1954 and All That - defining folk music

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Howard Jones
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 05:59 PM

SS, I had thought I'd understood your argument, even though I disagreed with it. I thought we all accepted that "folk" is at least traditional music, and that the discussion was about all the other types of music which get performed in "designated folk contexts".

Now you appear to be saying that even a traditional song is not folk unless it's performed in a "designated folk context". If it's performed in another context, it's not folk. So if someone plays jazz in a folk club, that makes it folk, and if someone plays folk in a jazz club, that presumably makes it jazz.

There is a logical consistency to this argument. However, and with the utmost respect, its utter bollocks.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 05:23 PM

"... or Gladys Swarthout singing songs by John Jacob Niles, ... are all experiences totally different from listening to folk songs in their natural habitat(s) (whatever those might be). "

You can also add John Jacob Niles singing songs - or Richard Dyer Bennett.   Great & unusual voices - but could you call that "authentic"?

I do agree with you Don - but frankly any artist standing on a stage singing a folk song is far removed from the natural environment.


"When I see the drum set and the brass section and the musicians themselves jumping up and down like fleas on a hot rock, well. . . . "

I guess you could say the same thing about a square dance, contra dance or those crazy Brits who love Morris dancing!!    Of course, the drum IS the original folk instrument!


"I don't think Bellowhead, despite the quite contageous exhuberance of their performances, or any of those I mention above, would have done it for me."

To everything there is a season. One man's ceiling is another mans floor. (Add additional cliche's here)

I agree with you again Don! For you it was Walt Robertson, each of us have our own inspiration that drew us to the music. I guess we can never tell what is going to inspire others but we can only encourage those that get there!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 05:15 PM

singing songs by John Jacob Niles

I've only become aware of JJN in the last year or so but I'm intrigued by his idiosyncratic approach. Here's a few JJN links:

http://mewzik.com/research/niles/

http://www.myspace.com/johnjacobniles01

http://www.myspace.com/johnjacobniles01

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpaAeqBhwrM

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 04:55 PM

I don't recognize a lot of the music that Bellowhead is playing, but it sounds like folk tunes. Indeed, they are a lot of fun.

But—

Bellowhead, or Harry Belefonte, or The New Christy Minstrels, or Gladys Swarthout singing songs by John Jacob Niles, or Kathleen Ferrier's recording of English folk songs, or operatic baritone Thomas Hampson singing a program of American folk songs, or a program of folk songs sung by the King's Singers or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir are all experiences totally different from listening to folk songs in their natural habitat(s) (whatever those might be). When I see the drum set and the brass section and the musicians themselves jumping up and down like fleas on a hot rock, well. .  .  .   

Academicians and ethnomusicologists would agree that the songs being performed are, indeed, "folk" or "traditional," but that the manner of presentation is anything but.

What drew me to folk music in the first place was hearing a concert given by a local singer of folk songs, Walt Robertson. One single singing voice accompanied by a single guitar, singing a wide variety of songs, American (from all over), some blues, British songs (from all over), some songs in French, a few Canadian songs, a number of Child ballads. These songs ran the gamut of emotions from tragedy to comedy, and some of the ballads verged on epic poetry. Walt held the audience—and me—enthralled for a couple of hours. I thought it over for a long time, then decided, "I want to do that!"

Most people I know who are involved in folk (traditional) songs became actively interested pretty much the same way I did.

I don't think Bellowhead, despite the quite contageous exhuberance of their performances, or any of those I mention above, would have done it for me.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 04:46 PM

This is fascinating because I've never known a venue to 'designate itself'.

Of course the venue doesn't designate itself; bad choice of words.

Someone has to do the 'designating'.

Yes - it's the organisers who do the designation.

Perhaps designation works like Transubstantiation: The words are spoken by authorized persons and the bread-and-wine of coffee-house-amateur-music is transformed into Folk Music.

I believe the process to be as occult as the one you describe, but, alas, it's something I've never really been privy to. Something weird does happen though; like sitting in the club room of a pub on a non-Folk Club night.   

My first response to this was to conclude that you are off your rocker.

Very possibly.

But then I realized that I really have no idea what you mean.

Ditto.

Traditional Ballads at an open mike aren't folk music because Open Mike is not a Designated Folk Context?

Traditional Balladry isn't automatically Folk Music any more than a fish crate is automatically flotsam. As I've said elsewhere a Traditional Ballad might be sung in any musical genre context without injury to its integrity. The International Folk Music Council got rid of Folk from their name owing the term being essentially meaningless, changing their name the International Council for Traditional Music instead. So when I do a Traditional Ballad at an Open Mike Night, I'm doing Traditional Balladry, not Folk.
   
Well, suppose you designated it as such before performing (a sort of blessing) . . . then would Traditional Ballads be Folk Music? What if I stood outside and pronounced the blessing whilst you sang? Would that be close enough?

Whilst the process is occult, I don't think you can change the nature of a musical context mid-way through the proceedings. If you announced to an audience of non-folkies that they were now in folk club, the effects, I fear, would be catastrophic. There would be fatalities.

Because if death metal is folk music but traditional ballads aren't, then I'm afraid your newly-minted redefinition is already in need of some serious revision.

Both Death Metal and Traditional Music can be Folk, though it's perhaps less likely with the former (although there is a thread about Folk Metal going on around here). I'm trying to stick to the facts here - the evidence of what happens in the Name of Folk, so hypotheticals don't really help, despite my own stated personal feelings on the matter which you might be getting confused with.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 03:28 PM

"I now have my 5 year old dancing up a storm to the Rochdale Coconut Dance (lots of jumping up and down involved)"

And THAT is how traditions start! Most dance moves evolve out of a joyous reception to the music. I'm sure some of the dances that Cecil Sharp mapped out a century ago could be traced back to a move made by a five year old ages ago!   

Long live evolution!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 03:23 PM

I now have my 5 year old dancing up a storm to the Rochdale Coconut Dance (lots of jumping up and down involved) *LOL*

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 03:12 PM

This was quite a night too. Can you spot Jim Causley in a daisy, er conga chain?

Shepley B'Head riots

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 02:49 PM

Ok, that's what you want

Bellowhead Civil Disorder at the Royal Albert Hall

Now get up and dance !!!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 02:37 PM

I shall have to disagree with SS on the last post. Listening to recorded folk music may be a vicarious activity but the alternatives aren't all that attractive. Folk clubs, in my admittedly limited experience and from what I've read on here, are a varied commodity.

At their best they're a good communal sing-song, an activity there's precious little opportunity for these days and one shouldn't be too choosy about the material that prompts it. At their worst they sound like attending a conservative religious service, calls and response, breast beating, earnest nodding and memories of things dark and half-remembered.
Sitting next to my record player I can slap on some sea shanties, a bit of folk rock, The Morris Motors Band, or any number of Celtic twilight folk as well as some tear jerking English ballads. Folk festivals are a different matter, you can hear your favourites or make for the beer tent.
Perhaps I'm missing out but if someone invites me to a riot I don't want to discover it's a meeting of The Sealed Knot Society. Bellowhead do a much better impression of genuine civil disorder when they're in full flow, kinda like The Bonzo Dog Band storm the Bastille with Mariachi brass and a string section. Which is folk enough for me.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Goose Gander
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 02:07 PM

"The only difference that I can figure out is that one designates itself as being Folk . . ."

This is fascinating because I've never known a venue to 'designate itself'. Someone has to do the 'designating'. Perhaps designation works like Transubstantiation: The words are spoken by authorized persons and the bread-and-wine of coffee-house-amateur-music is transformed into Folk Music.

"Times I've gone to an open mike night and performed Traditional Ballads I've been quite keen to stress that it isn't folk music."

My first response to this was to conclude that you are off your rocker. But then I realized that I really have no idea what you mean. Traditional Ballads at an open mike aren't folk music because Open Mike is not a Designated Folk Context? Well, suppose you designated it as such before performing (a sort of blessing) . . . then would Traditional Ballads be Folk Music? What if I stood outside and pronounced the blessing whilst you sang? Would that be close enough? Because if death metal is folk music but traditional ballads aren't, then I'm afraid your newly-minted redefinition is already in need of some serious revision.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 01:53 PM

Ron you've hit the nail right on the head.
Bellowhead, are, after all, a dance band, interactive as it were, not a 'sit on your hands and "please entertain me" act'

I love the tale about how the dancers at one of Bellowheads gigs ( I believe it was at Sidmouth) actually broke the dance floor. How true that is, I have no idea, but it's the perfect illustration of the power of music and how an audience can get os their arses.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 01:10 PM

I still don't understand how a "designated Folk Context" (club or otherwise) as you have described it differs from open mike night at a coffee house.

The only difference that I can figure out is that one designates itself as being Folk - rather like those times when I turn on radio two of a Wednesday night and only know that it's Folk Music I'm listening to when I hear Mike Harding's voice. Times I've gone to an open mike night and performed Traditional Ballads I've been quite keen to stress that it isn't folk music.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 01:00 PM

I think of folk as essentially a doing thang, rather like sex; maybe listening to folk is like erotica, in that it might inspire you to do the real thing - but there again I've always preferred the amateur / vintage / field-recorded stuff to the slick, glossy, professionalism which leaves me cold to be honest. It has been said that the essential difference between erotica and pornography is that whilst pornography exploits the subject as an object, erotica celebrates the object as a subject. Does folk (on any level) objectify its subjects or subjectify its objects?

I wonder, is all music like this? In the house, with one or two exceptions, I listen to anything but Designated Folk Music. I might play to occasional Peter Bellamy album, or Shirley & Dolly Collins, or Jean Ritchie, or Seamus Ennis, but as a rule folk as a recorded / performance medium bores me rigid. I like Jazz, Hip Hop, Dub Reggae, Early Classical, Ethnomusicology and other such Exotica - in other words music that I'm not involved in personally. Or maybe that's objectifying subjects? Or just a matter of individual taste anyway, which ultimately is all that matters. One man's fun with with a capital F. U. N is another man's hell with a capital H. E. L. L.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 12:59 PM

"Bellowhead are fun with a capital F.U.N, and that lads and lassies, at least for me, is the key and always has been."

I think that is one thing we forget when talking about folk or traditional music - FUN. These songs that have been carried down were sung for many reasons, including to have fun! We need to remember that in days before ipods, this was entertainment. People always use whatever tools are at their disposal.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Goose Gander
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 12:58 PM

Folk Song can be any song sung in the name of Folk in a designated Folk Context"

This is a circular argument.

"A DFC is not necessarily a Folk Club."

I still don't understand how a "designated Folk Context" (club or otherwise) as you have described it differs from open mike night at a coffee house. I frequent coffee houses, and often visit open mike's when I'm out for a walk, and I have never found one referred to as a "designated Folk Context" (which does have the ring of apparatchik lingo). Further, the singers, musicians, poets, cranks and maniacs who participate in these sessions do not generally (in my experience) identify themselves as 'folkies' or 'folk artists' or anything like that. Presumably, though, they would become such if someone "designated" my local coffee house as a "Folk Context"(?) . . .

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 12:26 PM

Was just watching Bellowhead's take on Rambling Sailor, that's the stuff!!
Bellowhead are fun with a capital F.U.N, and that lads and lassies, at least for me, is the key and always has been.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 12:14 PM

"For me one of the the refreshing thing about folk music is that, generally, it doesn't need the band treatment."

Of course this eliminates much of the tradition of dance music and front porch picking which I feel is an important part of folk music.

I do agree with Don though - often the "big band" approach kills the message of the song.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 12:06 PM

"This whole thread isblown to hell. Recent research, published today in the Musicological Review, has revealed, shockingly, that Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams did not collect the folk songs they had claimed to collect - but actually wrote them all themselves."

RVW was know to ermmmmm..change the odd word or six, shall we say, mind you so did A. L. Lloyd

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 11:38 AM

What? Joyce was doing it with Tracy?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 11:32 AM

Clithero Joyce was the reason Tracy's bed ended up like that.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 10:32 AM

If Joyce Clitheroe won the gold for maintaining that she'd never slept with anyone between 1946 and 2006, then she's lying. In 2002 I slept with Joyce Clitheroe in Great Eccleston.

Sorry - no - my mistake. I slept with Joyce Eccleston in Clitheroe...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: M.Ted
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 10:28 AM

Following that logic, if there was a folk market, this whole question could have been settled simply and quickly. Sadly, there is no folk market.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 10:24 AM

I'm reminded of Tracy Emin being asked why her unmade bed was "Art". "Because I'm an artist. I went to art school."

Here in Lancashire, Granada once had daytime TV show called Brit Art Challenge, inspired by the popular Watercolour Challenge, and aimed at the same general demographic, albeit those with more conceptual inclinations than the rural picturesque. In one episode Mrs Delia Fairhaven, 73, of Lytham St. Annes, won the prize simply by neglecting to make her bed that morning - and in another Mr Albert Cockerham, 68, of Knot End-on-Sea, nearly scooped the gold almost quite literally having replaced the water in his goldfish tank with formaldehyde. The prize was snatched from him when the RSPCA intervened and given to runner up Miss Joyce Clitheroe, 60, of Great Eccleston for another post-Emin homage entitled Everyone I've Never Slept With - 1946-2006 - a symbolically white one-person tent with no names in it whatsoever.

Tunes made up by rough working class youths with electric guitars, or young rappers, somehow doesn't make the grade quite so often.

That would come under the general heading of Traditional Music & Ethnomusicology rather than Folk Music per se, although here the 1954 Definition fails once more because it doesn't allow for the given Tradition be in any way Creative, or else essentially improvisatory, as is the case with much popular & traditional musics the world over. I'm glad to see the remit of the ICTM (formerly IFMC) is to further the study, practice, documentation, preservation and dissemination of traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban music, and dance of all countries. Just a shame those who cling doggedly on to the 1954 Definition in the name of Folk Music can't do likewise.

We had some young rappers in a folk club recently - The Kingsmen of Preston I think - many of whom didn't look old enough to be in the pub but who danced like madman all the same.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 08:55 AM

"I'm reminded of Tracy Emin being asked why her unmade bed was "Art". "Because I'm an artist. I went to art school."

She was absolutely correct of course. Her installations have been commodified in the art market, ergo, they're art.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 07:12 AM

What I find interesting is the kind of contemporary stuff the "designators" do designate as folk. And the kind of stuff they don't. The distinguishing feature is often that the stuff designated as "folk" was in fact created by the "designator". Tunes made up by rough working class youths with electric guitars, or young rappers, somehow doesn't make the grade quite so often.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 07:09 AM

I'm reminded of Tracy Emin being asked why her unmade bed was "Art". "Because I'm an artist. I went to art school."

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 06:59 AM

I designate my bicycle as a folksong. I have also decided to de-designate "Searching for Lambs", which is now no longer an English folksong. However much its characteristcs might might you think it actually is one.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 06:47 AM

"Question is though - are they still good songs?"

Perhaps the only question?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 06:11 AM

Who does the designating?

Anyone who calls what they are doing a Folk Club, Folk Festival, Folk Party, Fok Singaround, Folk Session, Folk CD / CD-R, Folk Radio Show, Folk Forum, or Folk whatever is designating a folk context.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 05:54 AM

"Designated Folk Contexts" indeed. Who does the designating? The Home Secretary? The Ministry for Homeland Security and National Culture? Spare us, please.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 05:49 AM

I've just read that, Will. It follows on from similar claims made against one Albert Lancaster Lloyd. Perhaps more alarming (to me) are the revelations concerning the creations of a certain Francis J. Child - all 305 of them. They're calling it a literary hoax on a par with Ossian. Question is though - are they still good songs?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 05:02 AM

This whole thread isblown to hell. Recent research, published today in the Musicological Review, has revealed, shockingly, that Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams did not collect the folk songs they had claimed to collect - but actually wrote them all themselves.

I'm shocked and distressed beyond measure.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 04:41 AM

In the UK people have to find their own way through the folk maze. I can't speak for the present day but as someone born in the late 50s my introduction to folk was throught the half-arsed but well meaning attempts to get country dancing on the curriculum (stripping the willow and other comic nightmares) and the BBC schools broadcasts (cut glass classically trained vowels intoning Child ballads).

Pub folk consisted of - to use a broad but well placed brush - drink addled amateurs singing in a way they hope their great grandparents might have to others on the same nostalgia trip. Better stuff sometimes made its way onto John Peel's programme or the discerning could hang around the few specialist shops for tips.

The very few clubs I attended were replete by Mary Hopkins clones doing folk-lite by the early 70s or members out puritan-ing each other much as bird watchers might tick off near-extinct varieties they'd seen.

For the ordinary person folk was a complete irrelevance: maxi or mini skirts, a few Jesus freaks, grumpy old men. About as far from it's community routes as it's possible to imagine.

IMO folk music has survived despite folk clubs, not because of them.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 04:30 AM

"Well, I guess I'm not only in the wrong pew, I'm in the wrong church. I found myself agreeing with what Crow Sister just wrote, then, unfamiliar with Mawkin Causley and Bellowhead (out here on the west coast of the U. S. and A.), I pulled them up on YouTube.

What I heard was with what came on like symphony orchestras with whatever solo singers I could pick out being backed by choirs of other singers."

As usual, Don, spot on! I couldn't have said it better myself.

The trouble is that all of these new 'Folk Wunderkind' really aspire to being in a band. There's no doubt that they know a lot about traditional music (quite possibly more than I do!) but they seem to see it as just a vehicle for their 'being-in-a-band' ambitions.
For me one of the the refreshing thing about folk music is that, generally, it doesn't need the band treatment. Applying such a treatment is 'over-egging the pudding'. If I want to listen to bands of musical prodigies I'll just switch on the radio (maybe I wont!) - I like my folk music straight and undiluted - otherwise it's like every other noisy, over-hyped racket that saturates our contemporary environment.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 04:20 AM

If you want to update the accepted definition of folk music, you're going to have to do better than (I paraphrase) - "Folk is anything that washes up on the shore of my club."

Your paraphrase is inaccurate. Better would be Folk Song can be any song sung in the name of Folk in a designated Folk Context. A DFC is not necessarily a Folk Club. Whilst I haunt the amateur fringes of folk, there is nothing in the folk world as a whole (festivals, magazines, record companies, radio shows, internet fora etc.) that would contradict my proposition of Folk as Flotsam, which is to say a generality of music performed in the name of folk and defined by context rather than genre. I say again, I base this on observation of the evidence - I'm not making it up.

So is that another new definition of folk? A solitary pursuit?

How lonely are we Folkies in the real world? How often in the course of our every day lives do we cross paths with another of our breed? Not that often in my experience! Head for the local folk club and no longer feel alone! Kindred spirits and like minded souls! And a network of community, belonging and togetherness brings you into the bosom of the fold. Hell, I even my wife in a Folk Club and how happy I am that we might bring our Folk home with us; I know singers of both sexes who married and were never heard of again. I know others who married outside of Folk and brought their new spouses into the fold where, although they might never sing, are as much a part of it as anything else. And what proportion of Folk is the singing? As oppose to the banter and the crack (I am a Geordie) and the Jouissance that might well come through the music but which is, in actual fact, the consequence of context alone? Hmmmm - Folk is a community thing; I may sing my songs solo (though rarely unaccompanied) but the experience is collective.

If you visited a country and failed to find a folk club that resembles yours, would you conclude that said country has no folk music?

Even the IFMC (who came up with the 1954 Definition) have changed their name to the ICTM; so Traditional music makes greater sense, although their remit does state: The aims of the ICTM are to further the study, practice, documentation, preservation and dissemination of traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban music, and dance of all countries. But this isn't about Folk Clubs per se, rather Designated Folk Contexts which in British Society include Folk Clubs, Festivals etc, but in other cultures might be very different as a casual glance at YouTube might reveal. British Folk Music (as we understand it, or don't as the case may be) is not and nowhere near the whole of the case for British Traditional Music or British Ethnic Music, rather something very particular with respect of a Revival largely determined by a particular generation whose musical concerns, as I am attempting to show, are not wholly traditional.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: M.Ted
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 09:38 PM

Here in the US, we've always had "real" traditional music that was accessible--performers and recording of performers who were actually part of the various living musical traditions--not everyone listened, or liked it, but it was there--there was nothing on the other side of the pond corresponding to "The Anthology of American Folk Music"--

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: John P
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 08:13 PM

Hi Don,
One of the reasons I keep playing at the Folklife Festival even though I'm sick of the crowds is because every year someone comes up after our set and says something like, "I've never heard anything like that before. I love it! Where can I find more music like that?" There is something about traditional music that compels certain people; I think they are responding to the melodies, rhythms, and words. I've never done a solo set in my life, and my music tends to be highly arranged (although my first rule of arranging involves making sure the arrangement supports the song rather than replacing it). I spent years playing in a duet with about a dozen instruments on stage with us, and now play in a five-person band with lots of instruments and harmonies.

I agree that there is something special, and in some ways more traditional, about the unaccompanied or minimally accompanied song (I credit Chris Roe with first turning me on to traditional music), but I also think that music in a more "normal" format sometimes sucks in folks who wouldn't pay any attention to a solo singer doing trad material.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 07:30 PM

So is that another new definition of folk? A solitary pursuit?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 07:24 PM

Well, yeah, Pip. The "Botany Bay" rendition was good, very good, but still there is the matter of

Jim Causley - vocals & accordion
James Delarre - fiddle and backing vocals
Alex Goldsmith - melodeons and backing vocals
Danny Crump – 5-string electric bass, piano, and backing vocals
David Delarre - acoustic guitars and backing vocals

I have nothing against the idea of "folk bands," I mean, after all, I weathered the onslaught of groups like the Kingston Trio, the Brothers Four, The New Christy Minstrels, and dozens of clones and imitations. Then and now, I sometimes find that all that instrumentation and the backing vocals tend to overwhelm a song, especially one that has a story to tell.

There was quite an onslaught of this sort of thing back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and if you want to introduce people to folk music, I'm not sure that this doesn't present a problem in "truth in labeling." I recall one evening during my regular weekend gig at "The Place Next Door" in 1959, someone requested "The Wreck of the Sloop John B." So I sang it. The person who requested it grumped a bit that I hadn't sung it right (I believe I first heard it sung by The Weavers, and I'd learned it in 1956 from Carl Sandburg's American Songbag). "Why?" I asked. "What isn't right about it?" "That's not the way the Kingston Trio does it," he complained. "Well," sez I, being quick of wit, "there are three of them and there's only one of me."

Groups of this kind are very entertaining. I really enjoyed The Weavers, The Gateway Singers, The Clancy Brothers, Peter Paul and Mary, The Chieftains and others when they passed through Seattle. But as to "introducing people to folk music," I think that these often slick and carefully arranged ensembles give a somewhat bogus impression.

One thing for which I give Harry Belafonte high marks is that often when he went on tour, after he had the audience thoroughly warmed up, he would bring out people like Odetta or Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, say" These are the people who inspired me," and then turn them loose to do what they had always done.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: greg stephens
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 06:44 PM

1954 is just a shorthasnd way to refer to a particularly way of defining the term folk music. The definition had been in use for many many years before that, obviously, and has been used ever since as well (with, as befits something folkie, slight continuous modification!)

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Stringsinger
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 06:21 PM

1954 has nothing to do with folk music. It's an arbitrary date that is used because someone said something about it.

This new debate is like the snake swallowing it's tail or as Shake said "sound and fury...."

Before this definition came up, scholars and folklorists were saying the same thing.
What's so new about 1954?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Goose Gander
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 05:35 PM

The 1954 definition can be applied cross-culturally. It doesn't define 'what folk is' but describes the processes by which folk music - in its myriad forms - has evolved.

Sinister Supporter's definition - 'folk is flotsam' - apparently describes what goes on in many English folk clubs. Would 'folk is flotsam' work as a definition outside this specific context? If you visited a country and failed to find a folk club that resembles yours, would you conclude that said country has no folk music?

If you want to update the accepted definition of folk music, you're going to have to do better than (I paraphrase) - "Folk is anything that washes up on the shore of my club."

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 05:14 PM

If Bellowhead are a bit raucous for your taste Don try Mawkin:Causley. Botany Bay is a good'un, enough rum, sodomy and the lash to keep any traditional party going.
http://www.myspace.com/mawkincausley

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 05:13 PM

Sounds like an Epiphany to me, Pip - significant cause for rejoicing!

Oh, it was that all right - life-changing experience. But I did then start thinking where have you been all my life?, and one of the answers I came up with was not at the Folk Club, that's for sure.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 04:23 PM

Well, I guess I'm not only in the wrong pew, I'm in the wrong church. I found myself agreeing with what Crow Sister just wrote, then, unfamiliar with Mawkin Causley and Bellowhead (out here on the west coast of the U. S. and A.), I pulled them up on YouTube.

What I heard was with what came on like symphony orchestras with whatever solo singers I could pick out being backed by choirs of other singers.   The songs being sung (at least the ones I listened to) seemed to be what I would consider (in my narrow, twisted little mind) to be "folk" songs—or "traditional" songs (if there really is a difference, which I can't see myself), but the presentation reminded me of some of the major stage productions put on by Harry Belafonte back in the mid to late 1950s.

Whatever happened to the singer (just one) singing a traditional song (like a Child ballad, for example) to the accompaniment of a guitar—or a banjo—or a concertina (just one, not all of them together)? Or possibly even (shudder of horror!!) unaccompanied?

Oh, I see! Dull! Weird! Boring! Nobody wants to listen to that stuff anymore, I guess.

(But—fortunately, that doesn't reflect my experience out here in the wilderness).

'Scuse me for now. Lunch time here.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 04:15 PM

Indeed, I took my 11 year old, 3/4 size Les Paul totin', rock luvvin son to see Mawkin Causley and Bellowhead and they're now on his iPod - his decision.
I wouldn't know how to operate an iPod. With my eyes vinyl is a problem! Sly and Robbie were doing some similar arrangements twenty odd years ago. Music is seamless.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 03:36 PM

Crow Sister, welcome to the madhouse...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 03:31 PM

Pip Radish: "a vast ocean of music, with enough songs to keep any singer going for a lifetime. The realisation that I'd been missing out on all that music"

Again very seriously not being arsey here. But yes, me too. Except I feel that partly (if not greatly) to blame for my lack of exposure to Traditional Song is that it was/has been utterly lost and overwhelmed by a surfeit of eclectic material which has - like it or no - mushroomed beneath the fungal folk umbrella.

Not sure I buy the OP's thesis myself; preferring 'Folk as Genre' (which tends to be the way most people organise music) though frankly on logic and empirical evidence, SS's reasoning seems hard to fault!

So, I'd like to see 'Traditional [Folk] Song' out from underneath the suffocating umbrella of Folk, where it is utterly LOST! And indeed will ever remain so - irrespective of whatever a tiny few would prefer to be the case.

Prioritise! The songs matter more than some verbage!

Of course while the annoyed scratch their itching sores, and grumble, thankfully there are real YET real live boys n' girls like Mawkin Causley, and Bellowhead, going out there and doing the REAL work of communicating folk songs to those who might still actually give a damn... ;-)

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 03:25 PM

The realisation that I'd been missing out on all that music - I didn't like that.

Sounds like an Epiphany to me, Pip - significant cause for rejoicing! Just on relearning The Molecatcher today; I've decided to relearn all the songs I've ever forgotten - not as easy at it sounds believe me.