Class-obsessed folkies

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:54 AM

Oh Lizzie (Foot/Mouth)
For your information Ms Carthy has played C Sharp house countless times, and is now high up in it's organisational hierarchy. Seth and SOH almost certainly give the society the respect it deserves.
And Shirley Collins is the boss!!!
Come on then girl. Bring it on.....What have you done?????
Squealed a bit?????
And................................what else............?

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:51 AM

Sorry - that should have been "Clarse Binderies".

(One will get one's Barbour . . . )

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: melodeonboy
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:41 AM

"I think it can be a meeting point for all."

Indeed, Jon. The singarounds I go to are attended by a wide range of people from different jobs and backgrounds (and of different abilities!). The class issue never arises.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:40 AM

Jesus, Lizzie - and you wonder why you get barred out of sites, and whinge when you do ?

I'm with Jim and his "bollocks" (not his physical appendages, I hasten to add !)

I, too, am a member of a Profession, but I met the class boundaries - WTF was a boy from the back streets of Manchester doing, thinking he might become a Lawyer

"Oh, I say - hasn't he the quaintest Northern accent ?".

Let us be thankful that the Music we all love, regardless of background and bank balance, is there for us to continue to love and enjoy.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:35 AM

Lizzie.
You really don't know when to stop, do you?
The library and it's various collections at C Sharp house, is becoming more and more available to all who want to find it.
(It wasn't always the way, admittedly. But times have changed. A bit more financing helped)
And, surprise, surprise. Some of the artists that you dribble incessantly about, avail themselves of it's services!
So, instead of just whingeing, learn how to sing, take up an instrument, then do years of research, then do years of practising, then do relentless years of badly paid gigs, And then drive through the night getting home at 4am, and then have the temerity to pontificate.
See you in 30 years.
I Thank You

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:19 AM

"The music is 'locked away' by the attitude, not by keys and chains."

No it isn't! Read the above.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:18 AM

Can't actually recall ever seeing a Lakeperson Brother in C# (though I've certainly seen their parents)but, all the others mentioned above, yes and all day long too, doing workshops, in the library, in the bar, in the shop (when there was one)I have. Especially Ms Carthy, the new VP.
Because it's not a place of lightweight entertainment but a treasure trove of learning. But that wouldn't grab you, would it?
Mawkin will be doing a ceilidh there on Friday. Do reassure me that you won't turn up because there'll be a caller guiding sets through dances. And you don't like that either. Just keep those two feet firmly wedged in your mouth instead.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:10 AM

As for Britain being classless [...] bollocks!

I'd agree with that but I do know that in local to me at the times (I've not traveled far) sessions I have played in, I have played with a tax exile as well as someone on the dole. I have played with a highly qualified scientist as well as someone with not a CSE. I have played with an All Ireland Champion as well as a beginner (and been the beginner too once), etc. I think it can be a meeting point for all.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 10:04 AM

Ah...and there we have it all. :0)

No, no, no, most of you have taken ONE bit of what I've said, and used that and only that to rage.

The music is 'locked away' by the attitude, not by keys and chains. It's the very attitude that is seen in here, which stems from some who are associated with Cecil Sharp House. Until that changes, for me, the music will always be locked away in the confines of a select club which welcomes some, whilst barring others they deem unacceptable.   

I have no desire to 'study' the songs. Some of you may find that unbelievable, some may not. I'm not a musician, merely a member of the audience, and therefore I look at things from an entirely different perspective to some. I don't have a brain that deals in detail or pedantry. I have nothing to prove. I don't wish to be Queen Bee of the folk world as I feel some may do. Neither do I wish to astound people with my ***incredible*** knowledge, I simply love some of the music hear, that's all.

However, when some of the very music I love is spoken of in such deeply derogatory terms, by some of those associated with Cecil Sharp House, why in the name of Maudie Karpeles would I want to set foot in there in the first place?

I see elements of the English folk world as a very select, sniffy, snobby club, I'm afraid I always will do, because of what has happened. I see parts of it as avery judgemental and condescending.

Tell you what, the day Cecil Sharp House puts on a Seth Lakeman and Show of Hands gig, is the day I'll step inside its Hallowed Entrance. Put Eliza on with them too, because Eliza and Seth, together, would blow the place apart. And you know what else, if they had Seth Lakeman playing in there, they'd get THOUSANDS of YOUNG people turning up to look round, many of whom know nothing of the English folk world, which is what you'd think they'd want...wouldn't you?

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: red max
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:58 AM

"As for Britain being classless, and there being no advantages or disadvantages of belonging to one or another - bollocks!"

Was that a response to a specfic comment, Jim? For my part I was wondering if the terms of reference for class distinction were becoming more complex.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:51 AM

One of the greatest barriers to the circulation of some of the wonderful collections of folk music is, as the Cap'n pointed out, funding.
One of the reasons for this is that the middle-class orientated arts organisations have consistently refused to folk music as being important enough to fund.
Some years ago a folklore department in an English University was closed down - the principle described those working on the subject as 'tree-huggers' - says it all really.
As for Britain being classless, and there being no advantages or disadvantages of belonging to one or another - bollocks!
Jim Carroll (electrician)

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:49 AM

VWML

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:44 AM

As someone who loves to hear old music but never heard of the EFDSS
Is it possible to see the materiel online or does one have to travel to somewhere in particular to actualy see it.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:26 AM

"Since I 'fell' into it, I have been *told* what class I am, been *told* I am a racist, been *told* that I read the *wrong* papers. I'e been *told* more things about myself than I even knew, because they know far more about me than I do, apparently. I've had just about every insult imaginable thrown at me, simply for loving the music 'my' way and not 'theirs'. Why???"

Probably because you're a ranter, Lizzie. And probably because you go off on one every time anyone has the temerity to disagree with one of your tedious opinions.

I agree to disagree with lots of people in the folk world, who occasionally *tell* me things about myself that I didn't know. I respond in one of 3 possible ways:

- I decide that they have a point and make the necessary changes. Especially if they advance convincing arguments and don't rant.

- I continue to disagree with them.

- I ignore them.

I very rarely, if ever, take umbrage - life's too short!

Oh yes, and my perception is that, in recent years, the EFDSS has changed from a rather stuffy organisation to an exciting, modern one with a determination to make the material more widely available.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:19 AM

Lizzie.
1. Open Mouth.
2. Insert Foot.
3. Repeat on a daily basis.
4. Learn about your subject.
5. Start with 1. again.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:19 AM

I thought you'd like it, Dick. :)

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:15 AM

Ruth,very good news.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Folkiedave
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 09:02 AM

Masefield did indeed spend time at sea, and you could have got it from Wikipedia.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:56 AM

Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr.?

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Penny S.
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:49 AM

Didn't Masefield start off before the mast, rounding the Horn etc? Or where did I get that from?

Penny

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Bernard
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:31 AM

Perhaps this may be a little off topic, but it may help put things into a different perspective...

I used to be a primary school teacher, and was responsible for music in the school which was located between a very poor council estate and a well-to-do estate of private houses. This meant the children were from a wide range of backgrounds.

The Local Authority 'Music Advisor' at the time believed that there was no point in providing loan instruments for children from poorer families because they could not afford to buy an instrument if the child showed promise.

This was not an opinion I agreed with, though I could see his point. To me it was simply driving a bigger wedge between the 'haves' and 'have nots', and potentially gifted children were being denied their basic rights. The council estate was a 'dumping ground' for problem families, which didn't help.

In other words, money and not ability was the yardstick.

Okay, that's the real world, like it or lump it, but an eight year old child should at least have an equal opportunity to education.

My approach was to refuse LEA loan instruments completely, and persuade the Head to purchse some reasonable quality (Japanese Aulos) cheap descant recorders which could be lent to rich and poor alike, with no serious financial implications if any went missing...

Okay, there's quite a diversity of opinion as to the value of teaching recorder in school, but it's probably better than nothing at all.

Children who showed promise got to keep their recorders when they moved on to secondary school, and some families (okay, the wealthier ones) bought flutes, clarinets and so on for their children even before they moved on. But at least they weren't floored at the first hurdle.

I also did lunchtime guitar classes for those who could bring their own instruments, which had a spin-off of instruments being donated for the use of those who didn't have their own.

This was in addition to choir practice and country dance sessions - which were very well attended even when it wasn't raining!

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:31 AM

EFDSS Education Programmes:
Autumn 2008

Take 6
Hundreds of folk songs and tunes, representing a huge swathe of English traditional music heritage, are on their way back to the communities that gave birth to them.

Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), Take 6 is an 18-month archival, educational and community project which will be completed in August 2009. Through Take 6 EFDSS is archiving and conserving six unique manuscript collections and making them more widely accessible to the public, through digitising and putting the collections on line. (For more details on the archiving aspect of the project please contact the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.

Four of the six collections are:

• the Janet Blunt Collection, Oxfordshire;
• the George Butterworth Collection: southern England and Yorkshire;
• the Francis Collinson Collection, from the southern counties of England and;
• the Hammond Collection, mainly from Dorset.

The other two collections are being used as the source material for projects in primary schools and communities in Hampshire and Lancashire where the songs were originally noted, namely:

• the George Gardiner Collection of over 1600 folk songs collected mainly in Hampshire in the period 1905 to 1909 and;
• the Anne G. Gilchrist Collection of 214 folk songs plus children's singing games, Lancashire Morris tunes, songs from customs, sea shanties, carols and street cries, all collected from the 1890s to the 1920s, mainly in Lancashire.

This is EFDSS Education's first national education project springing from the Society's unrivalled archival collections.
Folk Song and Singing Games Projects are being developed and implemented in eight primary schools. "Folk Song Alive" showcase events are taking place in each school to share the children's learning and creative work with the wider school community.

Projects encompass singing, song writing, dance, playground singing games and rhymes. They are specifically designed to support several areas of the curriculum such as music, literacy, history, PE / dance, PHSE & Citizenship and to bring the songs to life for young people in a way that is fresh, contemporary and relevant.

Learning resources are being developed with all participating schools investigating and demonstrating how these heritage materials can be best used to support the curriculum and other key contemporary educational concerns. These resources will be made available online in summer 2009.

The complementary community-based programme is being developed in partnership with regional folk agencies and other local bodies, increasing community access to the Take 6 collections by touring display stands in community locations in Hampshire, Lancashire and Southwark and at major folk and community festivals.

Folk arts practitioners involved in Take 6 this autumn are:
• Pete Coe
• Carolyn Robson
•'Doc' Rowe
• Paul Sartin
• Roger Watson

Earlier in 2008 EFDSS Education successfully piloted the use of the materials in London, in conjunction with Redriff Primary School in Southwark which has a history of promoting singing games – an annual festival there in the 1960s led to an album of recordings on the prestigious Topic Records label. Work at the school was multi-layered encompassing a "Singing Games" project with all classes, from Reception to Year 6, and a complementary oral history and reminiscence project with local older people.



The project concluded with a wonderful afternoon 'sharing' event in the school playground where all children took part in performing past and present playground singing and clapping games, some children performing Maypole dances, and ending with a mini ceilidh for all children, staff, parents and visitors to the rousing music of the folk band Faustus.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:25 AM

The music has not been locked away,but although it has been available,it has not[in the past] been promoted very well,there was a period when the EFDSS,thought dance more important than song.
that does not appear to be the case at the moment.
of course they are both important,but that should mean equal promotion for both dance and song.
unfortunately the average man in the street,has probably never heard of EFDSS.,how one overcomes this problem I do not know.[especialy as EFDSS does not have the funding of Comhaltas]
Efdss, needs friends in high places.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:25 AM

"For way too long those within 'Cecil Sharply House' and beyond, have kept the songs locked away, "

They were locked away in some antiquarians notes or generally unheard beyond the garden wall of some cottager until they were placed somewhere they could be found. Where on earth do you think people like Martin Carthy, Seth Lakeman and many more go to find matieral once the source has died?

Have you looked at the publications made available in recent years or read about the educational projects giving these songs back to the descendants of the people they were notated from?

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: red max
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:23 AM

"As you say, we don't know who 'wrote' folk songs, which is a pretty fair indication of its working/peasant class origins - educated people tend to sign their creations. Where else would you find massive body of totally anonymous work"

Good point. I suppose it's worth observing, though, that loads of hunting songs are anonymous and yet I imagine they were often created by middle and upper class composers.

"I have always thought the class is a curious way to define people, especially 'working class'. After all, nearly everybody works for a living, don't they?"

Surely "working class" is just the more polite replacement for "lower class"? Much like "developing countries" it's an attempt to categorise but not patronise.

A folkie friend of mine was telling me about a couple of guys he knew who ran a communist bookshop back in the 60s. They were both graduates, both from middle class backgrounds, and this obviously made them feel slightly fraudulent, being so removed from the people whose cause they espoused. So they went and got jobs as removal men. Now, call me unkind, but when I heard about this I laughed. I can almost imagine Ewan MacColl singing "I'm an honest working man, and I drive a Pickfords van".

I wasn't born until the 70s, so I don't share the experiences of those intellectual removal men, but it seems to me that Britain has changed a little since then. Sure, there is still inequality and unfairness, but I'm not sure how much society is still defined and divided by class. It used to be "you do what you are", now it's "you are what you do". How we dress and how we speak tells people far less than it used to about our "status".

What makes me middle class? Is it about money? I'm in a so-called professional occupation, but I know for a fact that a plumber or an electrician will make twice as much money as me. That's fair enough, their skills have a higher market value than mine. So are they still lower/working class? Is it about education? If a plumber reads The Sun whereas a librarian reads The Grauniad, then is the latter's social status higher?

It seems to me that "class" is an increasingly vague and blurred categorisation. People talk about the working and middle classes without always demonstrating a clear concept of what the terms mean today.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:16 AM

All that is important,is to be able to enjoy music,to treat songs with respect,and to try and perform them to the best of ones ability,this means practising them before performance.
having not led a sheltered life can help as well,as it can give the singer the ability to enter into songs, to empathise with characters,in a song,enabling the singer to really get into the song.
leading a sheltered life,is not necessarily a class phenomenon.
C Fox Smith came from an upper middle class background,but during the early 20th century,sailed on board clipper ships she overcame prejudices about her back ground,and the fact she was a woman,to write poems that have been adapted successfully as songs,please see Sailortown[words CFoxSmith tune R Miles],which is available from my website.[in my songbook Sailors dream,and also the cd Around the Harbour Town]
http://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Folkiedave
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:05 AM

Lizzie - I add my voice to those who ask how the music was locked away.

The first journal with the results of folk song collecting came out in 1899 and it has been published at least yearly ever since. Hardly an example of locking materials away I would have thought. Every collector published at least some of their work in the journal.

Take virtually any book published about folk song in the last fifty years and a debt to the VWML is acknowledged. It is open to anyone who calls in and I doubt there is a singer since the revival who would not acknowledge its influence.

The first edition of the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs (1959) was based on the collections in the VWML, ran to three editions and has since been re-published by the society. In the late 60's/early 70's a series of books based on collections within the VWML Marrow Bones, Wanton Seed, Constant Lovers and Foggy Dew were published by the society and are in the process of being re-published. MArrow Bones is already done and Wanton Seed is almost finished.

Now, there's my evidence that the stuff was available, tell us yours to show how it was locked away as you suggested.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:03 AM

Diane, the notion that we might have a Three Round Three, Galopede, New Rigged Ship, possibly from this dreaded source, yet with no knowledge of each others backgrounds might be able to play together doesn't bare thinking about does it?

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 07:51 AM

Lizzie:

Please list all of the occasions when you have visited Cecil Sharp House.

Please be specific about how anyone denied you access to the books, archives, or sound library.

Please detail occasions when the staff there were less than helpful with a specific phone or e-mail enquiry.

Please describe any occasion when a member of the staff said that a song had to be sung in a particular way, or that you had to know the provenance of it before you sang it.


Until then, stop defaming one of the worst-resourced, yet most valuable, national treasures that this country possesses. It boasts Shirley Collins and Eliza Carthy, two of the most knowledgeable and important ambassadors for the folk world, as its new president and vice president. It welcomes through its doors, free of charge, thousands of people each year who are genuinely interested in music, not in pursuing their own, pathetic, self-obsessed agenda. Get out there. Get educated. Stop mouthing off about subjects where your arguments are, in fact, intellectually bereft. And grow the hell up.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 07:48 AM

Oh dear, Jon, shame on you for interrupting an anti-intellectual rant. Surely you know that human misery. unemployment and deprivation of opportunity has nothing whatever to do with class oppression and exploitation?

The EFDSS as non-class-based enemy? Why didn't I think of that before, with all those guards on the doors of VWML, blocking access to the music?

No-one has ever told me I can't. I decide that for myself (like not playing / singing out till I can. That sort of thing).

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 07:35 AM

For way too long those within 'Cecil Sharply House' and beyond, have kept the songs locked away

Supporting evidence please.

Please release a couple of these songs you know to be locked away. I for one would like to hear this material that has been kept away from us. As far as I can make out some (or most, or all?) who are more scholarly about the music will bend over backwards to share what they have learned.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 07:20 AM

It was the Librarians in the US who got Michael Moore's 'Stupid White Men' book out, after Bush and his cronies tried to make it disappear...Long live the Librarians!

The English folk world is, in my opinion, saturated by pseudo-intellectuals who assume they know everything about everything. They have made folk music 'academic' and they go out of their way to lambast anyone who is 'not of their circle' as stupid, ignorant and er...'intellectually bereft'. They ARE class obssessed, to the point of paranoia, imo.

I'm with John MacKenzie here, and I'm very pleased to read that he feels as I do about class. It's the biggest load of b*llsh*t I ever did hear. It's used by those who have either been told, all their lives, that they 'belong' to this 'group' and no other, and have come to believe it, or it's used to insult and degrade others.   It divides people off and sets each group against one another, causing constant bitterness and unrest.

People are people.

Songs are songs.

For way too long those within 'Cecil Sharply House' and beyond, have kept the songs locked away, and convinced people that they must only be sung a certain way, by certain people, who are from the right background. You're made to feel that if you don't know every single aspect of history about each and every song, then you are a dingbat of the highest calibre. If you don't want to 'worship' the songs then you mustn't love them. I feel it's driven people away in droves, it's kept the music unpopular. It will continue to keep the folk world small and insignificant. That's an absolute crying shame, because some of the best musicians and songwriters are in the folk world.

Since I 'fell' into it, I have been *told* what class I am, been *told* I am a racist, been *told* that I read the *wrong* papers. I'e been *told* more things about myself than I even knew, because they know far more about me than I do, apparently. I've had just about every insult imaginable thrown at me, simply for loving the music 'my' way and not 'theirs'. Why???

I recall one musician and singer, and a damned fine one too, saying that he had come up against some problems being accepted, purely because he'd been to public school, and this was held against him. WTF is that all about then? Inverted, judgemental snobbery of the highest degree in my mind.

I have *never* fallen into a world that professes to be so open, so fair, so 'even' and accepting, yet so often, it is the absolute and complete opposite. It is one of the most judgemental worlds going, imo, and that is terribly sad. I know there are many in the folk world who do NOT judge, but they do NOT make their voices heard enough, so all that IS heard is this bullying, pompous demeanour, which keeps so many away from a magical world. The quiet, accepting people need to speak out far more, because their world is being held back by those who belittle others.

These songs were merely songs written or made up on the spot, to be enjoyed by people. They've now become an Academic's Dream to be used as power over others, so that some can fluff their feathers, strut their stuff and show the world how much they know.


Thank God I was raised by a man who taught me only and ever to see 'people' and never 'class'

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Stu
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:45 AM

Like it or not, the UK is a class-obsessed society, so whatever happens at some point class will come into it.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Acorn4
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:34 AM

Add Mao Tse Tung and Casanova to the list of librarians.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:23 AM

I've often thought some folkies an odd bunch class wise. So many of them seem to espouse working class values while pursueing middle class agendas.
I have never in my life delineated anybody by class, and the only people I know who are 'working class' are people who have proudly told me they are.
These same people possess worldly goods, and bank balances that those I might consider to be working class, could never aspire to.
I call it the Tony Benn syndrome. Whereby you renounce all outward badges of rank or class, but keep the money.
I have always thought the class is a curious way to define people, especially 'working class'. After all, mearly everybody works for a living,, don't they?
We sings songs of labouring men and women, and we empathise with their lot, but we don't give all our worldly goods to the poor, and go off and do good works.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:13 AM

I'd guess one could suggest that folk music is generally simpler than (not that folk elements are never used) than classical music and there can be "highbrow"/"lowbrow" music feelings. Folk to me, is easily accessible.

Beyond that, as far as I'm aware, music in oral tradition contains works by titled people, works written for wealthier patrons, works by professional entertainers as well as works by many we don't know anything about.

I don't know how you pin it down other than to say it contains songs and tunes people liked enough to pass on.

Personally, while I believe the music attracts more (and count me in on having some socialist leanings) left wing people, these days, I like to think of the music we were left with as classless and it's no odds to me if I was sharing a tune or two with say Prince Charles if he played (and I'm not a royalist) or Joe Doe. It (the music) can rise above such class distinctions.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:11 AM

When a contributor to this board automatically assumes that I am middle class just because I happen to like (and sing) traditional songs I would say that, yes, that person is "class-obsessed"! I also believe that that persons hypothesis that the middle classes have hi-jacked the workers' music is absurd. Yes, WLD, this refers to you!

My view is that class still 'matters' in this country and that it is a matter of great concern. I also deplore the fact that there is a widening gap between rich and poor and that social mobility has been drastically reduced since I was a lad (mid to late 60s). Nevertheless, the fact that a few enthusiasts still sing old songs that, in the past, were often (though not exclusively) sung by working people is not, in any way, relevant to this debate. If we all stopped singing old songs tomorrow the 'workers' (whoever they are these days!) would NOT automatically fashion a wonderful new folk culture - there are much more powerful forces active in our society which would tend to work against that happening.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:10 AM

As you say, we don't know who 'wrote' folk songs, which is a pretty fair indication of its working/peasant class origins - educated people tend to sign their creations. Where else would you find massive body of totally anonymous work.
As you also you say, we know so little about its history and origins, the reason being that the collectors (largely middle-class) tended to assume that the singers had nothing to offer apart from their songs.
It is almost certain that the sea songs were made by seamen who had experienced the conditions described - compare them to the creations of Dibden, Masefield et al. Similarly, the bothy songs present too accurate a picture of 19th century farming life in North East Scotland to have been created by outsiders.
The broadside presses certainly played a part in the distribution of songs, but even this is a two way street - existing folk songs being adapted and sold on broadsides - we know this from the fact that Travellers in Ireland were still participating in the trade right into the 1950s.
It has been a constant theme throughout the history of folk-song scholarship that the 'lower' classes did not create folk song, and were incapable of doing so - the only thin missing has been - a shred of evidence (apart from 'gut-instinct').
Let's see what happens with your question.
Jim Carroll
PS It's not a question of the middle class 'hi-jacking' anything, no more that it's a case of 'townies' taking of country-based music. It's simple a matter of people, whatever their origins, recognising the beauty and value of folk song and enjoying it - I hope!

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:09 AM

I like the way this is developing. How long can we keep it off the central topic? Or have I failed already?

L in C
Avoiding Tax form

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: red max
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:07 AM

Yup, we're a belligerent breed.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Folkiedave
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:01 AM

Librarians - always causing trouble - John Conolly, June Tabor, the list goes on.......

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 05:55 AM

Les in Chorlton

So, already, Nancy is in trouble?

The basic plot of a great many folk songs and of obvious contemporary relevance.

Subject: RE: Class-obsessed folkies
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 05:46 AM

So, already, Nancy is in trouble?

Subject: Class-obsessed folkies
From: red max
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 05:41 AM

Apologies if the thread title seems a little confrontational, but I couldn't think of a better one. Having read with great interest the "Why folk clubs are dying" thread I was intrigued by the preoccupation that many folkies seem to have about folk and its working class roots.

I know that Sharp and his contemporaries collected much of their material from working class people, and that by that point the middle classes weren't generally singing the old songs, but does this necessarily mean that folk songs had always been a product of the working class or simply that they were the only ones who were still hanging on to them at the end of the 19th century?

I know that plenty of trad songs sing from the perspective of the common man or woman, with Jack the Sailor as our hero and lawyers or the clergy as the butt of jokes, but there are also plenty with poor tailors being the victim of scorn and many with aristocratic heroes. And of course a huge number of songs with no aspect of class involved. We can speculate that "The Seeds of Love" was composed by a working class gardener, but it could just as easily have been the creation of a minstrel to sing at court, we don't know.

To me it seems unfair to assert that the middle class have "hijacked" folk music from its true keepers when we know so little about its history and origins.

By the way, I'm a librarian, and therefore I suppose a soft middle class nancy.