Folk Music and Class

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: Folkiedave
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 11:13 AM

Dick, people can define class in all sorts of ways and it would be nice to know which one you use. I have never suggested that the term "middle-class" is derogatory by the way.

If you believe that 90% of the folk scene is middle-class you are free to assert that - it is just people would take more notice of you if you had some sort of citation, a survey for example would be regarded as good evidence. If it is anecdotal evidence then say so. (It would have little value IMHO but that is your privilege).

Define class by income, by occupation, by education, by housing or by authority position are all ways that are used depending on circumstance. When it was done by occupation there were major problems since women were virtually excluded as was unpaid work in the home - for example. By income - I know plumbers (generally regarded as working class) that earned a lot more than I did as a lecturer (generally regarded as upper-middle). There are similar difficulties with all definitions.

We live in a complex society and most people who have studied the subject at any level find "class" a difficult subject.

I am not attacking you. I just asking how you know that 90% of the folk-scene is middle class. And to tell me that, you need a definition of class. And so far you have said it is difficult to define.

I couldn't agree more!

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: The Barden of England
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 10:42 AM

And of course   .co.uk

John Barden

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: The Barden of England
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 10:42 AM

Richard - You can give my blueyonder email address to Tom Bliss if you want or Tom you can contact me at jbarden@ then just add the blueyoder.
John Barden

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 10:28 AM

I haven't been looking at whatever controversies y'all are referring to, but I was thinking about music in a related way last night and now this AM, here's a thread titled right in that line of thought!

What I was thinking was, folk music is music of the blue-collared that is collected and perpetuated in many cases by the white-collared. I was thinking that here at Mudcat we, who are mostly whiter-collared than bluer-collared, are at that place in our lives where we stand with the collectors AS WELL AS the originators, and that UK folk in particular is one of the world's folk musics that is very much in that middle place-- new and old music, both folk, so it's confusing around that class issue.

THEREFORE as I skim the above posts, I'm thinking (now) that it might be helpful not to worry so much about who or what is "right," because music transcends our narrow huiman ability to agree on what is right, or even to maintain it in one's own mind as a fixed quantity because human beans have the annoying tendency :~) to keep thinking and learning even whilst arguing, hammer and tongs, about who or what is "right."

~Susan

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 09:47 AM

I think I agree with you Tom on both those points, but if we do it by email then it is your choice whether to re-put up here, and that will not look like me going on (and on, and on, and on, if you remember the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band) as Joe's blood pressure is probably getting a bit alarming right now - Lizzie can be very frustrating and hard to engage in a low-key rational way.... (NO, Lizzie, that is NOT libel, please believe me, I used to do libel clearances for several TV companies)

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 09:44 AM

I did make a previous comment that I thought Ninety percent of the folkscene was Middle class,I did not mean this in any derogatory manner.
Class Structure is difficult to define,but certain professions are often regarded as middle class,likewise living in council rented property,is often used as away of defining, someone as not middle class,I realise this is only a start at defining class ,and now anticipate an attack from Folkie Dave.

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 09:33 AM

Ok Richard. Will do, tho I'd prefer the debate to be in the open, here, just low key and amicable so we can all maybe learn something.

I was just posting on the 'speaking ill' thread to agree with you about Lizzie' rights when Joe closed it, so will post that thought here.


Joe? I think Lizzie should have right to reply - apart from the legal and moral aspect it's counterproductive from a moderation point of veiw to leave those kind of comments up. In other cases like this the complainant is allowed to refute anything defamatory but not allowed to add new comment. Any new comment is deleted/edited.

Could you at least do that?

Thanks

Tom

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: Fidjit
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 09:33 AM

Dear oh dear. Only Cd's Nigel?

Should have been Lp's and tapes. You're obviously to young to be considered in the census.

Chas

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 09:01 AM

Class as a label is outmoded, often derogatory, and usually Socialist, claptrap.

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class: Derek Walcott & Omeros
From: peregrina
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 08:21 AM

Derek Walcott won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his poem Omeros a few years back. Omeros is a retelling of the Iliad in a new context.

Some people said: why have you, a black man from the caribbean, written a version of the Iliad instead of 'your' stories.

Walcott in a TV interview (wish I could find where he published this) said:   the Odyssey and the Iliad don't just belong to the modern Greeks, nor do they belong to the European and other scholars who've done all these studies on Ancient Greek. They belong to everyone who reads them, studies them, even learns the language.

Everyone may not agree; and of course the analogy between the Iliad and its ancient/dead traditional transmission and the folk music of the last two centuries is inexact. But I think it's a nice point about how these things can be shared and stay alive that way....Can you make it your own? The Iliad can withstand all manner of retellings. Are the ballads and traditional songs any less robust?

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 04:22 AM

Morning Tom

I think Joe will blow a fuse if I post the residue of that discussion on yet another thread (and he will or may then consign me to outer darkness with Mad Lizzie).

I have re-activated one of my disposable email addresses at [e-mail]. If you email me there I should get it and I can email you, without either of us publicly posting an email address for the spammers to latch onto. Or, I think you are in touch with Barden, and you can send me a message with your email address via him and also get mine from him (sorry to put you as piggy in the middle John).

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 03:35 AM

Sorry, can't do cookies at the moment, but would be interested to read your reply here Richard. (im not 'tom' above btw)

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 03:29 AM

I like it, McGrath of Harlow! So to backtrack, I'll COMPOST rather than burn those CDs...

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 03:16 AM

Wordy, you have not (it seems) read the studies about the stats on those who "rise" from working class to middle class. The vast preponderance were "sunken" middle class.

And on another tack, if anyone sees Tom Bliss, tell him to get a cookie so I can PM him as he and I were in mid-conversation about this when the censorship thread was closed.

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: Folkiedave
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 02:31 AM

As for no working-class collectors in the 20th century to your knowledge - I have to tell you your knowledge is not complete. Try looking up Alfred Williams.

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: topical tom
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 09:41 PM

Beautifically said, Scorpio! What does it matter the socio-economic class of the folk music fan/performer if he or she espouses the folk principles of love, peace, freedom, and the betterment of man?
       A truly humanitarian man of fortune equals a working class humanitarian, no better, no worse.
       Forget about class and concentrate on the struggle for the ideals of the folk movement

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: Scorpio
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 07:58 PM

Dear Nigel -

I must have missed the thread you refer to. All it proves is that some people don't think very far. Folk music in its origins was the music of the people in the sense of 'ordinary' people, the hoi-poloi, the rank and file, the ones whose lives didn't matter much in history. They sangs about working on the railroad or being drafted into the army, yes, but there were also songs of outrage, injustice, poetry - things common to every class. Many songs today regarded as traditional had middle class authors. Nobles like Wallace, Bruce, and Bonnie Prince Charlie were immortalised in Scottish folk song. The educationally privileged have been responsible for most revolutions, anyway.

Folk music has never been that popular with the Powers-That-Be, just because of this taint of sedition. Finer classes of people listened to something else. Finer classes of people also tended to have a great deal of power over the less fortunate, who have, historically, had little opportunity to change the situation. The working class are one such group. African-Americans are another. Women another.

People, of whatever social class (God! Isn't this British?), who try to do something to improve the situation of others tend to be those who care about other humans in the first place, and are probably attracted to folk for the same reasons as me: folk is just about the only place the story of the ordinary person is remembered.

So keep listening, Nigel. We need all the help we can get.

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 07:21 PM

The whole folk revival for the whole of the 20th century was purely middle class. No working class collectors to my knowledge. The 60's revival was powered purely by the "educated" working class who became the middle class. Every folk club was awash with students.
The working class got on, and it's only those left behind, or those nostalgic for a lost world that never was, who are unhappy about it. However, roots are roots, so I'm still working class, but educated, and therefore researchers consider me middle class because of earnings and inferred status.
It's all bo****ks really!

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: mg
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 07:10 PM

Well foolish is foolish so don't listen to them. Sing and play what you like,with respect for those who inspired it. mg

Subject: RE: Folk Music and Class
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 07:08 PM

You can't go polluting the atmosphere with a bonfire like that, not if you're a Guardian reader etc!

(Sounds like a typical manager to me...)

Subject: Folk Music and Class
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 06:54 PM

On another, now closed, thread, there were a number of posts that seemed to be suggesting that you really shouldn't be allowed to listen to, play or have an opinion about any aspect of folk music unless you could absolutely prove your working class credentials. Probably going back several generations. You know, what with folk music, rather than Dizzee Rascal, the Streets and 50 Cent, being the music of the people.

So my question is, does this mean as the manager of a community mental health team, I should make a big bonfire in my garden of all my folk CDs and faithfully promise never to besmirch its reputation again by attempting to do something as downright impudent as listening to it?

Because it seems that us middle class people (especially the Guardian reading, leftie, union member variety) are spoiling folk music for everyone else.

Can I be the first to say sorry?

Cheers,

Nigel.