Folk singers with longest career

Subject: Folk singers with longest active career
From: Leadbelly
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:26 PM

Hi,

productive careers of folk singers are mostly limited because of many reasons.
My answer to this thread might be, although not being comletely sure about this, that Pete Seeger is the one and only. He started in 1940 together with the Almanac Singers ( Woody Guthrie and others)and is active now for more than 60 years.

Any other ideas? Please concentrate on folk. Blues might be another cup of tea.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:34 PM

CyrilTawney 50 years,Martin Carthy 47? years.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Folkiedave
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:43 PM

Martin was 17 when he first saw his "muse" Sam Larner in 1959.

Can I offer instead Jim Kroh? Jim is a singer with the Glenrock Carolers http://www.glenrockcarolers.org/ and has sung every Christmas (except for the war years when he missed a couple of occasions because he was abroad) since 1935.

Of course he hasn't done as many gigs as the others - just one spot a year. On the other hand they don't walk 8 miles during each gig!!

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Rasener
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:53 PM

Surely nobody can compete with your answers FolkieDave, with all your knowledgeable books :-)

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: pdq
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:55 PM

Bascom Lamar Lunsford lived to be 90 or more and spent his whole adult life collecting and playing folk music. He was as important as anyone in preserving American folk music, which he did for over 70 years.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Folkiedave
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:58 PM

Nice one Les - though as will soon be revealed (my lips are sealed for a few more days) this was based on personal experience.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:58 PM

Johnny Silvo?

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:04 PM

Our own Kytrad (Jean Ritchie) has been performing for going on 60 years, and that's after she moved North. Doc Watson has probably been performing for close to that long.

Dan Schatz

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:05 PM

Colin Wilkie was already well established when I started going to clubs in the 60's and still seems to be going strong in Germany.

He recently became one of my "myspace" friends, bringing back plenty of memories.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Rasener
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:11 PM

Brian Dawson maybe from Lincolnshire

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Little Robyn
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:30 PM

Other members of the Weavers have been performing almost as long as Pete - Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman, Erik Darling and also Frank Hamilton who is lurking around here somewhere.
Hi Frank.
And then Pete's siblings must be catching up too.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: gnomad
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 02:16 PM

How about the late Bob Copper? His involvement seems to have been from around 1930s, and lasted to his death in 2004, aged 89.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: theballadeer
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 03:01 PM

Liam Clancy - 51 years and counting...

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Newport Boy
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 03:05 PM

And there's also Phil Tanner. He was almost certainly singing publicly well before he appeared before the Royal Commission on Land in Wales & Monmouthshire in 1893, and continued until very shortly before his death in 1950.

Phil

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Rog Peek
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 03:11 PM

Tom Paxton has to be up there, 70 years of age and still touring.

Rog

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: GUEST,allan s
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 03:36 PM

New Lost City Ramblers John Cohen & Tom Paley Iremember them from 1953 at Yale 54 years..

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Fidjit
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:56 PM

Tim Hart thouoh not still performing. Maddy no youngster either. Johnny Silvo is in his 70's, but Pete Seeger is a must for top of the list.

Chas

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:57 PM

Bill Churchyard, who died last month aged 91, had been singing at the same Suffolk pub since well before WWII. 75 years?

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 05:22 PM

I suspect that Oscar Brand would be the undisputed champ (he was singing in the late 30s) if it weren't for Sam Hinton (who was singing like, forever)

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: oggie
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 05:33 PM

Leon Rosselson must be pushing 50 years on the cicuit and still going.

Steve

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Fidjit
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 05:38 PM

And I'll be 75 next year !!

Chas

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 06:58 PM

I have to agree with Dick Greenhaus. Not only is Oscar Brand the undisputed champ but he has the longest running folk radio show on WNYC, over 60 years and still counting.
                                                SOL

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 07:01 PM

here in Oz we have Alex Hood who has been preforming since he joined the Bushwhackers, the first Bush Band, founded 1952. Chris was not a foundation member but became a member after joining the original Sydney production of "Reedy River" in 1953.

Bushwhackers 1955, entertaining kids (except for one very bored boy!)

No doubt Bob Bolton can name other & maybe older Oz performers as he knows more of the history of the Oz folk revival than I do.

sandra

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Brendy
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 07:06 PM

Packie Manus Byrne?

He's turning 91 soon....

B.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: GUEST,Mike B.
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 08:19 PM

There was Joe Glazer (labor's troubadour) - active from the 1940s until shortly before his death last year.

Longest running folk group (with no replacements along the way) has to be Peter, Paul and Mary.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: GUEST,Bill the sound
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 08:55 PM

Derek Brimstone must be in the running also Hamish Henderson (sadly no longer with us) I saw him singing in Edinburgh when he was eighty

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: quantock
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 08:58 PM

Shirley Collins? Must be at least 50 years.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Effsee
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 10:17 PM

Jeeze, I feel young again!

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 04:25 AM

"Longest running folk group (with no replacements along the way) has to be Peter, Paul and Mary."

The Rakes have been going for over fifty years with no personnel changes.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Grab
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 06:46 AM

Davey Graham's career started in 1959. Whether it should still be running has occupied a whole separate thread, though. :-/

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: GUEST,andymac
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 07:36 AM

Saw Louis Killen just a year or so ago, he must be well in there for longevity...
Packie Manus byrne as mentioned, still going strong...
Longest running roup with no changes? One candidate would be the Clutha, been running over 40 years and the only change is that (the fabulous) John Eaglesham no longer performs with them.

Another one might also be Flora McNeil of Barra, active at singing and collecting when Hamish henderson and Alan Lomax went collecting in the early 1950s.

What about Sheila Stewart? I'd wager like most traditional singers, she was singing from a very early age indeed and is now not quite so early-aged..

Bob Davenport must be another who's been round a while.

Then there's the wonderful John Milnes Baker from Connecticut, under appreciated, under-heard and just turned 75. told me a fabulous story last month when I visited of being in Moe Asch's store on Union Sq. and meeting a man with a guitar and wiry hair who was waiting for the start of the Sunday backroom session but was early and struck up a few songs..So John, in 1947 or so, sat alone in the shop, and was entertained by Woody Guthrie..

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: kendall
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 08:08 AM

Gordon Bok, 50 years.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: GUEST,woodsie
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 11:12 AM

The brilliant Wizz Jones is still going strong after more than 50 years on the folk scene

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 11:52 AM

Dick Greenhaus beat me to Sam Hinton. John Jacob Niles had a career as collector, folklorist and performer that approached sixty years.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 01:25 PM

Hinton, parenthetically, coined the term folksinger.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 04:35 PM

He's dead now, of course, but Hugill?

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Cool Beans
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 05:30 PM

Tom Glazer must have performed for 60 years or more.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: oldhippie
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 11:39 AM

Tom Lehrer is still around, although no longer performing.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Leadbelly
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 12:16 PM

Thinking of Tom Lehrer, his "good old friend" Georg Kreisler has to be mentioned. Born in 1922, he made 3 unreleased US-records in 1947.
And he's still on stage. Comes very near to Pete Seeger and some others mentioned.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 12:18 PM

Nobody mentioned Faith Petric who is way up in her 90s now. She is still performing.

                                                       SOL

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Leadbelly
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 12:28 PM

"She is still performing."

If this is true, Rabbi-Sol, Faith is our top-candidate at the moment.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 12:31 PM

She does not travel to festivals anymore but she still performs regularly in the San Francisco area where she lives.

                                                    SOL

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Folkie101
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 01:34 PM

Odetta still performs yearly.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: pdq
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 01:44 PM

There may be some question as to what constitutes a "career", but here is...

                         Faith Petric

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: GUEST
Date: 23 May 14 - 03:00 PM

The Rakes are still doing gigs!

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 23 May 14 - 04:43 PM

I started as a professional in 1964. I don't travel as widely as I used to, but I'm still active . I will be 81 in June.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: pdq
Date: 23 May 14 - 04:59 PM

Today, 23 MAY 2014 is Mac Wiseman's 89th birthday.

Happy birthday from all Folk, Country and Bluegrass fans.

He was playing bass for Bill Monroe in the late 1940s. A long time ago.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: Mark Ross
Date: 23 May 14 - 06:19 PM

Ramblin' Jack is still going strong at 82. Just saw him perform last night here in Eugene, Oregon.


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: GUEST,Erich
Date: 24 May 14 - 02:12 AM

Guy Carawan, Roy Bailey.

Subject: RE: Folk singers with longest career
From: GUEST,padgett
Date: 24 May 14 - 03:07 AM

Derek Brimstone, Harvey Andrews, Tom Paley maybe

Ray