden
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 04:31 PM

Are you thinking of Bruce Dunnet, John?

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 04:44 PM

"Many of the values promoted by the singers and songs of the last revival have been rejected by modern society, we no longer have much idea of who we are or what makes sense in life" (akenaton)...when people lose their own culture, society suffers or, in WalkaboutsVerse, "People Lose"

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 05:11 PM

Found this thanks to John Bowden's post mentioning Bruce Dunnet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spice_of_Life,_London

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 05:32 PM

It's not true to suggest, as some posts above have done, that folk clubs where you can hear traditional songs being sung are dying out. There's more than enough for me here in London. Maybe it's different elsewhere but there's more clubs than I have time to go to.

Yes, there were way more in the 1960s. But it's not the 1960s and it hasn't been the 1960s since the 1960s. It doesn't bother me that trad folk music is not as popular as it once was; just as it doesn't bother me that baroque music is not as popular as it once was; or that acid house is not as popular as it once was; or that formal metrical poetry is not as possible as it once was.

It exists, it's documented, the songbooks are there, the albums are there, and there are still folk clubs and folk festivals and singarounds and sessions. The seasons they change. Shit happens.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 05:37 PM

If we don't like capitalism (and the revolting inequality it produces) AND we don't like people emigrating for capitalism/"economic immigration" (and the relentless promotion of internal ethnic diversity/loss of indigenous culture) are we Left or Right wing?

And just a reminder/heads-up that, about a century ago, when several classical composers wished to give a nod to nationalism, they often turned to folk music.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 06:04 PM

Nasty Nick was also into nationalism and tried to turn to folk music. I think Chumbawamba summed up the situation far better than anyone else with their wonderful Dance Idiot Dance

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 06:13 PM

[demo in London 40 years ago]

especially the crod I saw hurling banners at the police like spears on the front line and next minute standing shoulder-to shoulder with the bobbies in their human chain, keeping the marchers back

Someone on FB reported similar provocateur tactics yesterday at the gigantic All Under One Banner independence march in Edinburgh. There is always a tiny squad of Unionists at these, waving Union Jacks and shouting sectarian obscenities: their numbers have been steadily declining, as the response of the police is to do no more than contain them and the indy marchers do no more than crank up the volume a bit on the slogans, drums, horns and bagpipes while marching straight past. This time, somebody purporting to be an independence marcher tried to start a fight with them. On being frustrated in the attempt, he started shouting obscenities about Nicola Sturgeon, moved into the Unionist group and picked up a couple of their flags to wave and hide his face. Not subtle. He won't have been local police - their attitude has been consistently tolerant and constructive - but I suppose he could have been from a British state organization (albeit not likely to pass the GCHQ entrance test any time soon).

ObMusic: the number of musicians at these marches is declining as the marches get bigger. Which means those of us still doing it (like me, one-man freelance pipers' drum section with a Turkish davul) it have to work ridiculously hard to make enough noise to suit the occasion. There must be 76 pro-indy trombonists in Edinburgh, surely?

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 06:58 PM

Certainly don't agree with Nick Griffin on everything, Dave, but I would not say or sing that he is an "idiot" for choosing an aspect of his own culture, rather than, e.g., the medium of American pop.

I vaguely recall his attempt making the news (I think he sung unaccompanied) but am not sure of the quality..?

The lyric and politics aside, the quality of folk musicianship from Chumbawamba via your link (thanks) is very good in my opinion, and glad they too didn't turn to American pop or rock.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 07:02 PM

who was nasty Nick?

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 12:06 AM

When not Nick but Mick Jagger sings "it's only rock and roll" we need to build on that and get the majority of English (plus Scots, Welsh, etc.) to think that copying an aspect of American culture is a childish idiotic thing to do.

And we need to get English football fans to think that fanatically supporting a World 11, who earn about 100 times more in their country, is a childish idiotic thing to do.

And, when something good happens here, we need to get people saying "that folks" instead of "that rocks".

Much more here.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 02:49 AM

Regarding the politics of the revival; I have this and similar in our clippings library, from that now deceased bastion of free speech and democracy; "The People"
It is as laughable now as it was then - a hangover of McCathy's 'Unamerican Activities" Witch-hunts and a long dead relic of the Cold War
I really though this a part of our antediluvian past, like Bear Baiting and women and children working in the mines
You live and learn, or some do
Jim Carroll

"Some Strange Facts about the Latest Craze By Peter Bishop (Nov 17th 1963)
Just how INNOCENT are signs like these?
This is the sign outside Collet’s record shop in London, where folk music fans buy their discs.
A new teenage craze is sweeping Britain—folk music. Bearded, duffle-coated youngsters squat on the floor of cellar clubs listening to folk songs telling of love, of death, of oppression.
There are more than 200 of these clubs in Britain, with 250, 000 members. More clubs open every week.
But this boom has some people very worried. For many of the movement’s big names—singers, agents or record sellers—are either Communists or they hold extreme left-wing views.
And it is feared that, with folk music attracting more and more young people, there is a danger of their being wooed by Red propaganda.
Just how great is that danger? Last week I took a close look at the folk music world.
There is no doubt that the Communist and left-wing element among its leading personalities is powerful.
For example. Topic Records, Ltd., of Hampstead, London, the leading com¬pany specialising in folk music, is controlled by a top intellectual Communist.
Not capitalist
He is 62-year-old Alan Bush, a rugged, bearded composer of serious music. His work is familiar and well liked in Russia. He has been there many times as a composer, conductor and as a fratrnal representative at the Congress of Soviet Composers.
Folk music fans who want to buy the latest records can go to a shop in New Oxford Street specialising in folk songs. It is owned and run by Collet’s Holdings, Ltd.
Collet’s also run several book shops selling left-wing publications.
The company was once described in the Communist “ Daily Worker ” as a “ commercial firm, but not a capitalist one,” with its directors taking neither dividends nor profits.
The Folksong Agency, In Paddington, London, represents such top artists in the folk field as Ewan MacColl, Dominic Behan and Peggy Seeger.
‘Revolutionary’
It is run by Bruce Dunnett, a Communist. He told me: “I have been a member of the Communist Party for many years.
“But I can assure you that politics and folk music don’t mix.
“There are left revolutionary songs, of course. But then there are also traditional songs, songs of love and songs of protest.
“I am interested only in promoting and developing interest in folk music.
“If I or any other Communist, or Tory for that matter, tried to trot out dogma at a folk music club or. concert they would soon tell me to shut up.”
Mr. Dunnett agreed that folk music circles have a definite left-wing atmosphere.
“That is because most folk, songs have been, and are even now being, created by ordinary working people,” he said.
The biggest name among folk singers in Britain is Ewan MaCcoll, a bearded ex- playwright from Salford, Lancs, and a Communist. He sings in clubs up and down the country on such themes as the sad Irish workmen who laboured on the Ml, and on Timothy Evans, the man hanged for a murder which some people believe he did not commit.
Candlelight
MacColl, aged 45, told me: “Of course there are Communists and left-wing people who go to folk-song clubs.
“ But then there are also Tories, Socialists and Liberals. They go to listen to the music, not politics.
“ They are inclined to be individualistic, who would make known their objections if they thought attempts were being made to organise them—politically or any other way. ”
Another folk singer is Karl Dallas. He specialises in the guitar and contributes articles to the “Daily Worker.”
Now let’s take a look at one of the clubs. The 200-strong Swindon Folksingers Club is run by, Ted Poole, aged 37, and his wife, Ivy. Mr. Poole is a Communist. He told me:
“The music we sing is left- wing because it comes from the workers.
“Most of the songs reflect the thoughts, emotions, oppres¬sions, passions and struggles of the working peoples. ”
The club meets on Friday nights in a candle-lit room at the rear of The Greyhound Hotel, Swindon. It costs 2.6d to join and admission to sessions is 3s – non-members 4s
Mt Poole added: “There is music are. anti-Bomb, anti-apartheid, anti most things.
“They’re not yet sure what they are for—but they would resent any attempt to introduce politics of any sort.”
So even if the Communist Party is contemplating a planned programme to recruit from the folk-singing fans, it seems they will be out of luck.
But, clearly, it is a situa¬tion which needs watching.
"

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 02:58 AM

He was an idiot for trying to appropriate our music for his own ends and then trying to join in a Morris dance with absolutely no idea what he was doing. The good thing that came out of it was Folk against Facsism and the fall of Griffin himself. Sadly the right wing nationalists are still at and trying to push their agenda via folk music. As witnessed here.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 04:38 AM

The attitude of that article from The People might have been quaint, but was there much wrong with its facts? From what I know of the people they mention, they were quoted and characterized accurately.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 05:02 AM

It was based on the idea that there was something wrong or illegal to hold left wing views, as was the Cold War
In fact, that has never been the case in Britain - yet
The left didn't "infiltrate" the revival, as suggested, but were a major part of setting it up -
The promotion of the People's Music always dominated their efforts - Alan Bush, Gerry Sharp, Bill Leader, Dallas, MacColl, Lloyd et al - even Sharp in the early days, who was a Fabian Socialist of the post- Victorian, Edwardian type
The right attempted to make fols song anodyne and harmless - songs sung by 'The Salt of the Earth' or 'The Sons of the Soil'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 05:14 AM

Do you know, this thread has sort of crystallised a thought that has been lurking undefined in my head for quite a few years now. and it is this.
Folk music has become middle class !
It has become like so many of the people I know who proudly declare their working class roots It is/they are, singing the songs of the working class life, while leading the lifestyle of the middle class.
Discuss

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 05:44 AM

I once heard a comment from a Chilean who dropped in to a Scottish singaround: "you know, this kind of music is what social workers sing the whole world over".

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 05:47 AM

"Folk music has become middle class !"
Think you need to define 'middle class' John
When I came in I was still an apprentice on the Liverpool docks with a Secondary Modern education - my dad was a navvie
My fellow folkies were overwhelmingly milkmen, factory workers, building workers, factory workers.... not even that many students in those days
That has changed, but I link there are enough 'educated working class' people around for the revival to still claim working class roots
Tom Munnelly was the greatest collector I ever knew - he began working life operating a knitting machine
MacColl was a self-educated worker whose father claimed the honour of being the only worker ever to be deported FROM Australia for Trades Union activities
Bert worked his passage to Australia and worked as a sheep shearer
I don't really regard these people as 'middle class' - they all had to earn a living rather than live on invested wealth and use the labour of others rather than create their own
Peggy always admitted to being middle class, though her and her families association with working people made them different than the run-of-the-mill MC
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 06:02 AM

Oh! Nick Griffin! Iremember him.

One of his followers made up false website about me saying I was a member of some right wing group. Iwas almost flattered to be considered important enough for them to go that much trouble,

Folk music hasn't become middle class. The people always express themselves through music. When there were coalmines in this country, the miners themselves found expression in country music - nearly every miners welfare had a country music night. I found myself supply teaching in a school in Hucknall - taking over the music class in the early 80's. Nearly every kid in the class knew all the words of merle travis's Dark as a dungeon.

I'm not saying that Tommy Armstrong'sstuff, or the blantyre pit explosion aren't considerable works. Its just that things change.

Like punkfolk rocker said about the punk thing... a lot of working class angst was in that music.

I think that the question of what is folk music - might seem like an old chestnut. But when a society keeps changing so quickly, through technology and other reasons - ethnic make up etc. - the question will never be static.

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 06:35 AM

"One of his followers made up false website about me saying I was a member of some right wing group"
His mod infiltrated this forum and set up a false 'Irish terrorist' facebook account on my behalf
I never use Facebook and didn't realy understand it, but a fellow Mudcatter warned me about it
Interesting days when some of the rabid right showed some initiative, rather than the imagination-free lot we are left with here
"I'm not saying that Tommy Armstrong's stuff, or the blantyre pit explosion aren't considerable works."
More than considerable Al - they are universal and agelessly relevant whereas your pop and C and W come with a sell-by date and are constantly being replaced
I here none of the old C and W stuff I cut my teeth on in my youth, yet I thought it would last forever then
Society may change but the hopes and aspirations that gave rise to folk songs never do   
I'm using a quite from an Irish traveller in a talk I'm giving in Belfast in a couple of weeks regarding his attitude to the centuries old Ballad, 'What Put the Blood'
Jim Carroll

Love of a good story was certainly a part of the survival of ballads, but the first Traveller we met, Pop’s Johnny Connors, from Wexford, gave us a deeper insight
One of the earliest songs we got from him he called ‘The Ballad of Cain and Abel’; not only did he link it to the Biblical legend, but he used it to describe how he believed Travellers first took to the road,
I’d say the song, myself, goes back to.... depicts Cain and Abel in the Bible and where Our Lord said to Cain.... I think this is where the Travellers Curse come from too, because Our Lord says to Cain, “Cain”, says Our Lord, “you have slain your brother, and for this”, says Our Lord, says he, “and for this, be a wanderer and a fugitive on the earth”.
“Not so Lord” says he, “this punishment is too severe, and whoever finds me”, says he, “will slay me, “says he “or harass me”.
“Not so”, says Our Lord, says he, “whoever finds Cain and punishes or slains (sic) Cain, I will punish them sevenfold”.
And I think this is where the Travellers curse come from.
Jim

Subject: RE: the uk folk revival in 2019
From: GUEST,Warwick Slade
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 06:39 AM

Of course folk music has become middle class. In the 60s we were young and idealistic attending the new folk clubs on our bikes, on the bus or clapped out old Ford, with the those new Japanese guitars or Ekos and the like . Now we are in our older years, retired, playing high end guitars and arriving in 4x4s. It’s a different world and we are different from the younger folk enthusiasts. The days of the folk club, as we knew it, are passed and a new vibrant gang have taken ‘folk’ to a new place. That’s the way of the world because in 10 or 15 years our version of ‘folk’ will be dead along with us.