the folk revival

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 01:44 PM

Jim Carroll: (cassette 'Songs of the Irish travellers).
"The cassette is now unavailable, but if you let me have an address I'll let you have my spare copy."

Well, that would be very kind indeed. Since neither of us has ever bothered going through the (doubtless pathetically simple) steps of joing Mudcat - I must do it one day soon - and are unable to PM one another, here's my address: 72 Sheffield Rd., Glossop, SK13 8QP. I hope to be able to buy you a pint or two in return, one day.

"I'm Flattered that anybody should find anything I wrote worth repeating - feel free to use it."

As a 'revival' performer, the attitude of traditional singers towards the material they sang is of great interest to me, and as a workshop leader on traditional singing style it would be useful to be able to pass on some of that information to students. As a collector, you have 'the knowledge' at first hand (and express yourself pretty well too, if I may say so).

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 02:35 PM

the folk revival[and by that I meant the British folk club and folk festival circuit]has treated both traditional and revival performers performers equally well,and that is how it should be ,thereshould be no discrimination or preferential treatment,for either.
People are people regardless of whether they are traditional or revival ,and deserve to be looked after properlyregardless of their label.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 04:58 AM

Brian,
it is always a good idea,to get more than one angle on a subject,there are other collectors,who are accessible,such as John Howson,Sam Richards[he too collected from WalterPardon],who have first hand knowledge,and whose point of view ,might be just as useful.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: Edmond
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 08:28 AM

This might be a bit off-thread, but I hope fellow 'Catters'll cut me a bit of slack.

Jim C - how lovely to hear from you - it's the best part of 40 years, and I'll bet the years have been kinder to you than to me !

Please see my previous post :

"Bryn Pugh - sometime singer of traditional songs - I wouldn't call me a folk singer".

I take your kind comment as meaning that I sang good ballads. There again, I never came across a bad one.

Bryn.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: Mary Humphreys
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 12:43 PM

The cassette "Irish Travellers' Songs" is a gem and ought to be re-released on CD, if only for "False Lankum" by John Reilly. It is thanks to Jim I have my copy.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 01:40 PM

not quite sure of the relevance ,Mary.
I dont believe anyone has suggested Jims collections are not useful,.
To get an overaall picture however,of how traditional singers view their material,it is agood idea to get the opinion of more than onr collector.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:59 PM

Brian,
Thank you for those kind words - your cheque's in the post along with Mary's.
You should both look ot for Early Ballads in Ireland 1968-1985 also from Tom Munnelly's collection and on the Ethnic European Traditions label, but equally unavailable.
I'll put them in the post as soon as I get my computer problems sorted.
Edmund,
No, I meant i enjoyed you singing ballads - I seem to remember Bonny house of Airlie and one I've been racking my brains to remember - a cahes in a ship with magic sails???
Jim Carroll
Cap'n,
Does this mean the wedding's off again?

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 03:11 PM

Damn I was out looking for a hat to wear too.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: GUEST,Andy Leader
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 03:11 PM

To finesse this vexed question, Lee Hayes once said, "It's all folk music... I've never heard any animals singing it."

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 04:27 PM

Jim Carroll,I have respect for you as a collector.
If you dont mind me saying,debating and discussing is better done amicably,telling someone to sod off to Glastonbury,reflects badly on yourself.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 02:19 AM

Cap'n,
You have a habit of walking away from your arguments when they get too much for you, which I find extremely irritating and certainly did on this occasion. Having said this, I should not have become irritated and I apologise for doing so.
I also find terms like 'folk police' the refuge of people who have run out of ideas, so perhaps it is best avoided.
To continue the discussion on more amicable terms:
Peter Kennedy was not only part of the revival, he was one of its founder members; as a collector his 'As I roved Out' series drew many of us into the music in the first place; as a musician and dance caller, he performed regularly at clubs and dances in the early days, and as organiser, he was very much part of what went on at Cecil Sharp House early in the revival.
It seems to there are a number of ways to approach his behavious towards traditional performers: you can deny it happened and argue otherwise; you can accept it and condemn it or you can ignore it and say it wasn't important - which is it to be?
My friend and neighbour, Tom Munnelly is probably the most important collector in these islands in the latter half of the 20th century.
He has recorded over 20,000 songs from thousands of traditional singers. I doubt if more than a dozen or so have ever been inside a club or at a festival.
If you look through Mike Yates' collection (on the British Library web page) you will find the same proportion applies to his singers.
Over the last 30 odd years we have probably recorded somewhere between
50 and 100 singers; around a half -dozen have ever been in a folk club, if that.
In a moment of point-scoring weakness I went through the BBC archive lists and began to list singers who had never appeared in public; I listed forty and hadn't got to the letter C.
I repeat, the vast majority of traditional singers never saw the inside of a folk club.
Incidentally, Walter Pardon's 'alleged' attitude to his songs is a matter of record and can be accessed via the interviews we did with him which are freely accessible at the National Sound Archive in The British Library.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 07:43 AM

Cap'n B:
"Brian, it is always a good idea,to get more than one angle on a subject,there are other collectors..."

Yes, Dick, I have talked to John Howson about collecting - interviewed him about it for 'The Living Tradition', in fact - but Jim Carroll is right here at my computer terminal telling me from his first-hand knowledge about singers (Bill Cassidy, for instance) I'm interested in. I don't actually think there's a great gulf of disagreement between Jim and yourself - on the parallel thread he's happy to acknowledge that most traditional singers were indeed well treated by the revival, but lists a few specific examples where they were not. I've heard the John Reilly story from several people apart from Jim (including Christy Moore on Desert Island Discs) and I don't think anyone is disagreeing with his account. But passionate argument is always good fun, and sometimes informative, so please continue - this is an interesting thread and thanks for starting it.

Jim Carroll:
"You should both look ot for Early Ballads in Ireland 1968-1985 also from Tom Munnelly's collection..."

I don't know whether you knew Joe Kerins during your time in Manchester, Jim (Mary certainly did!) but he was kind enough to make me a tape of this recording many years ago. And it's great.

What I would be interested in seeing on this thread is a discussion of how traditional singers were influenced by their contact with the revival. As Jim points out above, it was only a minority who ever made such contact (although the ones who did, like Sam Larner, Walter Pardon, etc. are not unnaturally the ones the revival tends to venerate), but to what extent were their repertoires or performance styles altered by the demands of this new audience? Jeannie Robertson? Fred Jordan? I arrived rather late to make that kind of judgement. Anyone?

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 07:56 AM

As far as I am aware none of the singers from Sheffield - have ever been inside a folk club. The exception to this is the Traditional Music Festival at Bradfield and we used to have them over in Holmfirth Festival on a Sunday morning and they often made a day of it. But those are comparatively recent events.

The carol singers get an outing at the carol festival held every two years. Otherwise you can only hear them at carol time.

In fact of course not many of them have huge repertoires, so sustaining a whole evening at a folk club would be hard.

And finally as I pointed out earlier - the place to hear singers around here (as it was with Willy Scott for many years) - was at sheep-shearing and hunt suppers. In the private room of a pub.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: Mary Humphreys
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 11:42 AM

In response to Brian's question about how trad singers were affected by the revival, the late Terry Whelan once told me that Fred Jordan, when he was first 'discovered' and invited to perform on a stage or at a folk club, dressed in his best Sunday suit. It was quite soon afterwards that he kept his farm-labourer's garb on for performing. Perhaps he found it necessary to conform to the expectations of the public?
I consider it quite likely that his repertoire was expanded too by listening to many more singers than he would have had access to in his home village.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 12:06 PM

I have started The thread Brian requested.
DAVE Ihad the pleasure of hearing Willie Scott, 1976,AT WHITBY FESTIVAL ,he was booked there every year,I must have seen him 5 years running,He was perfectly happy singing to revivalists.
I also saw the Northumbrian shepherds,at Whitby,again they were enjoying themselves,aswas FRED JORDAN who I haveseen AT Whitby ,Redcar,Fylde[Iwas performing at these festivals myself.]
Jean Ritchie at Norwich,again enjoying herself.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 12:25 PM

I find this thread fascinating. I've never been part of the folk scene - I came to the music relatively recently via CD rather than going to clubs and hearing it live. Without wanting to slide too far off topic - how recently was it that there were still a decent number of traditional rather than revivalist singers around? Are there many left still performing? Are there any good books or online articles I can read about these people?

Thanks,

Nigel

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 12:26 PM

Willy Scott began singing in folk clubs in October 1961 in the Howff at Dumfermline. He was sixty-four at the time. We can be that precise.

In previous years Willie had performed hundreds of times at herds' suppers at at Border kirns to audiences sharing his own background, predilections and speech idioms.

There is a book about him a book called "Herd Laddie of the Glen". It's all in there.

Note that Dick "hundreds of times". Willie was a singer at herds' suppers probably more times then he ever sang in a folk club.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 12:54 PM

that does not alter the fact that he was booked at WHITBY FOLK FESTIVAL every year for many years and was happy performing there,and happy with the folk revival.,as were Fred Jordan ErnestDyson ,Joe hutton, WIllatkinson,WillTtaylor,BobLewis,and many others.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 07:57 PM

Bob Coltman- (who doen't seem to respond to PMs)
Could you please E-mail me at [e-mail]? I have a couple of things I'd like to discuss with you.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 11:32 PM

The trouble with the idea of a traditional performer is not the performer him/herself. It's the promoters, the academics, the self-styled authorities who set this performer up as a kind of standard to be replicated. Anything other is not considered "authentic" which is nonsense. Even the notion of a "traditional" performer is an academic construct and may have nothing to do with the value of that said performer.

The reason that the folk revival in the US was aborted was because of the idea that a song had to be frozen as done by a personality for popular consumption. You couldn't take a Dylan song for example and change it around without some folkie jumping down your neck or getting sued by Dylan himself. In short, the creative life of a musician or composer was cut down. The life blood of whatever folk music is happens to be change.

Now when you talk about a folk revival, it has no meaning today. In its time, it was an adjunct of popular music and another branch of show business as exemplified by Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, P P and M or the Trio. Even Alan Lomax in his entrepreneurial role was a showman of sorts.   Bascom Lamar Lunsford's Asheville Folk Festival was a commercial venue, a kind of show business that attracted tourism. Ewan McColl, Peter Kennedy, A.L. Lloyd are show business people and even the Comhaltas Ceoltori Eireann can be considered as a branch of show business in which audiences pay to see performers.

A folk revival is an oxymoron. Folk music goes on in different forms regardless of what many half-baked academic authorities have to say about it. All you have to do is open your ears. It has nothing to do with whether a performer is deemed to be traditional by self-styled authorities or not.

My point is simple. Any culture-based musical expression contains enough musical information outside of that culture to render it as much non-traditional as it is traditional. So what does that leave us? Many talented wonderful singers who have something to offer by singing songs that have history, knowledge and style and are great whether or not they are called "traditional". The label is a red herring. There is no pure race. There is no pure music.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 05:56 AM

thankyou Frank,you have encapsulated my feelings,spot on.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: Vin2
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 08:02 AM

Hmmmm, i like that Frank "....All you have to do is open your ears"

I think the rest is down to good manners, sensitivity, tolerance, an open mind with a dash of give and take. The one thing i think that unites us all and that is/can be multi-cultural is music no matter how it's classed or labelled. Not that there's any harm in a bit of friendly argie bargie now and then but if we let it get toooo personal and 'serious' then it defeats the object - which is to share and hopefully enjoy - and there endeth my sermon for the day.

Subject: RE: the folk revival
From: countrylife
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 03:10 PM

I maybe wrong here but wasn't it the late Frank Zappa(that well known folkie) who stated that there are only two types of music, good music and bad music?

*and now back to the topic*