Folk clubs - what is being sung

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: GUEST,dulcimerjohn
Date: 13 Feb 08 - 09:27 AM

Steve Gelette wrote Darcy Farrow as a 'contemporary' version of a traditional tune, I learned the version I do from a Mill Run Dulcimer Band album (Sunday at the Mill). Has a bit of a cowboy feel, would be good to do in conjunction with something like 'Big Iron'.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Banjiman
Date: 13 Feb 08 - 11:56 AM

OK

Bert (I'm not responding to mysterious "Guests"...get on board if you have an opinion!!!) apologies, but please indulge us. You might be bored with this debate but clearly some of us aren't and I'm enjoying discussing this in measured terms (after some initial posturing by all of us!) rather than the hysterical point scoring I've seen elsewhere on Mudcat regarding this subject.

Richard, I accept that you are not placing a value judgement on songs whether they are trad or not, you are just searching for a term that all can agree on to describe a form of music. However, it seems to me that you might be trying to close the door after the horse has bolted...i.e. "folk" is a term used by the masses to describe more than just traditional song? This might not be "correct" but it is a reality?

Jim,

"Not necessarily - depends on how well they are written" . This suggests to me that you are saying that "traditional" songs are inherently better than "modern" songs, except where you think that isn't the case? That sounds a bit harsh and I don't mean it to be....I guess it means that there is a glimmer of hope that you might not consider all modern songs to be rubbish....which is the only point I've been trying to make. i.e. it is not a song's provenance that defines it's quality (or how much you like it!), it is something inherent in the song itself.

Paul (thanking you all for indulging me in this fascinating discussion)

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Brian Peters
Date: 13 Feb 08 - 02:10 PM

>> "...depends on how well they are written" . This suggests to me that you are saying that "traditional" songs are inherently better than "modern" songs, except where you think that isn't the case? <<

I won't presume to speak for Jim, but perhaps what he meant was "depends on how well they succeed in mimicking traditional style" - which would assume that the writer was actually trying to make the song sound 'traditional' (and that depends on what we mean by 'traditional' - but let's not go there just now). Personally I would hope that someone with plenty of experience of the genre could spot a modern attempt to compose a song in the style of a Child Ballad, or indeed of a 19th-century English lyrical song - a modern composer would find it awkward to use the same kind of language, for a start. However, if you want an example of a modern song that did convince me, try Dave Webber's "Bonnet and Shawl", which is a dead ringer for a traditional song. His "Lady of Autumn", though, didn't fool me for a minute (and that's not to pass a value judgement on either). 'Bring Us A Barrel', another song often quoted as 'sounding traditional', would have deceived my ears twenty years ago, but having spent all the intervening period looking at the old songs, I doubt that it would if I heard it for the first time now.

The songs of Leon Rosselson and Jim Woodland, to name but two, don't sound remotely traditional, but are great songs fully deserving a hearing in folk clubs. My own tastes would still prefer traditional songs to be in the majority, though.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Banjiman
Date: 13 Feb 08 - 02:46 PM

Brian,

Jim Woodland....Ghost Story? A great song, I do that one!

Fascinating stuff.....I'm sure I would be far more easily fooled than you, I come back to the key point though.....surely the key thing is that you enjoy the song? I know some of the other song's you mention (I had assumed "Bring Us a Barrel" was trad) and will seek out the others.

The rest of it (i.e. a song's history etc) I find interesting, but no more interesting than the story behind any, even a (good, folky sounding) modern song.

I have no problem arguing the toss of balance of trad versus modern, I just hate the idea that songs should be "banned" from a club purely on the basis of when they were written.....but I think we are teasing out that this is not really the case, it is more to do with how they sound?

Thanks

Paul

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Bert
Date: 13 Feb 08 - 06:35 PM

The purpose of this thread is to find out what is being sung by folk singers and in folk clubs.

The purpose of this thread is to define what is a folk song.

Please make your posts to the appropriate thread.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Feb 08 - 07:36 PM

I suggest some of these people go to a few folk clubs - theres a bit of banner waving for ones own view of what is folkmusic going on here.

I've been to three folk clubs this week and the words 'reality check' is looming ominously up before me.

Oh yeh, I forgot some of you don't go to folk clubs any more. Reality is so disappointing for the idealist.

Perhaps if you renamed the thread, songs we wish were being sung continually in folk clubs.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: GUEST,Outsider
Date: 13 Feb 08 - 09:52 PM

Banjiman wrote: "I'm not responding to mysterious "Guests"...get on board if you have an opinion!!!"

The point, dear Banjiman, is not to express opinions on this thread. You and a handful of others are behaving behaving quite selfishly by rabbiting on about a subject that has not only been thrashed out umpteen times before, but has NO PLACE on this thread--much to the frustration of poor Bert who originated the thread. Are you stubborn, headstrong, or too full of your own importance to notice this? (you need not reply--save the bandwidth for those who want to make proper use of the thread)

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 14 Feb 08 - 03:13 AM

Bert and slightly rude 'Outsider'... once a thread goes into the public domain you can't control it - it becomes the shared property of all contributors. If you want a thread you can edit, censor or police you'd have to ask the moderators if they'll let you have one. Otherwise it's like a chat in the pub, it goes where it goes. And no-one likes constantly being told to keep to the point!

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Banjiman
Date: 14 Feb 08 - 03:23 AM

Outsider, why are you hiding behind a guest persona? You are just undermining any point you are trying to make.

Please find my post regarding (some of) what we sing at folk clubs above (details below)........is yours here?

From: Banjiman - PM
Date: 10 Feb 08 - 08:15 AM



Bert, OK. You clearly feel strongly about this, no more posts from me on this thread.

Paul

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray)
Date: 14 Feb 08 - 05:07 AM

Looking back through my wee book this past couple of months here's what I've been singing in singarounds (Flootweed, Chorlton, Byker and Durham). Note that the first two are what I plan to sing tonight at The Steamer by way of a suitable contribution to Valentine's Day. Also note that I accompany myself on one of two Hungarian Citeras, the Welsh Crwth, and the Turkish Kemence.

Alifib (Robert Wyatt) (Citera Alpha)
The Witch Mother (Child #6) (Citera Alpha)
The Wee Wee Man (Child #38) (Citera Alpha)
Mutton Pie (Unaccompanied)
Dragonfly (Dave Cousins) (Citera Alpha)
Twa Corbies (not the usual one) (Citera Alpha)
Rambling Comber (Citera Alpha)
My Blue Eyed Mountain Queen (Citera Alpha)
Cherry Owld Grye / Poor Old Horse (Unaccompanied duet with Rapunzel)
Thousands or More (Unaccompanied)
Earl Brand (Child #7) (Citera Beta)
The Nateby Babies (Ron Baxter, set to an Almaine from The Baltic Lute Book c/o Roger Nicholson) (Citera Alpha)
A Pilgrims Way (Kipling / Bellamy) (Citera Alpha)
Willie & Earl Richard's Daughter (Child #102) (Kemence)
Woodcutter's Song (Unaccompanied duet with Rapunzel)
The Housecarpenter (Kemence)
The Candlelight Fisherman's Friend (The Candlelight Fisherman sung to my own tune) (kemence)
Marley Hill Ducks (Tommy Armstrong) (Citera Alpha)
King Henry (Child #32) (Crwth)
The Iron Stone (Robin Williamson) (Citera Alpha)
Herod and the Cock (Citera Alpha)
Danny Deever (Kipling / Bellamy) (Citera Alpha)
Binnorie (Child #10) (Citera Alpha)
The Way Through the Woods (Kipling / Bellamy) (Citera Alpha)
Black Dog and Sheep Crook (Crwth)
Cholera Camp (Kipling / Bellamy) (Citera Alpha)
Buy Broom Buzzems (Kemence)
Innocent Hare (Sportsmen Arouse) (Citera Alpha)
Turfman From Ardee (Citera Alpha)
Sir Olaf (Citera Alpha)
The Cruel Mother (Child #20) (Citera Alpha)
King Orfeo (Child #19) (Citera Alpha)
Amsterdam (Brel, partly Schuman, partly me) (Citera Alpha)
Banks o' Sicily (Hamish Henderson) (Citera Alpha)
My Boy Jack (Kipling / Bellamy) (Citera Alpha)
Anne Boleyn (With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm) (Citera Alpha)

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Feb 08 - 05:34 AM

Theres two possibilities at work.

One, I am completely delusional.

Two, I am being pursued by a gang of hitmen, who are trying to kill me off by playing repeated versions of Fire and rain and and the John denver songbook, plus assorted favourites from the 1960's and a smattering of r and b favourites.

Sometimes they change their disguise and become two adolescents who sing completely unrecognisable songs, which are anguished in content.

Isn't that what happens in folk clubs? the good ones, I mean.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Willa
Date: 14 Feb 08 - 07:34 AM

Sung at Beverley last Monday
I Live Not Where I Love
Rose of Allandale
Spencer the Rover
Jim Jones
Raglan Road
She Moved Through the Fair
Captain Webb
Recruited Collier
Little Gypsy Girl
Fiddler's Green (John Conolly)
Northern Tide (Linda Kelly)
Sweet Minerva (Linda Kelly)
With God On Our Side (Bob Dylan)

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Willa
Date: 14 Feb 08 - 08:00 AM

Monday night also included:
Round Goes the Wheel of Fortune
Foggy Foggy Dew
A Thousand Miles Behind ...still more but can't remember them all!

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 01:25 PM

Thank you Brian - tried to add 'if that was the writers intention to my posting but didn't have time'.
'folk" is a term used by the masses to describe more than just traditional song?'
The 'masses' by and large, tend to ignore folk song - surely we go to those involved for our information - unless you just want to score points of course.
Genealogy will always be an 'alogy' no matter how many people refer to it as an 'ology' (until somebody gets around to altering it official.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 05:40 PM

You see, the problem with democracy is that there are always more ignorant, stupid people than intelligent, well informed ones...

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Gene Burton
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 07:08 PM

Democracy? When I hear that word, I reach for my gun...

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 03:45 AM

Sorry, didn't get a chance to read the addition postings properly last night.
"I just hate the idea that songs should be "banned" from a club purely on the basis of when they were written."
Did I miss something - where has anybody suggested that songs should be 'banned'?
I'm intrigued by the idea that we can change language because it doesn't suit our personal preferences.... wonder if Banjiman would care to expand on the idea.
Do we have a referendum; circulate ballot forms, open polling booths, campaign.
Or maybe we take the Humpty Dumpty approach; "A word means what I want it to mean".
The Achilles Heel of all these arguments of course is, no matter how vehemently the 'anything goes' school argue, they NEVER manage (or bother) to produce an alternative definition.
The standard definition of 'folk song' has been in use for half a century and runs as follows:
"Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.
The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular and art music and it can likewise be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community.
The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the re-fashioning and re-creation of the music by the community that gives it its folk character."
That more-or-less covers the 'folk' songs I have been listening to and enjoying for the last forty years, and makes a fair stab at describing the many thousands of 'folk' songs discussed or reproduced in the hundreds of books on the subject lining my bookshelves.
Anybody wishing to adapt or replace it is welcome to offer an alternative, but as far as I'm concerned this needs to be based on what has gone before rather than personal taste. In that way, maybe we can avoid snide and inane references to 'woolly jumpers', 'finger-in-ear' and '97 verse ballads'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Bert
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:58 PM

...I'm intrigued by the idea that we can change language because it doesn't suit our personal preferences....

I would be quite happy to include any of the above songs under the Folk label but the purists don't like it.

Also, unfortunately, "Folk Music" is not appreciated by many ordinary people; but they might attend venues if they knew that other ordinary songs are being presented. This kinda makes a mockery of the more strict definitions of folk music.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:44 PM

What is an 'ordinary' song?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Bert
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:55 PM

LOL Jim.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Snuffy
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:58 PM

What is an 'ordinary' song? Perhaps you ought to start a thread on that subject, Jim!

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:15 PM

I'd be curious to know who the "ordinary people" are too.

What a sales pitch - "COME ON ALL YOU ORDINARY PEOPLE, ROLL UP FOR AN EVENING OF THE ORDINARYEST ORDINARY MUSIC YOU EVER HEARD IN YOUR ORDINARY LIFE!"

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: GUEST,Eccles The Folk Singer (very ordinary)
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:52 PM

but is it folk, folks?
Ummm...

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 11:04 PM

I was criticized above for listing songs from pub sessions rather than a "folk club". I'd just like to explain that I don't know of any "folk clubs" in Dublin (or certainly not designated as such). But I didn't see why this provision should exclude a contribution of songs as sung in gatherihgs in Ireland. Most of the sessions I attend have a similar format to clubs I've seen in England, and the music is billed as "folk, ballads, traditional" ("ballads" in Dublin parlance refers to music popularized by the Dubliners, Clancy Brothers, Wolfe Tones, etc.). There is no amplification, and practically everyone at the session is there to participate or listen.

Don

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 04:56 AM

In my experience folk songs are 'extraordinary' - that is why they have been passed down and have survived for centuries.
Bert's idea of 'ordinary' songs for 'ordinary' people smacks to me of 'dumbing down' - the bland attracting the bland, so to speak.
As an 'ordinary' person, (lousy state education, brought up on various Liverpool housing estates, apprenticeship on the docks, work as electrician until retirement...... yattata yattata) I believe 'ordinary' people are quite capable of accepting and understanding anything that is made available. I was introduced to the works of Thomas Hardy by the very 'ordinary' jobbing carpenter Walter Pardon. To suggest that they/we are not capable of appreciating folk song proper is patronisingly insulting - after all, it was 'ordinary' people who made and perpetuated the folk songs and (97 verse) ballads in the first place.
Don
Dublin has 2 folk clubs (maybe not called such), The Goilín and he Clée Club; both specialising in what I would refer to as folk songs and corresponding more or less to their UK counterparts. I was in the latter on Wednesday listening to two Scots singers of (mainly) bothy songs.
'Ballads' (a throwback to 'the ballad boom' in the 60s and 70s), as you say, refers to the more popularised end of the folk repertoire plus the songs recorded by John McCormack... et al. The term also includes the song sheets (broadsides) that were sold around the fairs and markets, mainly by Travellers, right up to the 1950s (the best remembered one around here being 'The Rocks of Bawn'). It's worth remembering that if you ask the 'ordinary' man-in-the-street in the UK you are quite likely to be given 'Strangers in The Night' as an example of a ballad.
On the other hand, 50 Child ballad titles have been recorded over the last 40 years from source singers, including several, (Lord Gregory, Prince Robert, Young Hunting, The Maid and The Palmer, The Suffolk Miracle, Johnny Scott, The Demon Lover... etc) that have disappeared totally from the British traditional repertoire.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: amber
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 05:37 AM

At the Black Diamond on Friday,some of the songs were: A Miner's Life, Sally Free and Easy (this was great Gene), High Barbary, She was a Sweet Little Dickie Bird, A Recruiting Sargeant came to Rochester ?(Pete Coe), The Garden Where the Praties Grow I sang The Keeper and My Grandfather's Clock.

At Redditch Folk Club on Saturday we heard Bonny Light Horeseman, On The Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond, Hallelujah, Spanish Lady, etc.

I have just learnt The Four Maries, Bonny Dundee (a great chrous), Eileen Oge and am contemplating learning Jock of Hazeldean, which I think is a lovely song, but as I usually sing unacompanied might be a bit challenging. I'll think about it.



Amber

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Gene Burton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 06:15 AM

Thanks Amber!

There was a lot of good stuff sung on Friday, much of it very well- I ought to make it down more often...

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 03:11 PM

That Pete Coe is "The Gay Fusilier".

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Peace
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 03:14 PM

"There was a lot of good stuff sung on Friday, much of it very well- I ought to make it down more often... "

I hope YOU were singing, too, Gene. If you don't know, he has a wonderful voice. When I'm 6'2" and 35 again I'll sound like that.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Gene Burton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 03:34 PM

Well, I only just about scrape 5'8'' on a good day...got a little while to go til I'm 35 though!

It was I who sang Sally Free and Easy...I like to pay a little lip service to the F*** Police every now and again...LOL

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Bert
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 03:37 PM

Jim - By ordinary people I kinda meant those who don't go to folk clubs or song circles, perhaps I should have said 'other people'.

Where do you get the correlation between 'ordinary' and 'dumb'? Most people are ordinary. 'Dumb' (your choice of words) people are below average and therefore not ordinary.

I think this thread has pretty much established that folk clubs are presenting and preserving a lot of great songs which are not yet considered 'folk'.

The point of this thread was to see what those songs are and perhaps find a collective name for them so that the definition purists won't be disappointed when they turn up at a venue.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Peace
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 03:53 PM

Modern and essential folk-influenced artistic interpretations of meaningfulness in the present world of topical and non topical songwriting by singers and performers who care about important stuff. Perhaps we could use "MAEFAIOMITPWOTANTSBSAPWCAIS" for short. If the quotation marks make that unweildy, just leave them out.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 03:56 PM

MAEFAIOMITPWOTANTSBSAPWCAIS

took me less time to type without the quotation marks *LOL*

Charlotte (always looking for a short cut)

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Peace
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 03:56 PM

unwheildy/unweeldey/unwielldy clumsy. Yeah, clumsy. But DON'T change the acronym. Took me a half hour to learn it.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 05:56 PM

The point of this thread was to see what those songs are and perhaps find a collective name for them so that the definition purists won't be disappointed when they turn up at a venue.
A Songwriter by the name of Jim Garrett had acollection of his songs published by the EFDSS,some years ago,he called them JimsYolk songs,some of the songes were good.but overall it was a Curates Egg.
much like the songs that ares sung in Folk Clubs.
so I suggest Yolk Songs.go to work on an egg,and go to sing in a Yolk Club.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 06:24 PM

"I think this thread has pretty much established that folk clubs are presenting and preserving a lot of great songs which are not yet considered 'folk'."
Not for me it hasn't, but that's my taste, which is not under discussion.
Whether songs will become folk is a non-starter because the process which made songs folk no longer exists.
The old songs are being preserved in the clubs, the new songs are not being taken up, adapted and passed on; by your own words 'ordinary people' don't get to hear them. They remain static and unchanged, and more often than not composers hang a price tag (copyright) on them so they don't travel.
As far as 'dumbing down' is concerned your posting to me reeks of condescension - 'we gotta give the people what they understand" sorry, that's how it reads to me.
Most people certainly are not ordinary, most people are individuals with abilities, knowledge and experiences which make them/us all unique.'Other people' listen to and perform folk music - not enough of them maybe.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 10:05 PM

Jim, I must disagree. "New" is a relative term, and above Gene admits that he sings "Sally Free and Easy" - which is not folk (although I do a version of it that is fairly heavily not "in the style of the tradition" so it is being adopted and modified).

I also do a version of "The ballad of Sammy's bar" in which I invert part of the melody.

Both songs are widely sung, and in their adoption they are changing (as is "Ride On"). The parts of the 1954 definition that are not met are that the transmission is often not by the oral process and that the composers are usually remembered - but for other songs that last part is sometimes met, too, for example "Fiddlers Green" and some MacColls.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 03:02 AM

Richard,
I go along part of the way with your argument, but any changes that might be happening to the songs appear to me to be happening within the context of the clubs, not communities as a whole, and are deliberate, self-conscious ones. I don't believe that this counts, (but I'm willing to be persuaded) unless you believe that the clubs are communities - an argument which has been put forward by some American folklorists, who also include work-places such as offices in their definition.
If we accept this, should we then not include in our definition the works of Butterworth, Vaughan Williams, Grainger, Britten and Kodaly as 'folk', all of whom changed songs and tunes and had their work accepted by large groups of people.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 07:29 AM

That creates quite a deep problem for the definition, since then we have no communities, other than the various microcosms through which we move. But we are wandering from the thread's core.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Gene Burton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 01:53 PM

Actually, I think most people who sing Cyril Tawney songs learned/adapted them from the singing of others (eg. in clubs, etc.), largely because that's almost the only context in which his songs can be readily heard these days (anybody tried to get hold of his recordings of his own songs in recent years?? You don't find them in HMV). I've known Sally Free and Easy and several other Tawney compositions for many years, but only heard the original recording for the first time last week on Youtube.

Somebody told me recently that there's a Bob Dylan bootleg CD somewhere with a very young Dylan singing Sally...; which is credited on the sleeve as "Trad"...and why not??

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 01:58 PM

Cos it ain't!

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Gene Burton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 02:02 PM

That was intentionally facetious, Richard, though no more facetious than your statement that it isn't a folksong...I HOPE...

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 02:25 PM

"But we are wandering from the thread's core."
Now there's a turn up for the book
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: BB
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 02:45 PM

"The old songs are being preserved in the clubs, the new songs are not being taken up, adapted and passed on; by your own words 'ordinary people' don't get to hear them. They remain static and unchanged, and more often than not composers hang a price tag (copyright) on them so they don't travel."

Some of these statements are simply not true. The old songs *are* being preserved and changed, many new songs *are* being taken up, adapted and passed on. As explained below, they do *not* remain static and unchanged, and although copyright exists on many songs, most writers are more than happy that their songs are sung, and even changed. That's the way the songs get known, and someone may get round to recording them. All they want is acknowledgement that they were written by them. Most are only concerned about copyright when money is being made out of singing and/or recording them.

"any changes that might be happening to the songs appear to me to be happening within the context of the clubs, not communities as a whole, and are deliberate, self-conscious ones"

The changes are happening largely within the context of the folk scene generally, rather than just the clubs, and yes, I think that does constitute a community of a kind, but I can't accept that many of the changes are deliberate, self-conscious ones, or that quite a few of the songs aren't learnt by oral transmission rather than through recordings, books, etc. The more well-known ones are absorbed almost by osmosis, often gleaned from the singing of many different people, and therefore changes do take place quite by accident and unconsciously. I'm not saying this makes them traditional necessarily, but it does go some way to fulfilling the 1954 definition.

And no, this doesn't apply to the works of Butterworth, etc., as those changes were totally conscious, require performance generally by an orchestra or a group of musicians reading from the (fixed) dots, and not passed on to others to perform in any other way.

Sadly, your experience has caused you to have a very jaundiced view of the folk scene in England, and I think there are quite large parts of it that don't deserve your cynicism.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 03:08 PM

Somebody told me recently that there's a Bob Dylan bootleg CD somewhere with a very young Dylan singing Sally...; which is credited on the sleeve as "Trad"...and why not??
WhyNot?
because Cyril could have probably done with the royalties.
Gene Burton,you clearly have no idea of the difficulty of professional folk singers /songwriters have trying to earn a living.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Gene Burton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 03:46 PM

"Gene Burton,you clearly have no idea of the difficulty of professional folk singers /songwriters have trying to earn a living."

Oh, believe me, I've every reason to. No matter how poor I get, though, I retain a sense of humour- unlike some.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: meself
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 05:27 PM

Usually when I ask these sorts of questions I don't get an answer, but anyway:

re: 'Boys of Barr na Sráide (to shouts of "C'm'on the Kingdom!")' (from 'way up the thread). What would "C'm'on the Kingdom!" mean, and what relation would it have to 'Boys of Barr na Sráide'?

Curious, from the other side of the pond.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 09:28 PM

Thanks to all of you who have listed songs. I am much impressed with the number and the variety of songs which people are singing for one another.

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 03:48 AM

Hello Barbara,
I would really love to be wrong on this one, but whenever I follow threads like this I am left with the impression of a small handful of devotees and a larger number of pop wannabes using the clubs as a comfort blanket for not having made it big time.
I'm not really cynical; I heard enough good singing and attended enough good clubs to keep me interested till I run out of puff, and chose out in order to do other things.
It's enough for me to have been able to spend time with Walter Pardon, Tom Lenihan, Mikeen McCarthy, Mary Delaney and all those other lovely people who left their fingerprints over our lives. It's a nice thought that people will have access to their singing in the future.
Nowadays we have excellent wall-to-wall traditional music played by musicians across the generations, which means it will be listened to long after we're gone.
There is some (not enough, for my taste) excellent singing here from people who respect and enjoy the songs enough to put in the effort.
Didn't get that in my last few experiences in the UK - sorry.
Not sure what you mean by "within the context of the folk scene generally, rather than just the clubs."
Meself;
"The Kingdom" refers to the Kingdom of Kerry, where the song came from (composed by Siggerson Clifford of Cahersiven).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk clubs - what is being sung
From: BB
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 06:54 AM

'Not sure what you mean by "within the context of the folk scene generally, rather than just the clubs." '

What I meant was in more informal sessions in local areas and at festivals.

You just need to know where to look over here, Jim, and it isn't always on Mudcat! :-)

Barbara