BBC 4 - 'European Roots'

Subject: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:58 PM

Interesting new series started last night immediately before (or after, depending on which time) "Transatlantic Sessions". Fist one on Portugese fado.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 04:36 AM

Cor, is there one on English song?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 06:25 AM

Stranger things have hapenned!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 06:26 AM

Or even happened!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Lynn W
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 05:01 AM

Next week is sword dancing in the 1920's - mainly Czech but I have heard somewhere that it has 1920's footage from various places including Goathland. While I'd love to see a programme on English song, I wouldn't want to slag them off for doing programmes like this - I have learnt loads from previous series and they've all been interesting. Later ones in this series are the Warsaw Village Band, Klezmer in Germany, and the Alphorn. We should be asking for more programmes like this!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 07:03 AM

This was fascinating (Czech sword dancing) particularly as I learnt some of it at a dance workshop near Prague in Dec '99 with the Bonus family who do workshops in trad Czech & Slovakian dancing every year at this time (well worth going to!), look up the 'Dvorana' website. What we did could well have been from the place mentioned in the documentary, the name Podlak seems to ring a bell - it struck me at the time how similar to English longsword dancing it seemed & thought there may also have been a colliery connection, but I now don't think this to be the case after seeing last night's prog.

Let's hope we get more & more & more of this quality of TV, makes sat TV subs all worthwhile.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 05:02 PM

Seems we acquired digital recording just in time - it was indeed a fascinating programme, if only for the passion and enthusiasm the interviewees showed when indulging in the dances and their desire to preserve them for posterity.


LTS

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 08:47 PM

One song by Jacques Brel is worth a lifetime of passionless English droning by sweet voiced ladies or po faced men.
Genius!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 09:02 PM

Have I missed something? Was Brel secretly a sword dancer or an exponent of Fado? Or has 'wordy' accidentally posted to the wrong discussion?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 03:46 AM

No Malcolm, it's all part of the same TV series of documentaries... the sword dancing episode was just one of them.

The whole point of the series is to investigate and expose the world of European folk music to us. The Jaques Brel programme came immediately after the sword dancing one.

Regretably, it's this kind of programme that is going to disappear in the new round of cuts the BBC is making within its organisation, and in my opinion it's the sort of film that EFDSS should be falling over themselves to acquire or make for the archives.

LTS

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 04:15 AM

No, Wordy just wants to deny that the English have a folk tradition. What is it that makes people say that everyone has a folk tradition except the English, and/or that everyone's folk tradition is interesting/worth preserving except the English?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,martin ellison
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 04:49 AM

"One song by Jacques Brel is worth a lifetime of passionless English droning by sweet voiced ladies or po faced men."

What the hell is happening here?
Can't someone post to this forum with an enthusiasm and leave it at that? Does it have to be this confrontational and petty jibing. I became a member of mudcat a little while ago but I found the lack of tolerance shown towards other's opinions is astounding, so I left.
I sneak back in wearing a metaphorical hard-hat sometimes to seek out the interesting/informative/amusing threads. I saw this lovely programme and opened the thread to share thoughts not thinking that it could be hijacked by anti-whatever diatribe. Serves me right.
There are several threads which ooze nastiness aimed either at the thread subjects or the posters within at the moment.
I'm all for free speech but why does it have to be used in this insulting and venomous way?
Martin Ellison

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 06:29 AM

Martin, unfortunately that is the nature of Homo sapiens.I have encountered a lot of it on this forum,people like John Adams taking the piss out of my name[ Dick Miles]which was just puerile,and others, of which I will be gentlemanly and not mention.
on the other hand,There are plenty of decent people on this forum the most rewarding threads[IMO]are those about instrument techniques,from which I have learned something,also folk radio programmes[I might otherwise have missed].
And Jim Carrolls contributions,from which I have learned a lot about Walter Pardon.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 06:34 AM

Saw and enjoyed the fado programme.

Regards

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 07:01 AM

Wordy just wants to deny that the English have a folk tradition.

Absolutely not Richard. let me explain. Recently I was in a bookshop and the assistant was playing a Kate Rusby album. After browsing books and hearing three tracks I started to twitch, desperate for some passion or life in the singing and playing, but it plodded on and on until I was so wound up I had to leave the shop.
Then I saw the Fado programme and the Brel programme and was inspired again with the passion for the power of song and performance that first moved me many years ago.
Shirley Collins has a lot to answer for! (lol)

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 07:08 AM

Hi GUEST Martin E.

I couldn't agree more.
I resigned my commission here a couple of years ago, but still GUEST under my real name.
Like you and many others, I have (and continue) to find all sorts of informational and illuminating info on these "foreign" shores.
I contribute nowadays, only when I have some decent input...(mainly flying the flag for McCann Duets!!)
Yes I do get tempted whenever I see Nic Jones' name appearing, but, it's nearly always only people enquiring about tab for Canadee-I-O!!
I do find it staggeriing to observe the amount of vitriol on this (and other) sites.
But, I think it is a useful device to try and understand the human condition.
As Claudius said in the Graves book
"Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud...hatch out"
My best to you and yours.
Hope to meet up soon
Regards Ralphie

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 07:10 AM

Music either does something good for you or it doesn't. That's all their is. Fortunately their are lots of people performing more or less English traditional music. Enjoy the stuff you like. If I like it or not is completely irrelevant.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 07:12 AM

Woops
That las bit was very off topic, Sorry!!
Back on topic, have only just come across this series. Looking forward to the Warsaw VB show, and the one about Klezmer.
Has anyone got a full list of what is still to come?
Anything from Scandinavia perchance?
Ralphie

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 07:32 AM

So, Wordy, what about those who present English roots with passion? I would rather listen to them than to Jacques Brel, but that doesn't make me want to call him a garlic-munching bore. You put English music in a box. It doesn't belong there.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 10:41 AM

Okay Richard, who have I missed? Please name the passionate performers of English song, the ones who realise the emotion and incorporate it in their performance, because I will make the effort to see those I might have missed. I'm serious in this request. Those I have seen, particularly the female singers seem insipid, both unexciting and unexcited. Remember I'm not talking about musicians, but singers.
By the way, I made no bigoted remark like "garlic-munching". I was talking solely about presentation of material.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 11:06 AM

Ok Wordy.

Where do I start.

Chris Wood
Martin Carthy
Dick Gaughan
Brian Peters
Tim van Eyken
Ed Rennie
etc, etc....

And, these are just the so called "revivalist" singers.
Hundreds more around the country,
These are just a sample of the talent.

Don't get me started on all the friends of John Howson and others.

Too numerous too name.

As for female singers..

Well,

Peta Webb.....need I say more. Plenty more like her too.

Woody old chum, You really ought to get out more.
Ralph

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 11:36 AM

Haven't seen Peta Webb, so I'll look out for her. I'll give you Gaughan has it.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 11:43 AM

But then again, on reflection, he's not English!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 12:17 PM

Can we include the dead? Peter Bellamy and Lal Waterson.

Alive - Norma Waterson, Eliza Carthy, Jon Loomes, Some old bald geezer whose name I forget who I saw at the last Miskin (a trio with enough beard between them to hedgerow the county!), the wall of sound of early Ramskyte (OK, not all still alive, and I'm not so keen on their current stuff). Kimber's Men will shiver your timbers at 50 paces, and it is very hard to drown Tom Lewis when playing "hunt the harmony" in a session.

I'm sure that the Countess can give you a much much longer list than I, I mostly go to singarounds and she likes concerts, I guess. Don't let Smoothichops fool you, there is passion still out there.

I however agree that there seems to be a fashion for current young women singers to fail to belt it, but that does not mean that emotion is necessarily lost. Tori Lang who I also saw at the last Miskin had me grizzling helplessly three times in 20 minutes (OK, the beer helped), and as far as I know she is still unrecorded and almost wholly an amateur (but she does not specialise in that trendy, breathy, "head" voice, she actually sings, just not with a sledgehammer).

Surely there are amateurs near you who still go for the song? My late wife and I were sometimes accused of doing everything at 11/10ths, and once got the surprised remark "I didn't know you did subtle". Not that I put myself forward as a quality performer of course. My daughter will kill me if she reads this, and she mostly sings rock now, but she certainly can turn the pressure on (she could turn the sound meter in the bar she used to work in off without any amplification - did it as a party trick on open mic nights, just to wind up the microphone addicts) - and as for the unreliable killer clawhammer player Jeff Cole, he can make Thames tugs alter course with "Cornbread Peas and Black Molasses" (albeit he is not playing this year so far, and albeit it is a long way from English song).

I don't know whether the Davey Rumsey band still do the traditional stuff he used to do, but he was a very exciting singer of traditional material.

Plenty out there if you look.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 12:32 PM

Lal was astounding both as a performer and as a writer.
Peter was a more acquired taste, but he never shirked, despite criticism, and certainly was passionate in both performance and attitude.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 03:04 PM

I've no idea where Richard Bridge gets the notion that I go to lots of concerts as he's never seen me at one, nor indeed anywhere. I've been to two in the past six months and each consisted of dance musicians doing concert sets.

They were:

(1) Mary Humphreys & Anahata (Peta Webb & Ken Hall were there too as a bonus)

(2) Mawkin:Causley (the band + Jim Causley fronting as vocalist).

Each was fab. I also tried to see Chris Wood recently but he mixed up his dates.
Everything else has been ceilidhs.
I've things to be at every night for the next 7 days but I'm not telling you where or what.
I'll be in disguise and I won't be listening to those who try and tell me what else I should be doing and where else I should be. I don't care.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 04:12 PM

Because you give the impression of having first hand information about who is playing what and how well.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 01:35 AM

Considering how excellent this series is, I'm surprised there have been so few comments on the BBC 4 message board - I wonder, does this mean there is very little interest out there? If so, we'll be lucky to get any more of this quality programming!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 03 Nov 07 - 03:59 AM

Interesting new series started last night immediately before (or after, depending on which time) "Transatlantic Sessions". Fist one on Portugese fado.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 - 'European Roots'
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 01:41 AM

I think, maybe, I can answer my own question! The BBC message boards are hardly ever open when I use them (which is usually in the early hours)!