This should set folk music back 100 year

Subject: Review: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:22 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFAhW0GvuTE#t=01m30s

Subject: RE: Review: This should set folk music back 100 ye
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:23 PM

This is amazingly bad. Another one is Debby Reynolds singing "If I Had A Hammer".

Subject: RE: Review: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Dead Horse
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:29 PM

So thats what the Everly Bros were doing before they made it big.

Subject: RE: Review: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:32 PM

Regrettably, the thread and the above posts vex me considerably.

First - maybe not for Stringsinger, but certainly for most of us, is we could perform to that standard, we would be out gigging not here posting. Not that I like it - but it is done better than average.

Second - it isn't folk. So why should it have any effect on folk.

Third - if folk wanted to go anywhere, back 100 years would be good, 200 better and so on.

Subject: RE: Review: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:35 PM

Oh, Gawd! I wasn't ready for THAT!!

Does this mean that some totally demented Hollywood producer wants to do a remake of "Hootenanny Hoot?"

We are DOOMED!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Review: This should set folk music back 100 ye
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:38 PM

I think that it's done very well as a spoof on ......well I hesitate to name the group.

Setting something back 100 years is a trope. "Trope (linguistics), a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words" not to be taken literally. The irony is that folk music is already set back. (It's a joke, son!)

It's what many think of as being folk and that's the point.

It's all "folked up"....another trope.

Frank

Subject: RE: Review: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Barry Finn
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:45 PM

come on this was recorded back around 65' & Debbie Reynolds I think had a hand in it's production or something. I think some of the members belonged later to the goup "We 5" (you we're on my mind & walk right in?). Let's no get to over excited

Barry

Subject: RE: Review: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 04:07 PM

". . . if we could perform to that standard, we would be out gigging not here posting."

What standard is that, Richard?

As far as that goes, many of us currently posting on Mudcat can—and have—performed to some damned high standards. And some continue to do so.

The standard I set for my own performances was to sing for general audiences as well as folk music fans (not just confine my efforts to folk clubs) and introducing them to traditional folk music, not what many people regarded as folk music (which would include the video Frank linked to). Some of my audiences included classical music and early music aficionados, who were used to some pretty high musical standards. And I made a living at it.

So snorting at that video is not exactly a case of "sour grapes."

Have you seen the movie (mockumentary) "A Mighty Wind?" Lots of people have seen that movie (including a surprising number of folkies) and didn't get the joke.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 04:14 PM

Check and mate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnqqdZZddFE&feature=related

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 04:19 PM

Funny, I found it hard to distinguish between that and an awful lot of pop-folk from the 60s and 70s.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 04:21 PM

So....have they done Child ballads yet? (MY demented mind wants to see the girls in shorts come out and then do a straight (except for costumes) version of "The Two Sisters"..)

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"Second - it isn't folk. So why should it have any effect on folk."

Sadly, enough of this was done that many people have the idea that it IS folk. They have an acoustic guitar and they aren't singing "Rock Around the Clock"...it MUST be folk. (The horse will sing in the next video)

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 04:25 PM

A Spockumentary?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: sing4peace
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 04:27 PM

That was a lot of fun.
Entertainment...
what a concept!

JK

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 04:45 PM

Listening to the perky blonde singing about how she's picked apples and harvested hay reminded me of the time Jesse Fuller sang in one of Seattle's better coffeehouses for two weeks. One evening, while introducing a song, he remarked, "I kinda get a laugh out of some of these clean-cut college boys singin' about bein' a 'steel drivin' man.' That's 'cause I have drove some!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:07 PM

I'm sorry, but from the eastern side of the pond it was difficult to see that this was a parody. Isn't that what the US folk revival was like? (Yes, I have seen " A Mighty Wind".)

Was it really any more embarrasing than this -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wik2uc69WbU

or this -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCifK-vIG2k?

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Stower
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:14 PM

For me, Debby Reynolds singing "If I Had A Hammer" is so bad that it tips right over into (unwittingly) inspired: the silly choregraphy, the faked sincerity, the embarassing melodrama. Thank you, Stringsinger, I haven't laughed so much in ages.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:18 PM

Ah but totally sincere sincerity!

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:24 PM

When world's collided.

Some of the video still available from that era is nearly surreal in the juxtaposition of the old vaudeville schtick overlapping with the music and performers of a completely seperate new era. There is a youtube video of John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the Merv Griffin Show with Henny Youngman that is striking in the same way.
In the Hullabaloo clip, the costumes, set, and performers are completely out of place with the song, and then in walk McGuinn and the Byrds, like acid freaks stumbling into a Manhattan cocktail party, to top it all off.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:28 PM

Oh well, I like modesty and humility.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:36 PM

is that string singer singing with the weavers?

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:40 PM

That was a nasty little jab, Snail--and given that the British Folk revival seems to have revolved around this sort of thing All Around My Hat--people who live in glass houses...

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:40 PM

and speaking of acid heads at the cocktail party, watch as Hugh and Jerry converse pleasantly, and then Mr Garcia provides a moment that transcends cultural boundaries.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: olddude
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:43 PM

Be afraid, Be very afraid ... Oh my goodness scary stuff boys and girls

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 05:43 PM

enjoying the clips they are ace guys.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 06:10 PM

During the 1950s and before, there was a slowly increasing awareness and interest in American traditional music, fed by collectors such as the Lomaxes, poet Carl Sandburg, and others, also fed by performers such as Burl Ives, Susan Reed, Richard Dyer-Bennet, et al. It was in the very early 1950s that I became actively interested.

At that time, if you mentioned that you sang folk songs, most people thought you were talking about Country and Western or what was referred to as "Modern Western Swing." It wasn't until a fair number of people, particularly college kids, started getting together spontaneously for song fests and to swap songs (what were originally called "hootenannies") that the commercial music interests woke up to the idea that there might be profit to be made in this music. The big turning point was when the Kingston Trio's rendition of "Tom Dooley" made the Hit Parade in 1958, and then what became known as "the folk revival" was off and running.

Was it really a folk revival?

One of the problems with folk music as far as the commercial interests were concerned was—who gets the royalties? These songs are all public domain. So not us! We gotta do something about that!

So—a lot of goofy stuff started going on. At one time, some nineteen different people claimed copyright on "Greensleeves." And "folk songs" were being ground out by professional song writers for commercially oriented groups such as The New Christy Minstrels to sing and record. Songs that sounded a bit like folk songs, but with a known composer who could garner the proceeds. Plastic "folk songs." And, for that matter, plastic "folk groups."

The Weavers came together because they were all into folk music before all this got started. They formed a group "to introduce the American people to their own traditional music" and their first recordings came out, I believe, in 1949 or 1950. That's when I first heard them on juke boxes and on the radio. They sang traditional songs.

The group Peter Paul and Mary was put together some years later by impresario Al Grossman. So rather that coming together spontaneously, they were a "manufactured" group. They sang some traditional songs, but mostly recently written songs.

So—there were people who were interested in traditional folk music. And there was the commercial "pop-folk" phenomenon. The latter spawned a fair number of manufactured folk groups and equally ersatz folk songs that were written to be sung by such groups—and on which, royalties could be collected.

I'm not making this up. I knew a guy who sang with the New Christy Minstrels for about a year and wrote a lot of songs for them.

So when someone mentions "the folk revival," I'm not quite sure what they're talking about—in the same way as when they start talking about "folk songs." I need a little clarification.

NO! Let's not start that discussion yet again!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 06:20 PM

Pete Seeger was singing with the Weavers.

Pop goes the folk!
It's interesting to see that folk music in this time period was treated with a Hollywood
brush. It was the "in" thing at the time. The Troubadour in Los Angeles featured groups like this as did Leadbetters with Randy Sparks on Westwood Boulevard in West L.A.
"Up With People" was popular at the time.   There was the Hollywood folk crowd coming through the Troubadour. It was there I was exposed to the likes of Michele Phillips,
(and I missed meeting the notorious John) but I heard Steve Mann play. "The Modern Folk Quartet" were actually talented people as was Terry Kirkman of the "Association".

I accompanied Hoyt Axton at the Troubadour during that time.
The folk scene became quickly rock-and-rollized and the clean-cut gave way to the scroungy. Eventually, I had to leave that scene. Hollywood had left a bad odor.
Nothing like drug-addled folks singing folksongs. Consciousness-expanding all over the place. One of the best descriptions of this time is "Long Time Coming" by Dave Crosby.
I was captivated by his book. I played opposite him at a defunct poor-man's Troubadour which eventually turned into a West L.A. laundry called the New Balladeer. He was a fixture at the Troubadour's Monday night "hoots" for quite a time. The Byrds signed a recording contract with Columbia the night they came down to the New Balladeer to see Dave. There was a guy making hamburgers in the kitchen named John Kay who eventually had a group called "Steppenwolf", after the novel by Herman Hesse.

Pop goes the Brits Folks!
Snail, the folkscene in Britain was not immune as Ted has pointed out. It might
recover from some of it's stuffiness. It certainly had it's pop flurry as well.
What about Lonnie Donegan? Then there was skiffle. Lonnie apparently approached
Moe Asch in New York at Folkways to claim royalties for Leadbelly tunes. Moe invited him to come by and he would personally break a few recordings of Leadbelly over his head.

Then there were these Teddy Boys from Liverpool.

Stringsinger

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Chris Partington
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 06:23 PM

Oh. I still enjoy "All Around My Hat" and it is an old song, even if the shirts do look a bit flouncy in that clip.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 06:23 PM

Great commentary there, Don. The lines between Folk Songs and Singer/Songwriter Songs have always been a bit blurry to me, and your comments give at least some inkling as to why a traddy like Dylan decided to swing over into the songwriter mode.
The comments about the contrast between substance (a hardrock mining song, for example) and its presentation by a cleancut crew of college lettermen always struck me as incongruous and insincere, even as a lad of 11 years. Somehow, putting a drum behind those kids and letting them grow their hair long gave them more credibility to me as a teenager. But somewhere along the line most of us come to a place where we recognize that the strength is in the beauty and integrity of the song, not the style and popularity of the singer, and that the best a performer can do is find a song with meaning and try to do it justice.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 06:32 PM

and Frank, your reminiscences about the Troubador are the kind of thing that make coming to the Mudcat worthwhile.
I had thought McGuinn and Crosby were pals in the Greenwich folk scene before coming to LA, but you imply they met at the Troubador. And how did Gene Clark hook up with them?
What kind of stuff were you and Crosby doing at the time? That must have been 1964 or so? Straight folk and traditional music?
Sorry, but I would buy you a beer if we were sitting in a bar, just to keep you talking.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 07:14 PM

It may not be fair to bring up singers whose native language wasn't English, but as Jimmy Carter would have it "life isn't fair"...

The Jacob Sisters

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: bobad
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 07:22 PM

Man, everything about that is BAAAAAAAAD!

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Leadfingers
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 08:00 PM

Its the SINCERITY Man !! As kong as you can fake the sincerity - - - -

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Folknacious
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 08:35 PM

Actually I thought it was rather fun. There's nothing like period piece to make you wince and laugh at the same time, and A Mighty Wind was a great follow on to all that. It made me curious enough to Google for the Legendaires and found this on the Sandiego Troubadour site about another US group I'd never heard of called We Five:

From the third album (The Return of the We Five) on, the female vocalist would be Debbie Burgan, Jerry's wife. (Jerry, Debbie, and Pete Fullerton retained the We Five name after a business acquisition with the other band members.)

Debbie was no stranger to the California folk scene. She recorded her first disc at 14 and was later a member of the Legendaires, a trio that later secured a recording contract with Mercury Records and worked with Mike Curb, a music industry veteran whose diverse curriculum vitae includes soundtrack music for American International Pictures youth exploitation films and a term as California Lieutenant Governor.

A short promotion film featuring the Legendaires is now considered a collector's item for devotees of the Scopitone, a '60s novelty that placed a video screen over the body of a jukebox. Scopitone music shorts are now all over the Internet, a pop culture renaissance that must provide Debbie Burgan with occasional moments of nostalgic reflection.

"In October of 1965 the Legendaires were asked to film a short film for a juke box, coin operated sound film on the Scopitone," said Debbie. "The Legendaires consisted of Michael Alley, Jeff Tonkin, and myself, then Debbie Graf. We had won the Battle of the Bands at the Hollywood Bowl and just returned from singing for President Johnson at the World's Fair in New York. Most of the product for Scopitone was produced in Hollywood by a company owned by Debbie Reynolds and film-maker Irving Briskin. Our film was shot at Griffith Park on the trains. It was very exciting to be involved in the project. We sang a song named 'Good for Nothing Bill.' There were dancers, and a hobo depicting the character Bill. We were standing on the top of the train at times, then the platform of the caboose.

"The dancers were doing a routine with the hobo, and we thought it was over the top, but we were just the singers," said Debbie. "It was the first time I had been taken out and had clothing bought for a project by the director. We all had make-up and hair done, as well. I don't remember making any money, but I did get to keep the clothes.

"At the time, there were 427 machines operating in California lounges, and over a thousand in the United States. I had some calls from relatives who saw us from several states away, and that was exciting. Each machine held 36 short films in color, and we were one of 26 films made at that time along with Debbie Reynolds, Kay Starr, Vic Damone, Bobby Vee, James Darren, Mary Kaye, Frankie Avalon, Vikki Carr, the Righteous Brothers, and others. Each film ran for about three minutes and was produced by Briskin. It cost a quarter to play them. Sadly, the Scopitone was short lived."

Not much implied about "folk" in there, but interesting.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: deadfrett
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 08:43 PM

Frank, wasn't the GOOD MUSIC almost lost in the rush to copyright? There certainly were a lot of happy attorneys. Thank goodness they could only copyright their own arrangements. Dave

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 years
From: Genie
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 09:11 PM

Snail,

Was it really any more embarrasing than this -



or this -

Snail, I'm glad you included that Weavers TV appearance clip above. When I clicked on your "Puff" link , I immediately thought of Ronnie Gilbert in her formal gown and the other Weavers in their dress suits, so I looked up that video.
When I went to post it, I realized you already had. LOL

But an even more 'popified' version of Goodnight Irene by The Weavers was their hit Decca recording, backed by a full orchestra and sung at a tediously slow pace click here.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: bobad
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 09:17 PM

The stuff about the Scopitone is neat, I vaguely remember having seen them in action. There is a goldmine of performances that were recorded for them on YouTube and it even has it's own Facebook page.
Here is one cultural artifact for those of you who have a strong stomach: Fiesta Hippie.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 years
From: Genie
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 09:19 PM

And, Lonesome EJ, this post of yours brought back a vivid memory of a bizarre (hilariously so) TV segment I caught in the '60s.

You said:
"When world's collided.

Some of the video still available from that era is nearly surreal in the juxtaposition of the old vaudeville schtick overlapping with the music and performers of a completely separate new era. ...
In the Hullabaloo clip, the costumes, set, and performers are completely out of place with the song, and then in walk McGuinn and the Byrds, like acid freaks stumbling into a Manhattan cocktail party, to top it all off."

The TV spot that brings to mind is of Joan Baez appearing on Hefner's "Playboy After Dark" to sing a haunting and stirring a cappella version of Dylan's "Tears of Rage" --
while Hef and the other smoking-jacket clad gents sat around on the couches with barely-legal-looking blonde "playmate" types (with stylishly straight shoulder-length coifs) in slinky gowns, all taking on "meaningfully deep" expressions on their faces as she sang.

Can you say "incongruity?"

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 10:19 PM

Hi Lonesome EJ,

Crosby was on the opposite bill from me. We never worked together.
Could be Roger and Dave met in New York but that contract was signed
that night. Dave was doing pretty much the same stuff...kinda' bluesy.
I was doing traditional. About '64. You're right.

Dave,

The Cityfolkies were copyrighting everything that they could. Lou Gottleib got some money for Uncle Dave's "Rock About My Saro Jane". Bob Gibson copyrighted a lot. It was business.
If it was PD you could change it a little and claim copyright. If you check out Harry Fox Agency and the BMI and ASCAP listings you'll find out who copyrighted what and when.
You could rewire lots of PD material in those days. Then there was the Tom Dooley (KT/Frank Profitt) suit.

Copyright might be the enemy of the folk process.

Frank

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 10:31 PM

There's always the good, the bad and the indifferent.

Just do the best you can.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, on the road in Steveston Village, British Columbia

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 11:26 PM

Man, drawing a comparison between the Weavers doing "Irene" and the smarmy artifice of early PPM or Debbie Reynolds is downright myopic. With all due respect, myopic!


A

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 12:11 AM

I think a good many of these videos were shot and presented in the doo wop era, a time when it seemed that everything had a tinge of it. Much as I enjoy doo wop to this day, I prefer my music straight.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: melodeonboy
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 03:57 AM

Blimey! This thread is off the end of the cheesometer scale! Mind you, it's given me a few laughs.

Couldn't we just rename this thread "cheese"? After all, that's what it's really about!

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 03:59 AM

I thoroughly enjoyed both the song and the video. Too open minded for my own good, probably.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Howard Jones
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 04:30 AM

When I read the title I wondered whether setting folk music back 100 years was meant to be good or bad.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: TheSnail
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 05:22 AM

M.Ted

given that the British Folk revival seems to have revolved around this sort of thing All Around My Hat

No it didn't. Look at the dates. As Frank points out, this is a bit of folk pop and, as such, stands up pretty well. (The moustaches are a bit embarrasing I admit. I probably had one like that myself.)

Stringsinger

What about Lonnie Donegan?

An English member of the American folk revival. Your point?

Then there were these Teddy Boys from Liverpool.

And very good they were too but I don't think they claimed to be "folk".

Are you saying that Pete Seeger is "folk pop"?

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 06:18 AM

this is very worrying,some idiot will start doing this again on the english folk scene.
the latest thing is morons going around with backing tracks,they should be made to listen to daniel o donnell,for the rest of their lives.

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: skarpi
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 06:34 AM

hmmmmmmmmmmm

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: melodeonboy
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 06:45 AM

"...they should be made to listen to daniel o donnell,for the rest of their lives."

Schweik, you're so cruel!

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: melodeonboy
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 06:46 AM

But fair!

Subject: RE: This should set folk music back 100 year
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 07:12 AM

As so often happens with some of Mudcat's more esoteric threads, I'm floundering a bit. Wasn't this just an old track presented as part of a tribute site for those old 'film jukeboxes'?
Have I missed something, or has someone threatened to resurrect this style of singing, thus creating yet another in a long line of 'threats' to the 'genuine' folk music which some Mudcatters hold dear?
Or is this, as I say, just an old track which someone's dug out for our entertainment?
For the record, they reomind me of The Springfields, The Seekers and (dare I say it?) Peter Paul abd Mary.
I wouldn't mind one little bit if someone did revive this style of singing. I'd do it myself if I had just a tenth of the talent these three had.