Our ghastly folk tradition

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:30 AM

Sorry that was me above and before - typing in a hurry.

Tom Brown has not, I don't think, contributed to this discussion. (I wanted to catch Henry before he went out)

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:38 AM

Could somebody please point out at what stage during the 1000+ year history of the folk tradition did this start?

I'd guess as soon as there was money and people could sing/play. Your guess is as good as to mine as to when that might have been.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:19 AM

The folk tradition, as I understand it, is/was the gathering of 'ordinary' people at work, rest and play, who sang (well, badly or indifferently) songs they happened to like (good, bad or indifferent). There was no financial transaction involved - apart from the buying of the odd pint.

And no, musicians have not always been paid to play for dancing.

And troubadours/minstrels did not charge a fixed entrance fee - they relied on 'contributions' (it's called busking).

There are those who will always try to make money out of something - it's a tradition (it's called commerce) - but that's a different tradition entirely.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: theleveller
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:56 AM

Oh god, this debate seems to have degenerated into semantics. We'll be having the 'what is folk?' argument next.

Is not the point that the beauty of folk music exists, and can be enjoyed, on a number of levels? On one level (I hesitate to say 'top') are the people who earn their living by performing. We all enjoy them: on CD, at concerts, at festivals and, because we are paying to hear them, we expect a certain standard, reflecting their style of performance. At the opposite level are the people who just like to sing and play and/or listen to others doing so, at clubs, in pubs, at parties or simply sitting around at home with family or friends – this allows participation by people of all levels of ability. That someone is enjoying performing it or listening to it is all that matters.

I suspect that Mathew Parris's comments were simply made for effect, based on one particular style of folk music and certainly not from an understanding of the full complexity and diversity of the genre. Admit it, we all do it. I've jokingly referred to modern jazz as 'tuneless shit' because I personally don't like it or understand it. If the truth were known, I wish I did but, hey, life's too short!

Having read a lot of the posts here, it seems to me that quite a few people are expressing opinions that are as prejudiced and narrow-minded as Mr Parris's – it's just that his were expressed in more public way.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Brian Peters
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:04 AM

I can't understand why the unexceptionable point that Tom's been trying to make has attracted such strong disagreement. I believe in folk music as community entertainment as much as anyone, but for all the years I've been attending folk clubs, singaround sessions and what have you, it's been obvious that a very large part of the material sung by floor singers has *originated* from professional or semi-pro performers, be it MacColl, A. L. Lloyd, the Watersons, Martin Carthy or - on the more contemporary side - Richard Thompson, Jez Lowe, Keith Marsden or Dave Webber. The Coppers have never been full-time professional musicians but their importance as a source depends on commercial recordings and publications ("the Coppersongs Empire" as Bob used to call it, tongue firmly in cheek). The give-away is when the version sung in the singaround is a Lloyd or Carthy collation some way removed from any archived source material. Wouldn't it be great if everyone learned their songs from VOTP, but thus far not many do.

And that's before you address the matter of inspiration. What attracted the people who like this kind of music to it in the first place? Was it a visit to the local folk club, or was it the Fairport or Kate Rusby record they heard on the radio?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Brian Peters
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:08 AM

"Fitzgerald: Professional folk singers are different from us.
Hemingway: Yes, they've got more money."

Bryan, should this have read: "Less Money"? Or possibly: "No Money"?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:16 AM

Tom Bliss

Bryan I give up. If you can't understand what I'm saying from all the words I've written above then you never will.

Tom, I have been involved in the folk scene for getting on for 40 years and I have been involved in running a folk club for 10+. I have been to many folk clubs and festivals. I know many of the great and good, both amateur and professional. I am reasonably bright and I am not being deliberately obtuse.

Despite that, I do not recognise the sort of folk scene you describe nor do I understand the point you are trying to make about the position of professionals.

For instance "In fact I'd hazard that 70-80% of the material I hear in clubs of both trad and mod hue across the land is directly attributable to a 'festival main stage' performer."

Not in my experience.

Sam Lee said he learnt the Mary Ann Haynes song from the CD with - Traveller's Joy: Songs of English and Scottish Travellers and Gypsies 1965-2005 recently published by EFDSS.

Yes, both it and the VOTP are commercial products because they need to be to be produced at all. I am pretty sure that the main motivation was to get the material into the public domain. I doubt if they made anybody rich.

I AM TALKING ABOUT THE NATIONAL PICTURE - not the Lewes Arms.

I am talking about the folk scene that I know which extends beyond the Lewes Arms which I don't think is that exceptional amongst traditionally biased clubs.

The folk scene that I am involved in is a social activity not the "folk indstry" or a commercial enterprise. I don't need a business plan to get together with my friends to share the music we enjoy.

Glad you came back, Tom. We really need to understand each other.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:46 AM

The Snail -

Dave Polshaw doesn't seem to be doing a very good PR job for the Swinton Folk Club.

Maybe not, Brian, but I am being honest. Out of the 20+ performers that enter and exit our club as floor singers on a regular or occasional basis at the moment, the vast majority have the professional attitude that we are talking about. A high proportion of them are actualy professionals. There are, maybe, 4 or 5 who fall in the other category and of those only 1 or 2 will consistantly disappoint. The point is people do not remember the regular occurence of good performance, only the occasional bad ones. It is those that they talk about most and it is those that give the whole of folk music a bad name.

I must also point out that it is not just Swinton that I am talking about. I used to visit clubs all over the country as and when I was away on business. I am more home based now so that is curtailed somewhat but I can honestly state that I have not yet come across a club where, on a singers night, someone has not cocked it up. I would be very surprised, nay, amazed, if I was to vist Lewes a couple of times not to find someone forgeting words, fluffing the tune or cocking up in some other way.

If someone new to folk comes to our club on a singers night after, for instance, being impressed by John Tams and Barry Cope at Fylde then I am afraid they may be disappointed. At least if I set their expections to the correct level - Ie 'you will see some excelent stuff, but expect a bit of roough with it:-)' then they have nothing to complain about.

Oh, and by the way, you say I have been involved in running a folk club for 10+. years. Well, I have been runnning Swinton for nearer 30. 25 of which we have run an annual festival as well. And we are still going strong. Maybe the PR is pitched right after all.:-)

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:51 AM

Brian, I've tried focus many of my comments on instrumental sessions. I have my reasons but it's been suggested I don't go into it in this thread. I'll try to leave it at that.

---
As for inspiration and being attracted to folk in the first place, I think singing at home with the piano and singing at school (notably Singing Together) would have been sufficient for me to always have some inbuilt like of folk music waiting to be triggered off later.

Of course professionals have helped too. I'd single out the Clancey Brothers and Tommy Maken from childhood and Barney McKeena of the Dubliners later in life. The revisiting the Dubliners and me picking up on the tunes possibly owes a bit to a local folk club and some participation in Morris...

On this, to me, it is exactly as Tom has suggested, ie. both pro and am have been important to me and it has needed both for my personal "folk journey.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 09:39 AM

" Wouldn't it be great if everyone learned their songs from VOTP, but thus far not many do."

I'm not sure i entirely agree. I love VOTP, but I think it's important to keep the recordings in perspective. They consist of one person's interpretation of a song, which had a life long before that particular singer took it on. It's a snapshot, and not necessarily a definitive one.

I've learned lots of songs from revival singers, but i also like to know the source version if it's available because it gives me a different perspective on the song, and perhaps a connectiuon to its history. But for quality of interpretation, I'm not sure, for example, I could choose between Norma Waterson and Packie Manus Byrne's versions of The Holland Handkerchief.

And I like to think that I eventually create my own interpretation of a song, anyway, which is really the most important thing. I've heard singers whose vocal style has been "influenced" by that of traditional singers and they sound ridiculous, false, and in one case absolutely painful to listen to. Surely the thing to aim for is to find your own voice.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 09:55 AM

Dave Polshaw

The point is people do not remember the regular occurence of good performance, only the occasional bad ones. It is those that they talk about most and it is those that give the whole of folk music a bad name.

That is sad.

Oh, and by the way, you say I have been involved in running a folk club for 10+. years. Well, I have been runnning Swinton for nearer 30. 25 of which we have run an annual festival as well. And we are still going strong. Maybe the PR is pitched right after all.:-)

Only trying to persuade Tom that I had some grounds for knowing what I was talking about.

Sounds as if people aren't as put off by the duff performers as you claim either or perhaps they aren't quite as duff as you think. Have you never heard a professional fluff their lines or repeat a verse?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 10:07 AM

Brian Peters

I can't understand why the unexceptionable point that Tom's been trying to make has attracted such strong disagreement.

The last thing I want to do is fall out with you, Brian but the point I'm trying to make is that the overwhelming majority of people who run folk clubs and do most of the work at festivals are volunteers. Most of the performers in folk clubs, even those who get paid for the occasional guest, spot are amateurs. I think the professionals need to understand that and why we do it. Know your market.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Brian Peters
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 10:15 AM

"I'm not sure i entirely agree. I love VOTP, but I think it's important to keep the recordings in perspective. They consist of one person's interpretation of a song, which had a life long before that particular singer took it on. It's a snapshot, and not necessarily a definitive one."

Yes, of course you're right. My remark was a bit of a throwaway that I hadn't really thought through. What I was trying to do was suggest that people might at least listen to one or more versions from tradition, rather than just copying the Carthy version or the Nic Jones version or the Kate Rusby version, as quite a few tend to do. Yes - find your own voice. But you can draw on some of the skills of the old singers without necessarily performing a ludicrous copy of, say, Fred Jordan. Sam Lee seems to manage the former pretty well!

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Brian Peters
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 10:21 AM

"I think the professionals need to understand that and why we do it."

I've run folk clubs and attended them as punter and floorsinger in the past, so rest assured I do understand that. More power to your elbow, I say (in fact I did say exactly that in an article on folk clubs in fRoots a few years ago)!

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 10:39 AM

Good on yer, Brian. Can you explain to me what Tom is on about?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Brian Peters
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 11:14 AM

As I read it, Tom was talking about the role of professional performers in making repertoire available in accessible form for other singers in less formal settings to make use of. Both Tom and I understand that the material came from somewhere else before the pros got hold of it; it's just a matter of getting it out there where people will hear it now. And both of us respect and value the work of volunteers in keeping many of the venues in which we play running all these years. No quarrel. Now back to the thread topic (which was....?).

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 11:57 AM

Brian Peters

Both Tom and I understand that the material came from somewhere else before the pros got hold of it

Well, perhaps I'm being oversensitive but that's not the feeling I was getting. I felt Tom was claiming some sort of ownership by the professionals of what is, after all, our national heritage.

Now back to the thread topic (which was....?).

I think that what we think of ourselves is more important than the flippant remarks of a Tory ex-MP. We can't sell ourselves to a wider audience if we don't believe in the value of what we've got. Some on this list seem to have a poor regard for folk music.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 12:15 PM

Some on this list seem to have a poor regard for folk music

Dead right they do.

Their mantra of "no need to practice, or be in tune, or remember the words, or have any notion of stagecraft, or to put over the story in a professional manner" marks them out as Good Enough For For F*lk aka GEFFs.
How is it surprising that the odd commentator (not to mention the bulk of the general public) takes the piss just a bit?
They're the ones who are damaging our cultural heritage because they don't and won't respect it themselves.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 12:38 PM

Diane Easby

"no need to practice, or be in tune, or remember the words, or have any notion of stagecraft, or to put over the story in a professional manner"

You've put that in quotes, Diane. Who are you quoting?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 12:50 PM

I'll bite on the What Is Folk red herring. It's either say, Waulking Songs from Barra where an expection of professionalism is to entirely miss the point or Kate Rusby where one expects eye candy and exquisitely played traditional instruments, and probably both.
If only it was unplugged Northern Soul would fit the brief to a T, re-discovered popular tunes of love and loss assimilated by a grassroots movement and kept alive long after their makers expected.

Somewhere in the middle is what most of us think of as traditional but the devil is entirely in the detail.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 01:00 PM

If the women doing the waulking didn't do it "professionally", the tweed wouldn't come out right.
Snail: the quotation is from the GEFFs' Mantra as indicated. Perhaps they chant it as a waulk and that's how they end up with bizarre tie-dyed fabric.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 01:20 PM

Nice answer Diane but the point is waulking songs weren't made for public exhibition. My prejudice says any form that doesn't allow fresh air in is dead, a museum piece only fit for a glass case. Because folk doesn't have a definition it exists mainly as something to kick against, a notion, an idea of abstract purity for the general public. Perhaps that was what Parris was going on about, who knows? It's a funny business, attracting Guardianistas with a social (history) conscience and white supremicists looking for ersatz roots. I'd like to belong to a folk club but I'm with Groucho Marx on that one.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 01:38 PM

Because folk doesn't have a definition it exists mainly as something to kick against, a notion, an idea of abstract purity for the general public. Perhaps that was what Parris was going on about, who knows?"

You credit Mr. Parris with far too much, I think. Yes, Yes, I know the aforementioned Mr Parris is supposed to be some sort of serious journalist, but his remarks vis a vie English Traditional Music belie that fact.

Charlotte ( I am where I am)

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 01:42 PM

Indeed Charlotte, indeed. The fact remains much of this thread has been taken up defining what folk may, or may not, be. Not so much giving a gun to the likes of Matthew Parris as using it on both feet with a strychnine chaser.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 01:50 PM

"defining what folk may, or may not"

a never ending quest and the subject of many, many threads here on Mudcat, and one, I believe, that will never be satisfactorally defined. :-)

Maybe Matthew Parris needs to be confronted face to face...no wait..ummm...I think that's possibly what he wants...or perhaps we could all "catterwhaul outside his house at 2'o clock in the morning*LOL*

Charlotte (away away with the fife and drum)

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 01:59 PM

Have you never heard a professional fluff their lines or repeat a verse?

Of course I have, Brian. Many times. But not consistantly. Plus the 'stagecraft' mentioned earlier often kicks in at that point and makes the mistake less important. What I have NEVER seen a professional do is go on stage, mutter that he or she doesn't know what they are going to do next, get out a dog eared book of lyrics and then stop part way through the song while they try and find the missing verse.

And to clarify a point I don't believe I have ever said people are put off by duff performers. Apologies if I implied it somewhere but what I said is that it annoys ME. I cannot answer for anyone else.

As to That is sad. Yes it is. Unfortunately it is true. Why do you think bad news makes the papers and good doesn't? Why do you think that if you have a good experience you tell one person - if you have a bad one you tell six. Just human nature I'm afraid, Sad as it is.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 02:53 PM

"We all need each other."

But, you see, there is one prime mover and some clones who think that most people are not good enough for them.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,The Mole catcher's unplugged Apprentice)
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 03:05 PM

"We all need each other."

perhaps we do, perhaps we do., but there are the few, the usual suspects as it were, who believe that they should be the ones leading the great un-washed, so to speak, to the great traditional promised land. I'm wondering if Egypt is not, on the whole, a better bet.

Charlotte (remaining sedentary for the time being)

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: melodeonboy
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 03:25 PM

"And I like to think that I eventually create my own interpretation of a song, anyway, which is really the most important thing. I've heard singers whose vocal style has been "influenced" by that of traditional singers and they sound ridiculous, false, and in one case absolutely painful to listen to. Surely the thing to aim for is to find your own voice."

Yes indeed, Ruth. A thousand times yes. (But applicable across the board; not only to traditional singers.)

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 04:56 PM

Ridiculous - what, like girls who went to all the best female public schools struggling to sound estuarine, generations of English rock singers struggling to sound American or black, and posses of white and asian singers struggling to sound Jamaican?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 05:31 PM

The point your missing is Richard - we don't live the sort of lives people used to live.

Why the bloody hell should we pretend we lived in a little community and only ever heard one sort of voice. personally I like people when they make a bit of an effort to use artifice and perform.

And if you work at it, you get good at it. It's all about suspension of belief anyway. Did you ever really think when pete Coe or someone sang the Plains of waterloo that he'd just popped in from the battlefield. Intelectually of course - you knew it was bollocks.

The listener with a scorrick of intelligence co-operates in the creation of a work of art or artifice or whatever.

And that's what i get off on - someone making a creative effort - hopefully with a bit of talent thrown in. Sometimes the magic works -sometimes it doesn't. No need to get snotty about it.

However I resent someone taking me for granted, abusing my presence as a willing audience by singing The Molecather from an exercise book and expecting me to be polite and laugh at it. Even if it is, bloody traditional. Crap is crap.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 05:42 PM

'The listener with a scorrick of intelligence co-operates in the creation of a work of art or artifice or whatever.'

Its what Hemingway calls the suspension of imagination. You stop your brain saying, this bullet could kill me in battle. You stop your brain saying this bloke is an actor I saw him last week on The Bill when you go to Stratford and see him as Macbeth.....

Its the fundamental spiritual jump of faith that makes us more spiritually significant than sheep and cows who never see further than the next blade of grass they want to chomp on.

hope this makes sense.

big al whittle

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:00 PM

Libby Purvis (or one of those BBC matriarchs) made an interesting point a coupla weeks ago. Comparing folk to country she reckoned C&W had moved on because once the cowboys got rid of their horses the songs moved onto cars and shopping malls in a way that folk hadn't been able to. The facts aren't watertight but it's a useful idea.
Folk purity is about normal lives in a big and often uncaring universe, not just authenticity to ploughing and shipbuilding.

You could update the incidentals and the honesty and keep the instrumentation acoustic but it would split the 'community' down the middle as to whether it was 'folk'. The idea of a musical Eden of indigenous ballardeers just doesn't hold water so where do you draw the line and who's going to volunteer with the chalk?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: melodeonboy
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:16 PM

What's ridiculous? Singing in your own voice rather tham imitating someone else's? I don't understand!

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:54 PM

'You could update the incidentals and the honesty and keep the instrumentation acoustic but it would split the 'community' down the middle as to whether it was 'folk'. The idea of a musical Eden of indigenous ballardeers just doesn't hold water so where do you draw the line and who's going to volunteer with the chalk?'

abso-sodding-lutely !

the guitar techniques series of dvds is now down to £9.99. It is literally unmissable. I have bought almost the whole series. I got the first one off off Wizz Jones in Weymouth for £20 last year. It is so great though to hear how these people put together their view of folk music. And to listen intently to what they needed to make that synthesis.

The Marin Carthy dvd is easily the best of the lot. Not just because Martin is such a divergent thinker when it comes to guitar playing. But to listen to his thought processes, because he doesn't chat a lot onstage:-

1) he says that he had to forge like a blacksmith a style of English guitar playing. prior to him guitar was not an instrument in English music.

2) he says he can't understand why people think these songs that he sings aren't relevant . relevant to what, Norma says to him...because they're aren't motorbikes in them - they are great documents of the human condition, like Shakespeare and Dickens.

Sadly I think the thing he misses is that while he has had his head down creating all this music - the rest of us have been been busy having a life and creating history.

and we had stuff we wanted to express about our lives, and sometimes you had to know that it happened in a world where there were motorbikes and much else that simply wasn't there in a land when morris dancers ruled the earth.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:27 PM

Diane Easby

Snail: the quotation is from the GEFFs' Mantra as indicated

That's nobody outside your over fertile imagination then?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: melodeonboy
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:35 PM

An interesting post, WLD. And I am aware that you appreciate much of what Carthy does. However, much as Carthy has his heart in older material, he did rewrite The Begging Song to reflect Thatcherite Britain, and he has sung songs about relatively recent military conflicts such as the Falklands and Iraq/Kuwait. And Heartbreak Hotel comes not from a time of kings and maidens but a period of intense activity on the motorbike front!

Broom, broom!

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:44 PM

Dave Polshaw

What I have NEVER seen a professional do is go on stage, mutter that he or she doesn't know what they are going to do next, get out a dog eared book of lyrics and then stop part way through the song while they try and find the missing verse.

I have never seen ANYBODY do that.

As to That is sad. Yes it is. Unfortunately it is true.

So after an evening of, say, Geoff Higginbottom people come out saying "Wasn't the bloke in the first half $%*&£! awful?"?

Maybe some people just like a good grumble.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:45 PM

Slimy person with eggshell-like outer covering:

You need the entire quote to get the full effect

Snail: the quotation is from the GEFFs' Mantra as indicated. Perhaps they chant it as a waulk and that's how they end up with bizarre tie-dyed fabric

The second sentence comes from my imaginative attempt to explain their behaviour but not the mantra itself. That's entirely the GEFFs' own effort. Waulking Back To Happiness the GEFFs' fave f*lky-jokey ditty,

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Dave Earl
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:48 PM

"Maybe some people just like a good grumble."

Yes Bryan

Dave

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:57 PM

Diane, name a GEFF.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:32 PM

WLD, apart from SWMBO, there seem to be a number of people above who criticise the performance of folk music as typically involving some sort of fake accent - it therefore being (so they say) fake and unconnected with "real life".

Now everything I have heard from links to your performances shows me that you are a terrific singer and player (although, no offence, I think that Martin Carthy's guitar playing is without peer) - but everything that I have so heard shows me that what you are doing is more rooted in americana than in anglicana - yet you are not american. So that too is fake.

Shirt murderer, that is your explanation.

WLD, in context therefore I have to prefer Norma Waterson's theory of relevance to yours.

Similarly suspension of disbelief is not part of the function of a musician. It is the centre of the function of an actor. No-one is supposed to come out thinking that the Rolling Stones ever had been "walking in the cotton fields"

And what whoever the fool being quoted by the new Gigi above misses is that there is a definition of folk music - a definition that is consistent witht he meaning of the word "folk" in understanding a whole range of other folk arts, whereas that has never been true (at least as far as anyone on this learned forum was able to say when I started a "what is country" thread) of "country". Once you abandon that definition of "folk" (which SWMBO seems to think is justified because some people are not as good as her) then it is twaddle to say that folk (or whatever you want to use as a term for "folk-like" music that is not 1954 definition folk) has not moved on to a world in which teh horse has been replaced by the motorcycle, as much of RIchard Thompson's output, or even Jim Causley's recent project album (extending by analogy the land grab of the Inclosure Acts to the purchase of the Royal triangle by the stinking rich) demonstrate.   Ironic, isn't it? By and large the same people who complain that "folk" is stultified are often the same people who use the word in a way that proves that it is not.

Oh, and another outright lie from SWMBO further above. At no stage did I say that homophobia was not immoral. It is immoral (but although some discrimination against those of specified gender preferences is illegal, not all homophobia is illegal). My point (which she wilfully misses) is that the unfounded derogatory categorisation of English folk music or other English traditions is just as immoral as the unfounded derogatory categorisation of other ethnic traditions or of gender preferences. That is why Parris was wrong, as well as gratuitously offensive, and should apologise.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Grab
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:50 PM

Glueman, whoever said that was *really* wide of the mark there! Clearly they'd never heard of Woodie Guthrie, Ewan McColl, Bob Dylan, Cyril Tawny, Jez Lowe, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Steve Knightley, Christie Moore, etc., etc.. All writing songs about the modern-day world around them.

You want pure traditional folk, it's a niche market. So is pure traditional country music from the days before the "&W" was added. Although it affects today's music, people mostly prefer to listen to today's music. In this, we're no different today from how we were many thousands of years ago. If we weren't, we'd still be bashing a rock against a treetrunk because it was good enough for our great-great-and-then-some-grandfather.

On Carthy: But to listen to his thought processes, because he doesn't chat a lot onstage

The one time I saw Carthy, there was 10 minutes of chat between each 5-minute song!

Graham.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:56 PM

Grab, that was probably for tuning, in that he did once have a habit, which he has since consciously tried to lose, of doing successive songs in different open tunings.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 02:59 AM

"Glueman, whoever said that was *really* wide of the mark there!"

Yep, like I say the facts aren't watertight but go to the heart of Parris's and many other's critique of the English folk style: an aspic pickled view of the world that's unable to leave behind the bucolic framework for the essence. Most people don't get any further than the frame, they see folk as relevant as Teddy Boys or Flappers to the contemporary experience.

" (the) meaning of the word "folk" in understanding a whole range of other folk arts".
Richard's comments, if I have understood them correctly, are misplaced. My wife runs a successful crafts degree course; the students enjoy exceptionally high placement in a range of areas from French couture houses to TV and film companies to the fashion business by updated authentic craft skills into the modern era. The skills are identical, the application is different. The alternative would be to seek work in non-existent mills or weavers cottages. The analogy to folk music is a direct one, you can keep the world-view of folk music and attract new audiences by building on common experiences, not historically specific ones.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 03:47 AM

I think you make my point for me, Gigi(II). Is that course one in folk arts, or in craft? If it is in "craft" generally then that is the analogue of the thing for which there apears to be no term in music, namely music inspired and influenced by the tradition.

Think of "folklore" - it is not about what is invented today. THe urban myth is not folklore.

Think of "folk dance" - is is not the twist, the frug, the shag, the shake, and thier yet more modern descendants. It is Playford, Morris, and their analogues in other cultures.

Think of "folk medicine". Is it the modern belief that ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory, or the herbal remedies and poultices handed down over history?

Think of "folk tales"

etc, etc.


But if you think of the modern extensions of folk music, why then the topics dealt with, from industrial exploitation, modern shipping methods, the modern army, motorcycles, housing shortages, ethnic cleansing, computers, the internet, (oh, and of course "boy meets girl") fully encompass the modern world.

And if you don't see the lineage from the Flapper to today's club and society girls, and from the Teddy boy to today's gangs, then you are the one in blinkers. So are songs such as "The Well below the Valley" and maybe "Prince Heathen" the forbears of modern arguments about abortion, etc, etc.

It is why Jon Loomes, when asked why he sings traditional material replies that he has not yet found a topic to which it is not relevant (or words to that effect).


If the shallow "relevance to the modern world" that you seem to advocate were the criterion, then Shakespeare, Sheridan, Shaw, Dickens, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, the great constitutional writers like Dicey, most classical music would all be irrelevant.


Look around. Modern children's literature reaches back to folk tales of wizardry. Modern television draws on folk-tales of vampires. Terry Pratchett's pointed commentaries on today's conditions are set in a world of wizards and bucolics.


The chalk is there. It's the 1954 definition. What lies outside the chalkline is not necessarily any less worthy for that, and it is most of what is incorrectly called "folk" by the slipshod. All the hard of understanding need is a new and accurate label, so that they canunderstand that what they currently call "folk" is the analogue of "new country" (which, I understand, plenty of country purists complain is not "country" although they have no equivalent definition of "country".

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:06 AM

Shallow? Slipshod? If relevance to the modern world is so lightly dismissed folk will die out with the current generation of historiographiacally suspended enthusiasts determined to posit 'folk' in their own temporal fantasy.
Who has given anyone the right to say what folk is? When was this distillation of national verisimilitude decided? Was the music that went before irrelevant because it didn't exist on an aural record? Folk by your definition is as authentic as druidry, costume cosiness for the disaffected.
Folk is whatever anyone with the balls to stand up to self-styled academics says it is. The points are as meaningful as shouting 'Judas' at Bob Dylan, a fifth-time removed songwriter castigated for having an electric wire dangling from his guitar.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:18 AM

Looks like you can't read, any more than you can think. Classic "GUEST" behaviour.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:25 AM

Your definition of classic being as fluid as all your others, i.e. from the fingertips of Richard Bridge and beyond reproach. I'm new here - do the regulars accept this overbearing nonsense or is your view the received one on musical nomenclature?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:27 AM

Oi, Richard, give it a bone! That's exactly the sort of snide comment that deters guests from becoming members.

No need for it. Ever.