What Brought You to Trad?

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 03:44 PM

Really enjoying getting a little insight into some of the personal Trad autobiographies here. Keep up the stories...

Couple of things that's interesting. Seems lot's of you learned your craft early on through family routes. Fewer of us seem to have 'discovered' the music by ourselves...

I certainly relate to Matt Milton there, with your Hip-Hop intro.
Though I was never a producer of music of any kind, electronica was my main bag during teens and twenties. Which is possibly as far from the core ethos of unacommpanied Trad Song as it's possible to get, being all modern and synthetic and all... ;-)
In fact I still get a real kick out of good solid electronic music, but I've got a feeling that Trad Song is with me to stay now it's found me.

And Sinister Supporters alchemical image, also remind me of a similar personal metaphor I mentioned elsewhere: it feels like I've gone for a rummage in some storytale grandmothers loft, and discovered an enchanted trunk of magically animated ancient photographs. Which when they recieve the breath of life-giving pneuma, each become a living gateway into a unique timeless world, inhabited by figures fullfilling their personal microcosmic and inevitable destinies.
Too captivating...

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: JohnB
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 03:34 PM

A local skiffle group who my older sister knew, they did Lonnie Donegan material I seem to remember, so I bought a guitar (OK an egg slicer really the action was horrible)when I was about 11 years old, still trying to play one.
At school we had/developed a tradition to sing all the way home on any coach trip we went on. This required knowing many songs.
Folk Clubs when I was around 16, one of which at the "Noel Timpson Youth Centre" on Friday nights had loads of people on who were playing MSG on the Saturday, for far less admission fee.
My first date with my wife was a Spinners concert at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester
Yes there was always the Beer.
Steeleye Span got me into "English" Folk Music more.
Fortunately the "Dark Side" of singer songwriters NEVER EVER appealed to me.
JohnB

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: BobKnight
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 03:22 PM

My family were nearly all musicians - uncles,aunties,cousins - mostly bagpipes, fiddle and accordian, so I was brought up with that background. However, I was led astray by rock'n'roll, and only returned to the fold about five years ago, by which time it was too late to learn the old songs and ballads from my granny and older relatives. So, now I write my own songs in the traditional style - and love singing in my "own voice," using the language of North East Scotland.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: John P
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:58 AM

A friend got a Steeleye Span album in high school. I like it a lot, but was mostly playing progressive rock. I thought folk music was Cat Stevens and Simon and Garfunkel. Shortly after I moved to Seattle in my early twenties, I was introduced - all within about six months - to Martin Carthy, Alan Stivell, Frankie Armstrong, Kornog, Malicorne, and the John Renbourn Band. I joined a medieval band that also played a lot of early trad music. The music spoke to me. Still does. I continue to play blues and rock sometimes for fun, but European trad music is my home. I'm currently lost somewhere in Sweden.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:38 AM

Lonnie Donegan, Pete Seeger, The Spinners, The Jug of Punch FC in Ellesmere Port, The Clancy Bros & TM, The Dubliners, Harry Boardman, Liverpool Folk Scene (Tony, Frank, Tom and lots of others) Jones's Ale Chester, The Hat & Feather, Bath, Harry Boardman again, Gorton Morris & Gorton Tank, Chorlton Folk Club. And all those people I keep thanking for coming to the Beech in .............

Les in Chorlton

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: olddude
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:24 AM

Like others it was a family tradition. In my small town we would go to our friends camp on a saturday, the old timers would come out of the woods, bring the beer barrel, hotdogs, and their instruments, play songs with no names, other songs like flop ear mule. Play and sing all night long for nothing more than a good time with friends. The friends gathering turned into a town event about every saturday. People came out of the woods with their guitars, fiddles, banjo's, mandolins ...

and to quote John Sebastian .. and everyone can pick a damn site better than I will

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Cats
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:11 AM

Some time ago I posted this as a tribute to Ken Stubbs the folklore and song collector. It expalins some of it
Ken was a great inspiration to me. He lived 4 houses away and I was a friend of his children when I was young. It was in his house that I first realised the importance of, and heard, many of the singers he recorded. It was in his house that I first saw a CND sign and banner and he took time to explain to a young child, as I was then, the importance of what he believed. It was with this, and the same message from my father, that I went into the world with the expectation that it was part of my job as a human being to stand up for what I believed in and to stand up for others. So, what do I do now? I am a trade union officer standing up for others and in what I believe. Ken always encouraged me to sing and helped me to remember snatches of tunes. I moved away in 1970 and lost contact. Last year at Bideford Festival as I came off stage a gentleman with long white hair, sitting on the front row, caught my arm and said, 'Did you used to live in Lingfield?' When I said yes he just replied, 'I'm Ken Stubbs'. As part of the performance I had given credit to the people I had learned the songs from and one of them was Ken.
And the rest? I had an 'aunt' from whom Ken had collected songs and who I heard playing and singing.
Both my parents played and sang, my mum played a Hohner 3 row and the first tune I remember was 'Johnny Todd'. She also played a zither. Osmosis I suppose.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 10:23 AM

What brought me to Trad - The Spinners.
What kept me in Trad - MacColl - 2 years later, just when I was heading for the door (having heard 'Fried Bread and Brandy O' for the 1,234,560,000th time.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Mooh
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 09:40 AM

Mum used to sing some old songs, so did Dad, and lots of hymn tunes, which were a large part of my upbringing, are trad melodies. I always dug the trad Led Zeppelin (eg, Gallows Pole), Steeleye Span, and some singer-songwriter folk, bluegrass, and blues, so "Trad" wasn't a reach at all, just a deeper education. Have played in folk groups, attended and played folk festivals, and generally tried to promote some trad in my instruction business.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 09:26 AM

Both sides of the family being fond of the music of the North East of England as performed by Owen Brannagin and Kathleen Ferrier.
Developing a (sic) unhealthy interest in skiffle at around the age of ten and listening to Lonnie Donegan, Johnny Duncan etc and then a few years later hearing Ramblin Jack Elliott on Radio Luxembourg.
Becomming passionately interested in the blues and the early work of Bob Dylan around 1964.
Being told by those who were activly interested in folk music to listen to the traditional music of this country and to get myself to Birtley Folk Club.
The rest is history.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 08:54 AM

Three things combined in my case.

I was a reasonable recorder player at primary school, but rapidly lost interest at secondary school through the quasi-military and relentlessly classically-orientated teaching. However when my younger sister started learning to play (to a very high standard I might add) I reacquainted myself with one of her cast-off recorders when I was about 15 or 16, and quickly also acquired a tin whistle.

I was also exploring the further reaches of the Southend Central Library LP collection with a couple of school-friends; we were discovering stuff like The Albion Band, Fairport, and Steeleye Span, Planxty, The Bothy Band, and all sorts of other less-well-known but excellent stuff [and David Munrow and Renaissance music as well] - so I owe a great debt of thanks to those friends and also to whoever that fine Music Librarian was. Crucially some of these records featured wonderful music made on the very instruments I was in the process of learning to play, giving me both a repertoire and an immediate way in.

And thirdly, I was doing a Saturday job where most of the other people were in a ceilidh band together, so I got an early insight into both the joy of playing for dancing, and the whole social side of the music.

Combine those three and very quickly indeed, to mix Pip Radish's metaphor, the furnace door flew open and welcomed me in with open arms!

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 08:52 AM

The 'pop group' [that dates me, don't it ?] for which I played bass guitar started doing a couple of P P & M numbers, and they went down well. There was a 'Folk Cellar' literally in the basement of the

Conservative Club, and the beer was Robinson's. It was for me a short step from P P & M to traddy music.

That said - we didn't know, at this time, that there WAS any English trad. music.

What went on was mostly Irish - including the 'rebel' songs - and American.

Shortly after, the three-chord wonders in the denim caps, writing navel-gazing songs on shit-paper in the interval, started infesting the clubs. This might have been one reason for my tastes to crystallise as a

"hard-line Traddie".


(Do not misunderstand - there are many songs sung in the 'Folk Scene' by known writers, which I like, but probably would not sing, if I were still singing !)

It took the likes of Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, the Watersons, Alex Campbell, the Ian Campbell Group, inter alia, to "ground" the likes of me, described in a local Folk magazine, produced by Jack and Lynn Taylor as

"minuscule minded traddies" by some writer or other. The same issue had Harry Boardman (RIP - memory eternal !) spelling Mr Zimmerman's change of name as "Bob Dillon".

My mother and father were singers, as was my grandfather, so I guess my interest in trad. music comes with the gene-pool.

Moreover, there were people around who were extremely knowledgable about trational music at this time, not least Jim Carroll, who posts occasionally on the 'Cat. These people gave of their time and their

knowledge without stint. These, living and otherwise, I thank without reserve.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Fidjit
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 08:31 AM

As Greg said above

Lonnie Donegan turned on a whole generation of Brit folkies to the old songs. Me included.

I resemble that

Chas

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Gedi
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 08:21 AM

I started by listening to The Dubliners, shortly followed by Steeley Span (Parcel of Rogues album especially which is quite trad) and Fairport Convention back in the 70's. Learned to play guitar, later melodeon. Had a long break from folk clubs until recently when I discovered Chorlton FC, and from there The Beech singaround.

Like Pip Radish, I just love those old songs, steeped in history. I don't sing many really old songs myself, but I do like them, and from the people who frequent The Beech I am coming across 'new' old songs all the time.

I loved Ewan McColls stuff and do a few of his songs. Also I love songs about the Sea, sailing ships, men-of-war, shanties, etc.   

I consider Folk to be real music, of and for the people, unlike pop which I regard as manufactured. To me trad folk is a real connection to days gone by, to the land, to the sea, and to the people who went before. I just love it.

Ged

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Banjiman
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 07:22 AM

My Dad's accordion......... and the company my parents kept.

But I am still not a purist. A good song (or tune) is a good song (or tune). I do like them fairly traddy styled though (be it American, English, Irish, Scottish or African).

Paul

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,John from Elsie`s Band
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 06:54 AM

Started with a "skiffle group", thanks to the music of Lonnie Donegan, Chas McDevitt "et al". Attended the "Hootenannys" with Ewan McColl, Peggy Seeger and Fitzroy Coleman in London. Attended singing evenings with Bert Lloyd in Greenwich. Never looked back.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 06:32 AM

1. A progression from worship of the Incredible String Band, through Fairport and Steeleye Span to Martin Carthy, Nic Jones and 'Morris On'.

2. A teacher at school who taught an options class based on 'Folk Song in England' and set up a trad folk group (which I wasn't in but vaguely liked).

3. Accidental exposure at the age of 17 to the Coppers, 'Song for Every Season' box set, which I surprised myself by loving to bits - especially Bob's spoken bits.

4. A succession of girlfriends (the last one of whom I've been married to for some time) who were, quite coincidentally, into folk music and each of whom pestered me to listen to their fave folk stars: these included Harry Boardman, The Watersons and Gordon Tyrrall.

5. Poynton Folk Club, which in the 1970s had some great residents who sang traditional chorus songs.

6. (only belatedly understood) My Mum and Dad, who sang together for fun - mostly Sankey and Moody hymns and the odd Welsh folk song.

7. Alcohol.

If it takes all those things together, it's no wonder we're a minority musical interest!

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: MBSGeorge
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 06:15 AM

I started to sing Trad as I was finding that as I was growing up some more recent folk songs (ie written by people still alive and kicking) were being overdone. I simply got a few books with trad songs in and picked ones I like. I'm not just interested in trad although it forms the bulk of my repertoir but mainly songs which draw me to them, words and tune have to be comfortable together.

G

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 04:42 AM

In my case it really was alcohol.

One night, during my student days, I was lurching around Hull Old Town (as usual) and I staggered into the Old Blue Bell.

I was told there was music going on upstairs........

Nothing would be quite the same again.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: matt milton
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 02:53 AM

In a funny kind of way I got into folk via hip-hop. I used to produce hip-hop music and I'd always be looking for unusual sounds to sample. I would get out any CDs from my local library that look a bit out-of-the-ordinary. I mainly got out free jazz and classical stuff – initially to sample it, but I got really into the music. I was lucky in that my local library had a really good music collection, which had things like Anthony Braxton and Pierre Boulez in it.

Every so often I'd investigate their folk CDs. I remember getting out one of the Voice of the People series, and finding it a bit too hard going. But then one day I got out an interesting looking CD called "Folk Routes, New Roots". While I found the singer's voice a bit strange, the guitar was amazing. I listened to the album again and again and again. Start of a life-long love affair with the music of Shirley Collins and of course Davy Graham. Then, next time I tried that Topic compilation again, it suddenly made sense.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 02:51 AM

Jayto: "I get carried away some times. I have a strong passion for folk and get carried away [..] Welcome to mudcat I hope youe experience on here is as good as mine. There are alot of talented and good people on here. So welcome aboard"

Sure, I liked your post! That's what I was asking for :-)
And cheers for the welcome. I've already encountered some jolly good folk here, both virtual, and in the real world. *waves*
It's an excellent community. And I hope to get to know a few more people in the real world too. This year shows promise.

Pip Radish: "It was like a door on a furnace, opening a little more each time - up till about the third singaround I went to, which was when the door flew wide open. So much stuff"

Aye, I think I can identify with that! I had no idea that any of this stuff even existed, let alone that there was such a vast horde of it.
Having dabbled in a little choral, and the odd jazz standard, but really skimming even this, finding trad song, has been the very first time in my life that I've found what 'works' for me enough to inspire any personal passion or motivate me to take amatuer singing, seriously enough to learn to work at vocally crafting each song I set down. Not to mention the vast databanks of social history this stuff is the soundtrack to...

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Gurney
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 02:08 AM

A pal persuaded me to go to a folk club, - "Hey, man, I'm into Jazz..." and I heard Barry Skinner singing 'Fanny Blair.'
Then and there, and much of the time since.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Gibb
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 10:13 PM

Punk rock

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 09:07 PM

Our family 78s included Fred and Adele Astaire's wonderfully nutty "We Play Hoops" and Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher," Kickin' the Gong Around" and "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You." Novelty songs and hot blues shaped my head almost before I could talk.

My grandfather had a set of 78s by Carl Sandburg and played them to me when I was, oh, ten or so (late 1940s). I loved Sandburg's brooding mysterious singing, the songs spoke to me like nothing before.

But the clincher was when Grandad had a stout man as a guest who, I will never forget, burst into a song about a man who had a leg that ran on "whistles and steam." It was "The Cork Leg." I was a traditional singer from that moment. (Songwriting came much, much later, like a dozen years afterward.)

The addiction was then solidified circa 1950-52 by LPs by Bob Atcher, Burl Ives and others. I learned to play lute style guitar from Richard Dyer-Bennett records, spurred on by my dear friend and mentor Bill Bonyun, a great champion of Dyer-Bennett. That catalyzed with my discovery of "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena," 5-string banjo, and Pete Seeger,

The clincher, though, was hearing Library of Congress field recordings and the American Anthology set of oldtime recordings around 1951 or 2. I was a goner. Still am.

Got a lifelong prejudice in favor of the real stuff, pre-1950, with the bark on. The authenticker the better, for me.

Bob

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,GEST with a busted cookie
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 09:05 PM

Evenings back in the sixties at Sancho Panza's in Monterey, CA served as an introduction, but Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador 40 years later sealed my fate. :-)

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Joe_F
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 08:24 PM

People known to me, beginning with my mother and ending -- well, it hasn't ended yet.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 08:17 PM

Speaking as someone who was threatened with expulsion for singing Lucy Wan in the school playground (thus freaking out a particularly sensitive third-year) I realised that Trad was truly subversive pretty earlier on. On another thread (in another guise) I spoke about sinking my teeth into the Trad Jugular; which is to say the pure drop, and the one aspect of F*lk I can still seriously, honestly, truthfully & truly believe in, which is why I can keep my Davie Stewart, Willie Scott & Seamus Ennis vinyl next to my Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Albert Ayler & Sun Ra, just to remind me, if ever I forget...

It's like there's this door that opens up, and something amazing happens, an alchemical transfiguration of the base into the sublime, which rarely, if ever, fails.

Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music... is THE BEST.

(Frank Zappa)

Purists need not apply.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 08:11 PM

That is quite an accomplishment in North America. I'm proud of you, Bill.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 07:59 PM

well, since I lost my homemade "Purist Snob" T-shirt, I haven't been nearly as convincing. ☺

(I WAS called a "folk fascist" on the radio many years ago)

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Peace
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 07:34 PM

LOL

Bill, you have never ever been a snob. Never will be. It just ain't in your nature.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 07:30 PM

Yep...lots of what Louis does is trad. He used to live just south of you in Wash. state.(I still remember your very first post here, and snobby ol' me greeting you. You recovered very well)

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 07:21 PM

The thread title reminded me of a WC Fields line: "My wife drove me to drink. It's the one thing I'm beholden to her for."

I'd like to post, but nothing I've ever sung or done is considered trad. Keep well, Bill. However, I guess I'm allowed to say I like trad when it's sung well and played well. For example, if Louis Killen is considered trad, well, I like his work.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 07:12 PM

"Alcohol"

gee, Bruce...drinking it, or rubbing it on?

♫"We don't allow back rubs, we think them a crime.
We always condemn them in song and in rhyme.
An alcohol back rub is worse than straight gin-
When you think of the liquor absorbed by your skin"♫

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 06:59 PM

I've been learning songs and singing them, usually to myself or whoever's passing the bus-stop, since before my voice broke (I did a mean treble "Vincent"), but I was 40-something before I worked up the nerve to get up in front of an audience. That was when - and why - I started going to the local folk club. The 'folk' part was a means to an end; I did some traditional stuff but a lot of covers (Dylan, Robyn Hitchcock, Peter Blegvad) and wrote some of my own.

I'd been going to that folk club for nearly five years when a few things happened at once, or in quick succession: I got an Anne Briggs CD, went to the Beech singaround, heard a set from John Kelly, got John's CD, went to the Beech again, dug out my Mum's Shirley Collins LPs, got a Nic Jones CD... It was like a door on a furnace, opening a little more each time - up till about the third singaround I went to, which was when the door flew wide open. So much stuff - and, as a singer, so much stuff to work on! Last night at the Beech I sang a song I've only heard sung once before (although everyone else in the room seemed to know it) and joined in two songs I'd never heard at all (everyone else seemed to know them too). It just goes on - there's always more.

It took me 5 years to get from singing whatever I felt like on a folk club stage to singing traditional songs in singarounds; I'm sorry it took so long. Then again, it had taken me 30 years to get that far, so maybe I'm just slow.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 06:49 PM

Alcohol.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: *Laura*
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 06:47 PM

Folkie baby..... some of my earliest memories are at festivals, falling asleep in ceidhlis with people dancing around me.
My dad used to organise South Petherton folk festival (small local festival) and regularly toured to other festivals and folk clubs and I used to sit in the corner with felt tips and it must have got under my skin somehow......!

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 06:38 PM

In my mid-20's I moved from Ireland's capital, Dublin, where I listened mainly to jazz and blues, to the small town of Athlone, in the Irish midlands. Jazz was in distinctly short supply in the area - so I checked out the local folk club - and the rot set in!

Regards

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Cup of Tea, No cookies
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 06:35 PM

Amusing that I should be posting to this just under Phil Cooper, one of my later, but deeply rich influences.

My childhood summers were spent at a series of camps, where we all sang. In the late 60s I attended a camp run by some nuns from Michigan, and it seemed that most of the counselors were guitar playing transplants from the Ann Arbor folk scene.

I came of age when folk-rock was played regularly on the "FM underground" type stations -including whole album sides. I loved Pentangle, Fairport, early Joan Baez, Judy Collins, PP&M. Much of the "rock" I listened to was acoustic and flavored highly with folk music influences as well. I had a cheap guitar (we all wanted to be Joan Baez) and learned to play three chords for early 70s guitar Masses, though I was playing out of the Joan Baez and Judy Collins songbook for my electric organ lessons.

I got away from music during my early college years, then had interst rekindled hearing folk on the radio: WCLV's Saturday Night show, and the new WCPN's folk program that had live local folk performers. Both of these brought me to concerts put on by Celtic Ceol, and in particular to the singing of Dick Swain, who at the time lived in Cleveland, and was a huge influence. His taste was reflected in the Celtic Ceol performers, and this set me off on the road to understanding that it was traditional song that attracted me most of all, and traditional music got me dancing.

I learned the joy of being introduced to the "source" my favorite performers drew from, and at times THOSE sources referred me to some one else. Thus, loving Dick Swain singing "Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy" lead to Peter Bellamy (and all that great Kipling!) who I got to hang out with briefly, and he got that from the Copper Family, and I eventually had the thrill of Bob Copper buying me a beer at a Folk Alliance! I've hundreds of examples of the generosity about sources leading to the increase of knowledge, other sources, joy, and repertoire.

Living in Illinois for two years, I was exposed to a much livelier folk community and so met a whole HOST of trad. performers who thrilled me, entertained me, and in so very many cases, became loved friends. My personal taste has always so nearly completely overlapped with the things performed by Phil Cooper & Margaret Nelson (& Paul Goelz and esp. Kate Early) and that they've been a major source of songs I love to sing for the last 23 years.

I learned to love trad. from folks who loved it and shared it enthusiasticly: Dick Swain, Dermot Sommerville, John Roberts & Tony Barrand, Jerry Armstrong, Art Theime, Cindy Mangsen, Judy Cook, Phil, Margaret & Kate, Bare Necessities, Sandy & Caroline Paton, Ed Miller, Frank Harte, John McCutcheon... the list goes on. It's the folks who got me into folk music. The folks who played it, and the folks who explained the sources (without being pedantic, but enough information to lead me on to the next layer...) Significantly, NONE of those sources are what one would call "folk purists" - good contemporary songs go in their repertoire, or they write them.

Joanne In Cleveland

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Jim P
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 06:30 PM

Well, like most kids growing up in the '70s, all I ever listened to was rock/pop. Whenever it came out in the early '80s, I went to see "Patriot Game" at the theaters. An OK movie, but I was entranced by a brief bit where a TV showed a woman singing in a style I'd never heard before. I found out that it was a group called "Clannad" and the song was from an Irish TV show. I went out and bought all the Clannad I could find, and discovered that I really liked their early stuff better. So I tried other stuff in the "Irish/Celtic" bin at the record store, and discovered the Clancy Brothers. About the same time, a friend and I went to the Hyde St. Pier in San Francisco for the chanty sing, and that, as they say, was that. I don't think I've missed more than half a dozen of the monthly chanty sings there since.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 06:29 PM

I was teaching myself guitar and need music I could play - pop music had gone really weird and psychedelic and really didn't work on an acoustic guitar with three chords.

Then I found "Burl Ives' Book of Australian Folk Songs" in my local music shop - this was stuff I could play. That led me to the Spinners on TV and Folk on Friday on the radio. When I got old enough to drive I began to visit the local folk clubs.

It was quite a shock to discover that a real live tradition still existed in England - apart from a few survivors like the Coppers and Fred Jordan we sort of just assumed it had died out around the time of Cecil Sharp. One of the early Emglish Country Music Weekends in Suffolk exposed me to singers like the Lings and Bob Roberts and melodeon player Oscar Woods.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 05:41 PM

In the 50s there was, occasionally, Burl Ives on Jack Paar's morning TV show..then when the 60s started, there was one guy in Wichita, Kansas who had a subscription to Sing Out and already knew Child Ballads. Someone invited Pete Seeger to play a local concert, then the Beers Family...and I was hooked. We started having 'hoots' and there was a local folk group started....so when stuff like the Kingston Trio and other pop-folk groups appeared, I wasn't interested.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: M.Ted
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 05:24 PM

My dad played in a "Hillbilly" band, and was a union organizer to boot. So I grew up listening to all that. When folk, became pop, I followed that, full circle, from
Dylan to blues, to psychedelia, to heavy metal, and back to Sweet Heart of the Rodeo, with lots of jazz tossed in--not really much interest in the unaccompanied ballad--a wailing song and a good guitar, as they say...

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 05:21 PM

Dad listened to his collection of folk, gospel and old style country music all the time. I was further hooked when, at the age of 15 or so I got my hands on the first two Joan Baez albums.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Jane of 'ull
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 05:16 PM

Loved the music that went with the country dancing we did at school as a kid, then got into folk at about age 18 after listening to Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention etc.. I think Fairport's 'Liege and Lief' was the main thing that got me permanently hooked on folk though.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 04:54 PM

I grew up in a place where there were (and still are) traditional musicians. Now I guess I are one.

Russ (Permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 04:25 PM

protest songs by Phil Ochs, then hearing John Roberts & Tony Barrand's first album. Then guitar players like Martin Carthy, John Fahey, and Nic Jones.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: greg stephens
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 04:16 PM

Lonnie Donegan turned on a whole generation of Brit folkies to the old songs. Me included.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: Janie
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 04:10 PM

I wouldn't call myself immersed in trad. music, though I probably am moderately immersed in the broader folk/blues genre. But I grew up in the midst of traditional music.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 03:05 PM

Television. Yes, it may be hard to believe now but there was a time when folk and traditional music and song was on the telly. Robin Hall and Jimmie McGregor, Sy Grant, Josh Rae, Paddie Bell and The Corrie Folk Trio, Ray & Archie Fisher, Joe Gordon, Jimmy Shand, Will Starr and loads more through the various shades of tartanalia (good, Bad and best forgotten)via the likes of The White Heather Club.

Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
From: GUEST,Green
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 02:59 PM

I was born into it..