1954 and All That - defining folk music

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 01:10 PM

For those who wish to form a picket line:

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ballads/ballads.htm

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 03:05 PM

"Perhaps it's time to put this discussion into its actual context and get it out of the greenhouse atmosphere of the folk scene." - Jim Carroll, March 23, 4.54 am.

Excellent post, Jim.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 03:12 PM

"I'm sure that everyone who thinks that a song ceases to be a folksong the moment it's written down will be up in arms"

Oh dear;does this mean I'll have to stop using Ye Olde Penguin Booke of Folke Songs as a reference?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 04:17 PM

Sorry, Broadband's been down all afternoon + packing for a weeks holiday - not been able to join the bunfight.
Bryan,
"What can I do to persuade you that there is?"
You might volunteer to transcribe and annotate 80-odd Walter Pardon tapes and a dozen or so Winterton recordings, but I'm sure your as busy as we are. I would point out that we have issued several CDs from our collection, including 1 of traditional storytelling (British and Irish) as well as selections from Fred Hamer's collection 'Leaves of Life'. Anything further is hard slog and has to be prioritised. Do any of you know how minute the sales figures are for albums of field recordings? It makes no difference to us as all profits from CD sales go to I.T.M.A., but they are an indication of response to and interest in something that entails a lot of bloody hard work.
"Not good enough, Jim."
I'm afraid it will have to be for now. If the BL wish to put our collection on the web they have our full blessing.
"MacColl didn't just sit back and say "It's there in the museums if anyone wants it."
Nor did he knock on people's doors delivering what he had to offer - he expected people to emerge from their shells and make the effort.
"Surely you have a duty to pass on the flame."
And surely you have the duty to make the effort to take it when it's on offer, albeit in a limited form?
We are not the only collectors and certainly not the most important or prolific - how accessible is the work of others (do you want a list)?
"What are you going to do with your declining years...."
Come on Bryan - we were doing so well without the snide.
"What is stopping you passing on the heritage that has been left in your trust?"
Nothing whatever, expept the declining years. We are in the process of setting up a local archive of recorded material as part of a county-wide folk/heritage centre (so far we've deposited around 1,000 tapes from our personal collection). The next job is to organise for publication a collection of around 150 Travellers songs and 175 stories. Then we will embark on a biography of Kerry Traveller Mikeen McCarthy, (singer, storyteller, incredible source of Traveller lore, tinsmith, horse dealer, street singer, broadsheet seller.....). Ask anybody who ever saw him perform how important he was: (Musical Traditions Club, Singers Club, National Folk Festival and many other song and storytelling clubs and festivals in the days when the most of the clubs welcomed traditional performers).
And then maybe we'll get time to watch 'The Bill' and go and see 'Che part 2', and maybe even fit in a pint and a session in town.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 04:51 PM

"What are you going to do with your declining years...."
Come on Bryan - we were doing so well without the snide.

Seems like a polite enough question to me. I personally think some people need to get over themselves

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 05:05 PM

Jim, that was a wonderful post and totally at odds with anything you have ever said before. What on earth was the point of the "leave it on the shelf", "why bother" remarks that have typified your previous posts?

You might volunteer to transcribe and annotate 80-odd Walter Pardon tapes

Don't think I could tackle all 80 and I'm not really qualified to do the annotations but I'd be willing to help out. Why not start a thread asking for volunteers? Could be a useful project for a Newcastle student.

Nor did he knock on people's doors delivering what he had to offer - he expected people to emerge from their shells and make the effort.

And he had sufficient faith in people to believe they would. You don't.

And surely you have the duty to make the effort to take it when it's on offer, albeit in a limited form?

Yes. Your point?

We are not the only collectors and certainly not the most important or prolific - how accessible is the work of others (do you want a list)?

You are the only one that I know of who is going round saying that it's not worth doing because nobody cares and the clubs are full of people singing Beatles songs.

You have accused me of being crass, of dumbing down and of promoting crap standards. I think I can cope with being called snide.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 05:09 PM

"MacColl didn't just sit back and say "It's there in the museums if anyone wants it."
Nor did he knock on people's doors delivering what he had to offer - he expected people to emerge from their shells and make the effort.
MacColl helped to organise a folk club, which he and others publicised in Melody Maker.,to my way of thinking he made a positive attempt to get people interested,he didnt just expect people to seek it out for themselves.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 06:04 PM

"apart from go on internet threads and rant about the deckline of UK folk clubs because someone said that someone once sang The Great Pretender in something that chose to call itself a folk club in defiance of the 1954 definition? You know it's true; you read it on Mudcat."
Sorry - this is the bit I took umbridge at - maybe I'm being a bit umpty - been stuggling with this ******* computer all day.
Am also feeling a bit morbid - a parcel arrived this morning; a gift copy of Marrowbones kindly sent to me by Malcolm Douglas; shook me a little.
A few days in the pissing rain in Malta should sort me out no end.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 06:14 PM

Jim,have agood holiday,Ihope the sun shines a lot.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 06:36 PM

I really wonder how many people who are bad-mouthing the "1954 definition" and other efforts by folklorists and ethnomusicologists have actually read this material, carefully, all the way through, and then thought about it for awhile without instant knee-jerking.

I really wonder why people who apparently don't like what those like me (and others) consider to be folk songs (traditional songs, such as those found in Sharp's and Lomax's collections, Child ballads, and such) and prefer the songs of Jacques Brel, songs such as "People" recorded a few decades ago by Barbra Streisand, "Memory" from Cats, or really old songs like "Old Buttermilk Sky" by Hoagy Carmichael, or songs they have written themselves and whom no one else sings—or wants to sing—or wants to hear a second time for that matter—and then insist that everyone else acknowledge these songs as folk songs, ostensibly because "I'm a 'folk' [as contrasted with a horse, I presume] and these are the songs I like to sing. Learn those boring old ballads? Not me!"

I really wonder why these people seem to feel that the aforementioned songs are not acceptable as good songs per se unless those who are primarily interested in traditional folk songs (from Sharp, Lomax, et al) acknowledge them as "folk songs."

I really wonder why, if some people find traditional folk songs and ballads so bloody boring, they want to spend time in folk clubs at all.

I really wonder why there are people who are bright enough to know better, but who seem to be too mentally lazy to deal with the time-honored and essential tools of clear thinking, such as "define your terms."

I really wonder why I waste my time on this thread. I'm going to go and play some music.

Traditional folk music. You know:   from Sharp, Lomax, etc.

Don Firth

P. S.   GUEST, a passing academic, thank you for your post at 23 Mar 09 - 09:21 a.m.

P. P. S.   "If someone writes a song in 2009 about the lives of British working people, should we ignore it because it is not a folk song?" No, of course not. But why do you feel it's so bloody essential to insist that it's a "folk song?" Especially, when it's new and has not had time to go through "the folk process?" Although I am generally regarded as a "folk singer," if a song appeals to me, I will learn it and sing it, whether or not it is a traditional song. But I will not try to pass it off as a "folk song." I credit the source, as ethically one should.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Peace
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 06:50 PM

I agree with you, Don.

I am not now nor ever have been a folksinger. I doubt I ever will be. Because of that I really dislike being labelled as one. I would not be ashamed to be labelled as one were I one.The music I write is rock or pop or protest or . . . . Thassit.

When I do go to folk clubs I seldom hear folk songs. People don't know all that many of them. I may know two or three and when I do sing them in a performance I do introduce them as folk songs whose authors are dead and gone. However, not to listen to material simply because the author is known denotes a listener who uses note pads less than a 1/4" wide because that's how narrow the mind of the listener is.

I will and do accept the 1954 definition, but then why not accept it? I also don't give a rat's ass about it. Either I like specific songs or I don't. The criterion for me is the song, not the origin.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:11 PM

Jim Carroll

"apart from go on internet threads and rant about the deckline of UK folk clubs because someone said that someone once sang The Great Pretender in something that chose to call itself a folk club in defiance of the 1954 definition? You know it's true; you read it on Mudcat."
Sorry - this is the bit I took umbridge at -

I and a lot of other people I know work bloody hard to promote exactly the sort of music you want. Don't you realise how gratuitously offensive you are being when you sieze on bizarre isolated incidents like The Great Pretender to condemn ALL UK folk clubs as moribund? I take umbrage at that.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:13 PM

...and enjoy your holiday. I hope you come back in a more charitable frame of mind.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:39 PM

"I really wonder why people who apparently don't like what those like me (and others) consider to be folk songs (traditional songs, such as those found in Sharp's and Lomax's collections, Child ballads, and such..."

Don, I don't think ANYONE is denying that your examples are indeed folksongs. Most of those collections contain traditional songs, although Lomax certainly collected songs with known authors and would not fit that 1954 definition either.

I can't speak for others, but I certainly do not find those songs boring. Those songs continue to play an important role in my life.

You gave some examples.   Alan Lomax spent time collecting Italian and Spanish folk songs.   I think of the late Henrietta Yurchenco and her pioneering work field recording pre-Columbian native Mexican music. She also collected and researched the folk music of Guatemala, Spain, Morocco, Puerto Rico and the Georgia Sea Island among other cultures. These are important folk traditions as well. We certainly cannot forget the studies of African-American folk music either.

The point is - folk music is very broad. No one is denying the music that you love and spoke about is folk music. The rest of us see a modern connection that we strongly consider to be folk music as well. It does not replace the traditions that you spoke about or the traditions that Jim Carroll speaks about - two vastly different bodies of music with an important connection.   The contemporary folk music that you wish to ignore - and that is certainly your perogative - IS an example of evolving traditions and deserve to wear the banner of "folk music".

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:51 PM

not to listen to material simply because the author is known denotes a listener who uses note pads less than a 1/4" wide because that's how narrow the mind of the listener is.

I don't think anyone has said they won't listen to songs with a known author, or even that they'll refuse to perform them. All the Sturm und Drang on this thread has been kicked off by people wilfully, immoderately and with malice aforethought suggesting that recently-composed songs shouldn't be referred to as 'folk songs', and furthermore having the unmitigated audacity to opine that places called 'folk clubs' ought to put on a bit of traditional music now and again. Nowt so queer as folk[ies].

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Betsy
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 08:29 PM

Let's remember Roberta Flack - ( I think ) who sang McColls " The very first time I saw your face ". It was written by a Folk singer highly cherished in this thread - but not a song I would expect to hear in a Folk club.
If I did, and it was performed well, it would give me pleasure.
Folk music is in your own head.
We all know the difference between folk and other genres ,without being directed by an out of date "definition".

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 09:50 PM

"Don, I don't think ANYONE is denying that your examples are indeed folksongs. . . ."

Honestly, Ron, if you are going to comment on what I post, please read it a little more carefully. I did not say that anyone is denying that this material (Sharp, Lomax, et al) is folk music. I was talking about those who are not interested in it, and who prefer other songs instead, such as the pop songs I indicated, or self-composed songs.

And I am fully aware that Alan Lomax did not collect songs only in the United States and the British Isles. I am also fully aware that the category of "folk music" is very broad indeed. But there are certain characteristics that it must possess for folklorists, ethnomusicologist, and anthropologists to include it in the category known as "folk music," no matter what part of the world it comes from.

Nor did I indicate in any way that I ignore what you refer to as "contemporary folk music." I do sing some of this material. But in the case of a song by Tom Paxton or Frank Beddoe, when the author is known and the songs have not been "folk processed"—changed in any way—since they were written, I do not regard them as "folk" songs. They are contemporary songs. And I credit the writer when I sing these songs.

And although it is a temptation because they are so well done, I do not regard songs written by Gordon Bok as folk songs, even though they are practically indistinguishable from traditional material. There, too, when I sing a song written by Gordon Bok (and I do a lot of them), I give him proper credit.

Why must these recently composed songs, excellent though many of them are, be called "folk songs" when they don't meet the criteria that ethnomusicologists agree on and when doing so only sews confusion and misinformation? As is amply demonstrated by some of the posts on this and other similar threads!

I have an upstairs neighbor, a young woman, who has just recently released a CD of songs she has written. In the spirit of "support your local musician," I bought a copy from her. She regards her songs as folk songs because someone she knows told that is what they are. She said that she "learned all about folk music" from a friend of hers, whom I subsequently looked up on MySpace. He, too, writes songs. His songs are "interesting," but he wouldn't know a folk song if it bit him in the ass!

Misty sings well and the songs she writes are quite interesting. One of them is a bit of a "gripper," and I might learn it. If I do, whenever I sing it, I will not claim that it's a folk song, I will say that it was written by Misty Weaver. Another friend of hers, Roger Palmeri, did the arrangements for her and engineered the CD. On some of the songs, he added a drum-track, which I find a bit intrusive at times. And in my opinion, unnecessary.

Her MySpace blurb says that she's living in France. She went to Paris for a few months, then returned in early January. She's off again, this time to New Orleans, where she is originally from, but she lives with her husband in the same apartment building that I live in.

As to whether the songs she writes are folk songs or not, when and if I think she's ready to hear it, I may have a chat with her about that. I don't think she is especially emotionally attached to the idea that they are folk songs. It's just that she was told by her friend that that is what they are.

And please—kindly do not try to refute what I have written by misinterpreting what I say. (Pedant alert:   the Academics strike again!!) This is know among logicians as the "straw man fallacy."

Don Firth

P. S. By the way, I lied. Instead of working on folk songs this afternoon, I've been working out a classic guitar arrangement (lute-style) for "The Wind and the Rain," sung by Feste at the end of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Not a folk song. I found the tune in The Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time, Vol. I, by William Chappell. This book contains many folk songs, but a lot that are not folk songs, although they are several centuries old. Feste's song hasn't changed in over four centuries.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:04 PM

Never mind Don

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:06 PM

Right!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:11 PM

Perhaps we will both read a bit more carefully next time

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 02:04 AM

The Snail: "Don't think I could tackle all 80 and I'm not really qualified to do the annotations but I'd be willing to help out. Why not start a thread asking for volunteers? Could be a useful project for a Newcastle student."

Sounds like a jolly good idea to me. Especially regards contacting the University!

Though I also touch type, for what it might be worth...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 03:35 AM

I and a lot of other people I know work bloody hard to promote exactly the sort of music you want. Don't you realise how gratuitously offensive you are being when you sieze on bizarre isolated incidents like The Great Pretender to condemn ALL UK folk clubs as moribund? I take umbrage at that.
Bryan,
I spent thirty odd years in the clubs. I watched and one by one they fell off the tree; saw hundreds of bad performances, which previously would not have been tolerated by club audiences, gradually become accepted, defended then preferred because "the folk didn't have standards so why should we?" or "the old singers sang anything so what does it matter?"
Neither of these statements are in any way true, both standards and discrimination were paramount to many of the singers we met - we recorded hours of them saying so.
If a singer has an off night - tough - it's happened to all of us, he/she'll probably do better next time. If they start having regular off nights, it's obvious to me that they need to do some work. If they, their fellow performers start to argue that it doesn't matter, then bad singing becomes the norm. If it is further argued that it doesn't matter because it's only a bit of fun anyway - the important thing is to sing and bugger the standards - you've dropped the ball, and in doing so, you have been "gratuitously offensive" to the singers who gave us our raw material.
These are not isolated incidents of a bygone era. They drove me out of most of the clubs I frequented on a regular basis. The last two clubs I attended in the UK (last year and the year before) were just as I have described - even worse in the case of one of them which I know to have been running for at least 25 years. I hear the attitude not only defended, but promoted on this forum regularly - take a look at some of the 'are standards necessary' threads.
Couple this situation with a thread like this where I should "give it a break" when I say I expect some vague idea of what I am going to hear when I attend a folk club, and you've got a bloody mess.
Sure, I can phone in advance to find out if the local folk club caters for people who like folk music - I can phone the grocer's shop in Galway to find out if the cheese they are advertising is real cheese and not that plastic shit that comes in airtight containers. I SHOULDN'T BLOODY HAVE TO

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 04:10 AM

" The very first time I saw your face ". It was written by a Folk singer highly cherished in this thread - but not a song I would expect to hear in a Folk club.
If I did, and it was performed well, it would give me pleasure.
Folk music is in your own head.

Actually Dave Burland does a terrific version of this song - and makes it sound like one of MacColl's - on the Burland/Capstick/Gaughan album of MacColl songs. Betsy, PM me if you haven't got a copy.

The reason I'm banging the drum for trad isn't that I don't like contemporary music, or even that I don't like singer-songwriters. It's just that - if my local FC is anything to go by - this kind of unstated definition of 'folk' can't be relied on any more. People don't give you half a set of traditional songs, a couple of MacColls, a Leadbelly and a few originals; you get an entire set of original material with perhaps the odd Dylan or Hank Williams number thrown in. It's not the same - and, nine times out of ten, it's not as good. My interest in traditional songs ignited when John Kelly did a guest slot & did an entire set of traditional songs - I had no idea there was so much stuff out there, or that it could sound so good. And this was after being a regular FC attender for around five years.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 04:15 AM

Sodding computer:
.....and if I had to each time I went to the grocer's he'd pretty soon be out selling The Big Issue.
Of course not all clubs are like this - it wouldn't be worth even thinking about if they were; but enough of them are to cause concern, and Alice in Wonderland threads like this one are only going to cement the condition into place permanently.
Argue for no standards and 'it doesn't matter what we give 'em' and what have you got - undefinable songs badly sung - gratuitously offensive to singers like Walter Pardon, who knew the difference, to me as a folkie 'lifer' and to the intelligence of any potenial audience for our music.
It is gratuitously offensive not to give of our best to anybody who comes to listen to out music. It is gratuitously offensive to make facile comparisons between our music and other forms which are obviously light years different, and are little more that excuses for not thinking the subject through.
My ideas and opinions didn't spring out of just internet threads or a few bad experiences, or books..... They came from running and singing at clubs, from sitting in the older singers kitchens and listening to what they have to say, and from coming home from club after club with the opinion that I could have heard better in a 'Knees Up Mother Brown' crocodile. Sure, the books played a part in the way I think - unlike some people on this thread, I'm not prepared to block off any source of information by describing it as 'academic shit'. Nor am I going to refuse to listen to an experienced and dedicated club organiser like yourself - the more you have to tell us about how you have managed to run a good club, the more chance we have of getting the ball back in play.
Earlier I outlined what I believe to be the implications of the 1954 definition. If I am wrong and what I described is not folk music, then tell me what I've missed. If you feel the term needs re-defining, feel free to do so, but you're going to have to convince a lot of people who, though they may not attend the clubs, are still up to their ears in the music, and who, if we are wrong in our analysis, are sending out a distorted message which is the one that will prevail.
Jim Carroll
PS Didn't really mistakenly hit the send button, but deliberately sent this in two parts because it was too long.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 04:16 AM

PS Pip,
Don't interrupt when someone's talking!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 06:47 AM

Looks like we're straying back into realms of subjective idealism here. The whole point of this thread was to look at the Objective Reality of what was being done In the Name of Folk, and whether or not that was compatible with the the 1954 definition. If you want ideals then by all means start another thread - call it: The Folk Police: What Should be Happening in Our Folk Clubs or even worse What Used to Happen in Our Folk Clubs but Doesn't Now, or worse still Why What I Do is Proper Folk and What Anyone Else Does Isn't. And I'm not too bothered about a discussion of standards either - least of all from someone who felt it necessary to dismiss my singing of a traditional ballad as being somehow akin to bad pop music.

I only listen to folk music in singarounds & clubs; I steer well clear of Folk Celebrity (with few exceptions) and anything that involves PA systems (on account of my damaged hearing*) and on those rare occasions I do listen to folk at home, I listen to the so-called Source Singers. One of my favourites is Mrs Pearl Brewer, as recorded by Max Hunter in 1958; her singing of The Cruel Mother (Here) I regard as damn near definitive & yet I'm sure many here would disagree, and well they might. I don't go to a singaround to judge people on their weaknesses, rather I go to appreciate them on their strengths - even the strength of having the balls to get up and sing a song in the first place. The fact that here in 2009 people are still doing it is cause for celebration, & celebrate I jolly well will; I go to get pissed and have a ball. I like a laugh & enjoy the crack (as we Northumbrians say) even though all my songs tend to be serious traditional songs & ballads, sung seriously too. However bad my singing is judged to be I reserve that right to sing what I am moved to sing and must, therefore respect that right in others too.

* I blame the Pink Fairies for this, one of their numerous farewell tours, circa 1975, which has made it painful for me to endure loud music ever since. Coincidentally, it was around that time I first started wandering into Folk Clubs; for respite likely. It's worse now, so when over-amplification is involved I tend not to bother.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:02 AM

Let's face it, all'folk' songs were contempory at some time or other i.e. all the Napoleonic ballads, General Wolf etc. The fact that they were 'collected' years & years after the events desxcribed makes them 'traditional'but if some unknown writer wrote a song about,lets say, the death of Jade Goodey [as aposed to the Death of Queen Jane] & some collector heard it being sung in 20 years time, would that make it 'traditional'?
Besides writing, as I would put it,'within the folk idiom' my main interest is sea songs. During my time in the MN I noted down, all the shipboard songs I heard, & no I don't mean chanties, they were long gone, no one knew who wrote them, their were scores of varients of many of these songs [see Perma Thread 'Merchant Navy Songs]. All of them were 20th C songs, does this make them 'traditional' or 'folk' or just 'songs'? In the main they use existing tunes, a few of them folk tunes, but mainly popular song tunes e.g. Bye bye blackbird.
I don't rearly care, I love traditional songs with a passion, but also contemporary 'folk' songs if they stike a chord with me.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Phil Beer
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:06 AM

I also blame the PINK FAIRIES too. Hawkwind got arrested on their way into Exeter when I were a lad and the Fairies played the entire night (Rock night at Tiffs'.) Discovered a great way of protecting hearing years ago though. Two cigarette filters carefully inserted in the appropriate orifices. 20/30db cut and removes many of the annoying transients. I still go to as much live music of all shapes, sizes, and denominations as I did in those days but since I no longer smoke, one packet generally lasts a year or two.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:28 AM

"The Folk Police: What Should be Happening in Our Folk Clubs or even worse What Used to Happen in Our Folk Clubs but Doesn't Now, or worse still Why What I Do is Proper Folk and What Anyone Else Does Isn't. "
No, it looks like we're scurrying back behind infantile name calling
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:32 AM

[see Perma Thread 'Merchant Navy Songs].

An amazing resource: PermaThread: Merchant Navy Songs

I also blame the PINK FAIRIES too.

I tried ear plugs but they spoil the music!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:38 AM

The fact that they were 'collected' years & years after the events desxcribed makes them 'traditional'but if some unknown writer wrote a song about,lets say, the death of Jade Goodey [as aposed to the Death of Queen Jane] & some collector heard it being sung in 20 years time, would that make it 'traditional'?

Yes, if it happened, but how likely is that? If someone writes a song about Jade Goody now - and it doesn't get recorded - then who's going to hear it? If it is recorded, of course, then the process Maud Karpeles described is unlikely to happen -

Firstly, the tune is to some extent translated into the accepted idiom, so that the continuity of tradition is maintained; secondly, it ceases to be static and stereotyped, but becomes multiform through the individual variations made by its performers; and thirdly, the forms in which the tune ultimately survives are determined by the community: for the variations which meet with approval persist, and the others die out. In this sense, a folk song, even when it has an individual origin, may be said to be of communal authorship.

- and it probably won't become a folk song. It may be a hit, and you may see them singing it on the Top of the Pops, but it won't be a folk song. (Not definitely, but probably.)

The Merchant Navy songs you refer to are really interesting - it's certainly folk song, whether or not we call the individual songs folksongs! I wonder if that kind of singing still goes on, or if lads go out with iPods these days?

Society changes. Once you needed to be able to ride a horse in order to get from A to B, now you can get the bus. Once you needed to be able to sing a song in order to hear music, now you can switch on the radio. The folk process - the process that gave us the chanties and the Child ballads - is more or less dead, just like the blacksmith's trade is more or less dead; that's part of what makes the music it left us so valuable.

If anyone's exhibiting "subjective idealism" in this thread, it's surely the people who maintain that the tradition never died, the folk process goes on endlessly, and a folk song is just whatever a folk singer sings at a folk club. I second Don's point. We can all agree (I think) that there's a difference between traditional songs and contemporary songs; why must these recently composed songs, excellent though many of them are, be called "folk songs"?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:40 AM

"Looks like we're straying back into realms of subjective idealism here."
Can we establish on what this 'subjective idealism' is based - we've all attended, run and performed at clubs - some of us have an aversion to books as academic shite, maybe yours came to you in a dream along with the pink fairies.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:45 AM

No, it looks like we're scurrying back behind infantile name calling

Nothing could be further from the truth. In the above comical thread proposals I was reflecting on the tenor of several recent posts from Pip, Yourself & Don Firth respectively, fully aware that the whole thing is founded on subjective idealism anyway. Apologies for any offence caused in so doing.

Again - I'm trying to understand Folk Music according to the human reality of the thing rather the hoary academic ideal so many of you seem to regard as sacrosanct. I personally think it's bollocks, for reasons outlined (but never answered) elsewhere, as I would rather deal with a music defined by the subjective musicians than the objective academics. As with language, the study of a music is not the defining of it, yet pedantry abounds; a similar pedantry, I fear, pervades Folk Music. Pragmatically, however, it's something else entirely.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:47 AM

on the Top of the Pops

For what it's worth, the BBC pulled TOTP back in 2006.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:52 AM

the folk process goes on endlessly

As long as there are people and music the folk process will endure.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:56 AM

Pip Radish:
just like the blacksmith's trade is more or less dead

Minor pedantic correction here, Pip - our village blacksmith is alive and kicking, still carrying on as a farrier (shoeing horses) as well as more modern aspects of the job (mending agricultural equipment, wrought-ironwork, etc.)

As long as there's horses there'll always be farriers. :-)

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Nick
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 08:17 AM

Will
Reminds me of my favourite joke of the week

Man goes for a job as a blacksmith.
"Have you had any experience shoeing horses?"
"No but I once told a donkey to piss off"

My coat is already on.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 08:30 AM

LOL!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 08:33 AM

Earlier I outlined what I believe to be the implications of the 1954 definition. If I am wrong and what I described is not folk music, then tell me what I've missed. If you feel the term needs re-defining, feel free to do so, but you're going to have to convince a lot of people who, though they may not attend the clubs, are still up to their ears in the music, and who, if we are wrong in our analysis, are sending out a distorted message which is the one that will prevail.

I fear your message is distorted, well & truly. Here again are my points regarding the 1954 definition.

Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission.

No musical tradition has ever evolved without the process of oral transmission.

The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.

All musical traditions are thus shaped - from Hip-Hop to Free Jazz, from Karaoke to Gamelan, from Drum & Bass to Dub Reggae, from Elvis Impersonators to Crusty Didgeridoo Players, from Trad Jazzers to George Formby Enthusiasts, from Neo-Medievalists to Death Metal Headbangers. This is the very nature of musical tradition, simply to be utterly dependent on the people playing it, who, in being fully conversant with the past are nevertheless re-determining it for both themselves and thus assuring its future survival.   

The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular and art music and it can likewise be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community.

All music has evolved from rudimentary beginnings and I very much doubt there has ever been any such an uninfluenced community except in the twisted fantasies of academics who postulate such bullshit. Otherwise - all music has thus originated and been absorbed and transformed. In the composing of a Pop Song, for example - an idea becomes a composition, which is then further interpreted by a community of arrangers, session players, engineers and producers ever before the finished product hits the shelves. There we have The Folk Process in a nutshell. Was anything ever unwritten? What of the Chapbooks and Broadsides? Hell, even The Copper Family sing from a fecking book!   

The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the re-fashioning and re-creation of the music by the community that gives it its folk character.

No music ever remains unchanged, however so conveniently one might qualify the word change; each performance is a renewal within the expectations of its community which are further transfigured by its corporeal & empirical experience. A performance of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in 2009 will be, out of necessity, very different from a performance of Dido & Aeneas within the same community from 40 years earlier. Ditto a rock band comprised of variously talented 14-year-olds going over Eleanor Rigby in a garage are re-fashioning a music, re-creating it, and giving it its folk-character. Likewise, a Folk Singer adapting Eleanor Rigby to their own needs and abilities for performance at his local Folk Club is effecting a transformation over a given piece of music, thus giving it its Folk Character.   A Karaoke singer singing Eleanor Rigby is doing exactly that too, likewise the worker who whistles the melody of Eleanor Rigby as they go cheerfully about their daily business, or else the schoolboy singing Eleanor Rigby as he walks to school.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 08:40 AM

Sinister Supporter: a remarkably longwinded version of the argument that used to exist in a rather shorter form; "all music is folk music, I've never heard a horse sing a song".
However, most of us can spot a qualitative difference, both in in form and historical function, between the Wild Rover and Eleanor Rigby. And a lot of us choose to call the former a folk song, but not the latter. If you can't detect that difference, there isn't much point in discussing it.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 08:43 AM

ok,how about the songs of the singing postman are they folk.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: MartinRyan
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 08:51 AM

The only "singing postman" I knew, wrote a song called "The Salt" - which is definitely written in the traditonal idiom and regarded as a folksong - FWIW.

Regards

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 09:53 AM

why must these recently composed songs, excellent though many of them are, be called "folk songs"?

Folk songs were 'recently composed' once.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 10:15 AM

Alan Smethhurst[singing postman]Allan Smethurst (November 19, 1927 - December 23, 2000), aka The Singing Postman was an English postman and singer.

Smethurst was raised in Sheringham, Norfolk, although he may have been born in Lancashire.[1][2] His mother came from the village of Stiffkey.

Smethurst hummed tunes on his daily post round for many years, before writing and singing songs in his native Norfolk dialect in the 1950s. An audition tape sent to the BBC earned him a spot on Ralph Tuck's local radio show, and Tuck promoted Smethurst under his own record label, "The Smallest Recording Organisation in the World".

In 1966, the Singing Postman's best known hit "Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy?" won Smethurst the Ivor Novello Award for best novelty song of the year. The hit knocked the Beatles from the top of the East Anglia hit parade and remained in the charts for nine weeks. The song had a small comeback in 1994 when it was featured on a television commercial for Ovaltine.

After appearing on The Des O'Connor Show, he signed with EMI and went on to record over 80 songs. He quit the music business in 1970.

Smethurst died in December 2000 after living the last twenty years of his life in a Salvation Army hostel in Grimsby.
    * Bin Born A Long Time
    * 45 Stringed Guitar
    * When The Moon Peeps O'er The Hill
    * Hev Yew Gotta Loight Boy?
    * Followin' Th' Binder Round
    * The Devil's Hoofprints
    * Roundabout
    * Miss from Diss
    * Moind yer head, boy
    * You'll hatta come along a me

other songs included:

    * ha' yer fa'er got a dickey, boy?
    * oi shot a rabbit up a tree
    * the motorbike song
    * Mystery of Owld Tom's Grave
,ON THE NIGHT OF HALLOWEEN,dont feel sorry for the postman,January Sales,WAS THE BOTTOM DROPPED OUT[this is a classic]
whas On the Richter Scale of Rock 'n' Roll casualties, Allan Smethurst barely registers. In fact his name, Allan Smethurst, barely registers at all but as the Singing Postman he found national fame for slightly longer than Andy Warhol's allotted fifteen minutes and at the same time became a local hero to celebrity starved Norfolk from where he originally hailed.
Owing more in looks, personality and musical style to George Formby than George Harrison, The Singing Postman was rocketed in to the pop music stratosphere when Norwich record shops reported that songs of his, sung in a distinct and now disappearing Norfolk dialect, such as 'Hev Yew Gotta Loight Boy?' and 'Oi Can't Get a Nice Loaf of Bread', were outselling the Beatles' 'Ticket to Ride'. Bemused and not a little frightened, Allan found himself courted by the suits from London, appearing on Top of the Pops alongside those other hicks from the sticks - the Rolling Stones - and having his most famous composition 'Loight Boy' covered by Rolf Harris. But fame and adulation did not sit easy with this simple man and not long after a ratings busting appearance on TV's Des O' Connor Show the dream began to unravel.

Allan Smethurst was born in Lincolnshire in 1927 but moved to Sheringham, a pretty little seaside town on the North Norfolk coast as a young boy. He is to this day well remembered by the town's older residents. Allan's parents were poor and his father disappeared from his life quite early on - possibly the first of a number of misfortunes to befall the shy young lad. On a school memory Internet site one pupil claims his nickname at the time was Smelly. What is without doubt is that Allan smashed his face in when he joined in the local kids' game of jumping on the back of passing horse and carts and promptly fell off. The injuries were substantial to his mouth and face and Allan suffered permanent damage to his palate that left him with a speech defect which although not necessarily detectable in his songs was very noticeable in his everyday conversation. This episode may well have inspired one of his more poignant compositions 'Moind Your 'Ead Boy'.

Allan's mother took up with a new man and moved with her teenage son to Cleethorpes back in his birth county. Allan was devastated to leave his friends, Sheringham and Norfolk, the county he loved and whose individuality and quirkiness he would affectionately celebrate time and time again in his songs. He experimented with a number of jobs eventually settling on a job as a postman; a living that allowed him the freedom to develop his musical and songwriting skills. Songs, which arguably all shared the same basic tune and structure, but with delightful lyrics and titles such as 'I Miss My Miss from Diss' and 'Fertilising Lisa'. In 1959 he submitted a self-made tape recording to radio in Norfolk which was picked up by local celebrity Ralph Tuck who featured Allan on his Wednesday Morning show and dubbed him The Singing Postman.

Fame did not follow immediately but over the next five years his regular appearances on radio built his reputation in Norfolk and record shops became accustomed to requests for recordings by the Singing Postman but of course there were none. Perhaps with an eye on the meteoric rise of Mr. Brian Epstein up in Liverpool, Mr Tuck sniffed an opportunity – became Allan Smethurst's manager and recorded him. EP's (extended plays) were all the rage, The Beatles' Twist and Shout, for example, selling so many it made the British Singles Charts despite its higher price. The Singing Postman released First Delivery and the first pressing of 100 copies sold out in days. Parlophone, the record label that boasted the Beatles but also had a history of recording novelty acts, took over the distribution and the EP went on to sell over 10,000 copies countrywide.

Rolf Harris, then a young bearded Australian singer/entertainer/artist ambitious and over here with a sharp eye for a novelty song followed his ground scratching 'Jake the Peg' with Allan's 'Hev Yew Got a Loight Boy', and in theory at least began generating some serious royalties for the musical postie. However none of The Singing Postman's songs appear in the chart history books sung by himself or Rolf. It was almost as if The Singing Postman didn't really happen. But he did. Back in 1965 there were only two television channels to choose from. Half of the country would be watching BBC1 and the rest would be a tad more adventurous and tune into ITV. A peak time appearance on The Rolf Harris Show was enough to make Hev Yew Gotta Loight Boy a national catchphrase in playgrounds and pubs across Britain for a few weeks.

Meanwhile the impresarios wanted Alan for the pop music package tours that were raking in thousands as singers and bands relentlessly crisscrossed the country playing cinemas and halls to adoring teenagers. Allan did some dates but found live performing traumatic and he was even more mortified when screaming girls outside one venue mobbed him. The GPO (General Post Office graciously granted Allan permission to perform in his uniform even though he had resigned his £12 a week job. Even with the comfort of his familiar tunic and hat Allan bore appearances on stage like a man having a heart bypass without anaesthetic; he took to standing and looking straight down at the floor as he strummed his guitar or facing the audience but with his eyes tightly shut. He began to drink during the afternoons before a performance to summon up the courage to get up on stage. Soon he had a reputation for being a drunk and from local beer Alan soon graduated to spirits – whiskey becoming the drug of his choice. Somewhere in London Bob Dylan was turning the Beatles on to pot, in Sussex various members of the Rolling Stones were experimenting with hallucegenics and Mars Bars but in Grimsby the Singing Postman was pissed out of his head in the public bar of The Leaking Boot on Jack Daniels.

The Singing Postman soon disappeared back into the obscurity that had spawned him except now he had a rock'n'roll a legacy – a raging drink habit. Occasionally he made the local papers but this time for some alcohol fuelled misdemeanour or other. Once there was a very lively row with his mother, stepfather and a frying pan, which ended up in the magistrates' court. He spoke little of his fame or his music preferring to engage fellow drinkers about whether they believed in extra-terrestrials. In 1980 he moved voluntarily into the Salvation Army hostel in Grimsby, Brighowgate House, where he wound his life down slowly.

In 1994 Hev yew gotta loight boy? was used in an Ovaltine advert and interest in The Singing Postman was briefly reignited. A collection of CDs was issued. The renewed interest in his career or the prospect of royalty cheques were not going to sway Allan again though. He was not about to step back into the limelight. Calls to the hostel from the media were met with a polite but firm rebuttal.

Shortly before he died in December 2000 at the age of 73 a visitor arrived at the hostel. The other residents were shocked but pleasantly surprised to see the ever cheerful and still familiar face from their TV screens. His black curly hair and beard were now grey but Allan Smethurst broke out into a rare broad toothy grin as Rolf Harris called out 'Hev You Gotta Loight, Boy?"




        
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Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Mr Happy
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 10:18 AM

Wasn't Dave Mallet a singing postie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mallett

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 10:21 AM

However, most of us can spot a qualitative difference, both in in form and historical function, between the Wild Rover and Eleanor Rigby.

Both might be folk songs according the 1954 Definition; both might be folk sings according to the Horse Definition; both are songs I'd rather never hear again for the rest of my life, and yet both will, in all probability, be sung in the name of Folk at our Folk Club on Thursday Night. It's okay though; I will have checked in the shattered sherds of my brain on the way in in exchange for the sort of boozy intoxication that will ensure that I have a jolly good time regardless. I will be but a part of the community, faceless in my inebriation, off my folking head to such an extent that I will, no doubt, sorely regret it the next day. This whole thing is about Folk Empiricism not Qualitative Differences Both In Form and Historical Function; the former is about taking life squarely, and subjectively, on the jaw, whilst the latter is looking at life from the objective outside, assuming such a place exists at all, which I rather doubt to be honest.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Mr Happy
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 10:30 AM

1954 states that even a song with a known composer can be a folk song!

Says it all really

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 10:57 AM

Mr Happy - shhhhhh.....!

there are people around here who don't want that to become public knowledge.

Because it means that songs written today can become folk songs and, boy, do they hate that idea!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Mr Happy
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 11:16 AM

I said '1954' not '1984' - so Big Brother hopefully isn't watching!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 11:28 AM

There's a veritable band of Big Brothers on this forum, Mr H. and, oh yes, they're watching all right!

Hey *200*