Is traditional song finished?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 05:43 AM

Bryan:
".....he uses that one post of yours as his primary (if not only) evidence for the current state of UK folk clubs."
I don't believe you to be a stupid person, so I can only conclude that you are deliberately distorting my worries on the state of the clubs - which really is not worthy of you.
My impressions are based on my own experience on the situation from the mid-eighties (as limited as that now is) and a great deal of evidence from elsewhere, much from this forum.
Your head-in-the-sand dishonesty in denying that this evidence exists only acts as confirmation that things are as they seem - If we can't rely on the organisers of the good clubs.......
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: glueman
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:01 AM

One myth I must put my two pennorth to, much as I love myths. Traditional songs did not last the distance because they were 'better', they did so because they were memorable and collectable. Some traditional songs are marvels, others pedestrian bits of fluff one can barely beiieve spoke to their own age, let alone our's.
Being traditional, even by conservative definitions is no guarantee of quality, only antiquity. It should go without saying but some people still elide subjective qualities onto simple chronology. You won't hear 'better' songs in a folk club you'll hear older songs.

As you were.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 07:33 AM

I dig provenance; its an essential part of my appreciation of stuff as a whole. In the antiques trade there is a lot of forgeries & repros; I find the residue of older times to be possessed of a particular patina which whilst being difficult to fake is not impossible, hence the necessity for provenance and the dedicated work of the taxonomists & taxidermists whose work I only deride because of the inherent class condescension one encounters in most areas of Folkloric Studies of a Certain Period & the legacy thereof.

I suppose we could open up a whole new can of worms here regarding the qualities of Traditional Songs - the recent ballad thread was an interesting example of this, but ultimately failed to grab me despite my passion for ballads. To do so would require a much broader remit on the societal conditions in which these songs arose, and discussion on the actual mechanics of the Folk Process, which to many would appear to be an end in itself, rather than the consequence of what I regard as highly exacting craftspersonship which is the key to any musical genre on whatever level of culture. This is why I stress the importance of individuals working within a tradition. I might cite the case of a young working-class non-musician by the name of Peter Hook who was moved to go out out and buy a bass guitar after seeing the Sex Pistols at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1976. Within two or three years he has not only absorbed the tradition of popular bass guitar playing, but reconstructed its entire vocabulary and inspired others to do likewise. This is the nature of tradition & individual mastery as a living idiom; we can see this happening, observe it & account for it because it is our common history. Even the most idiosyncratic Pop Singer, be it Lady Gaga or Mark E. Smith, is part of an ongoing tradition of music. No different from the quirky traditional singers who were as much valued for their evident idiosyncrasy as they are for being bearers of the tradition.   

With the old songs it's difficult because all we've got is the residue - the circumstantial evidences. Because we weren't there when they were made we might only conjecture, and ponder why they exist in such a proliferation of variation. That this seems somehow remarkable to academic minds is perhaps because the processes of music are somehow feral, exotic, alien - thus it becomes a subject to be studied at some considerable remove from the context in which it occurred - its natural habitat as it were, which is all but lost to us now. So now we're back to provenance, to origin, and the part this plays in our appreciation of the songs themselves which, I would argue, is not inconsiderable for very good reason.

Folk Song study is not an exact science, but it does have a very obvious Orthodoxy. As a Fortean I am suspicious of orthodoxies, even Fortean ones....

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Suffet
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 07:58 AM

Bert,

First you quoted me: ...Some plena makes fun of political or business leaders, some tells stories of disasters such as hurricanes or fires, some makes social commentary, and some just tells of pretty women, ruthless criminals, mean bosses, and bad luck...

And then you added: That is exactly what us singer/songwriters are doing. But of course we are not Puerto Rican so I guess that doesn't count.

I'm not sure I understand your point. If you believe I was somehow belittling contemporary singer-songwriters you are mistaken. I happen to be one myself.

My purpose was solely to answer the original question -- Is traditional song finished? -- in the negative by pointing out one culture where traditional song is very much alive. But the plena of Puerto Rico is only one example. The corrido of Mexico is another, and I am sure Mudcatters can cite others.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 10:47 AM

""My 'Don't go to a folk club' was addressed to the fact that many clubs no longer present folk songs - what else is there to say?""

Jim, I know you are one of the truly great exponents of the sweeping generalisation, but really, that is a step too far.

1. Your statement is patently untrue. I have performed in dozens of clubs and organised or assisted in organising about fifteen, and I can honestly say, hand on heart, I have never visited any folk club without hearing some genuine folk music. If you mean that there isn't enough to suit you, or that there is too much of a kind you dislike, just say so.

2. That statement is grossly misleading, and gravely insulting to all those who still devote their time, energy, and passion for music, to keeping open those venues where folk music can thrive, albeit alongside other genres which may be pleasing to those attending.

3. If you are so devoted to the music, it seems singularly stupid to be directing people away from the places where it can still be heard almost any day of the week, leaving them with only the comparatively small number of festivals occurring yearly, especially as those festivals also feature much that you despise.

You seem almost to be wanting to lock the tradition away in vaults where academics can hug it to themselves without having to allow access to the rabble outside.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:30 AM

Don - Read what I said in context - it was a rhetorical question addressed to Tom Bliss's re-definition of the term 'folk' in connection with introducing somebody new to the music.
Having said which, the point at which I actually decided not to visit any more clubs on the offchance was after having been to three of them on the trot where I actually heard no folksongs - all in the London area.
On my last visit to a 'folk club' (December) - I left after an hour of not having heard one that even vaguely fitted the term.
This is not to say that there aren't clubs which include full evenings of folk songs in their programme - of course there are - but try telling a classics or opera or jazz or blues or pop fan that you can only guarantee 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 per cent of what you call your club and see how far it gets you.
Anyway - the misuse of the term is only part of my point - the standard at which it is performed and the argument for not maintaining and raising the quality of performance is also an issue.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:52 AM

Jim Carroll

Your head-in-the-sand dishonesty in denying that this evidence exists only acts as confirmation that things are as they seem - If we can't rely on the organisers of the good clubs.......

Well, isn't that nice. And there I was working on a reasoned response to Jim's posting of 28 Feb 10 - 11:09 AM. Don't think I'll bother now.

For Don's benefit, here is a fuller exposition of Jim's possition on folk clubs -

Subject: RE: Should folk songs be sung in folk clubs?
From: Jim Carroll - PM
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 09:30 AM

Can I just make clear my position on the clubs and folk music.
I came on to the scene in the early sixties when virtually everything being presented as folk was just that – folk. We had some access to the BBC material collected ten years earlier through the Caedmon/Topic 'Folk Songs of Britain' series, and, thanks to some prodding by Alan Lomax we were examining our own British and Irish repertoires. It wasn't all great by any means, but the enthusiasm 'buzzed' and I can't recall people who got up to sing who were incapable of holding two notes together or reading from scripts – we all thought that the stuff we were doing was worth making an effort for.
Some clubs were 'purist' and frowned on non-folk songs and musical instruments, others like the Lloyd/MacColl camp, used accompaniment and saw the tradition as an inspiration for creating new songs. I was a part of this latter crowd; I even regarded Dylan as worth a listen before he 'popped out' of the scene and went for the big bucks. I admired songwriters like MacColl, Seeger, McGinn, Tawney, Pickford and the many others who were creating in the folk idiom – it was really what we were about. With the Radio Ballads I really thought we'd made it – the perfect marriage of the tradition and newly written songs.
In the mid seventies things started to change and by the eighties it became virtually impossible to be guaranteed a night of folk or folk related songs, the clubs had become a platform for navel-gazing introspective mumbling their way through stuff that was neither fish nor fowl; so thousands of walked away and what I described further up the thread happened – clubs, audiences, magazines, radio and TV programmes – all gone quicker than you could say Led Zepplin! And along with them, any chance of being taken seriously by the establishment in order to set up the necessary archives and libraries desperately needed to preserve what we had collected from the tradition. The big bang in the club scene was marked by a series of articles and letters in the then leading folk magazine, Folk Review entitled 'Crap Begets Crap'.
The scene hadn't yet become the refuge for failed, fifteenth-rate pop performers and would be Sinatra wannabes, that it has since become, but that didn't take too long to happen.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 12:42 PM

Bryan - can I accept that your non-response to my earlier point means that you feel suitably chastened or should I dream on?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 01:09 PM

Jim, you post addressed to me was abusive. If you would like to take part in a civilised discussion I would be happy to join you.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 01:35 PM

Bryan - what you said was blatently untrue - how civil;ised is that?
Don't worry - it was another rhetorical question anyway
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 01:52 PM

Jim Carroll

what you said was blatently untrue

What in particular?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 01:57 PM

I realise that I am a failure,but I didnt know I was a wannabe Frank Sinatra,or a fifteenth rate pop performer.
I am just a navel gazing introspective frank sinatra wannabe.I dit it my way with my concertina
http://www.dickmiles.com a

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 02:37 PM

"What in particular? "
Oh, come On!!!!!!!!!!
"".....he uses that one post of yours as his primary (if not only) evidence for the current state of UK folk clubs.""
NOT TRUE
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 02:41 PM

You've used it about a dozen times. What other evidence have you got, Jim?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 02:50 PM

Sorry to butt in but of it's evidence you want how about:

hand on heart, I have never visited any folk club without hearing some genuine folk music.

Or

those venues where folk music can thrive, albeit alongside other genres which may be pleasing to those attending.

I love the word thrive in this context.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 02:52 PM

The Snail quoted me as follows:
>> A couple of days ago, Brian Peters said -
I see a lot of folk venues - clubs, festivals etc. - on my travels, and, although I can remember some gruesome examples of that stereotype, it's not very common. I gravitated towards the folk scene because (at its best) it was the opposite of MOR.
I think Brian knows a great deal more about what is going on in UK folk clubs than you, me or S O'P <<

Lest we forget, the stereotype referred to by S O'P was that of "easy listening MOR pop music strummed out on acoustic guitars by an ever ageing baby-boomer demographic". Clubs specialising in that kind of thing do exist, but are less likely to hire me than ones with a more traditional preference (though naturally I've no interest in playing only to the converted), so perhaps my impressions are slanted. Nevertheless, just for interest - and with no desire at all to get involved in the bizarrre but inevitable fist fight between usual suspects, pretty well all of whom profess to love traditional English song - here are some recent impressions:

Three clubs last week, all London area, all allowing floor singers / residents one or two songs each. What did they perform? Overwhelmingly traditional English song, about 50% unaccompanied, 50% with guitar. Several intros naming source singers: Phil Tanner, Walter Pardon, Cyril Poacher. A couple of Child ballads, introduced as such. A well-played Appalachian song with banjo. Some Swedish fiddle tunes (no prizes: Tom Paley). Ron Angel's 'Chemical Workers' Song', sung well, unaccompanied. Some music hall. A couple of shanties. Nothing, that I can recall, that was written by the singer. Standards of performance generally good to high.

Admittedly that represents a more traditional bias than I sometimes hear at folk clubs in other areas (and ignoring for the moment what happens on festival stages), but my impression is actually that there is more traditional material sung in folk clubs these days (perhaps thanks to some well-promoted professionals providing role models?) than there was fifteen years ago.

I make no value judgements. Anyone following my posts here will have heard before that my favourite club ever was Harry Boardman's at the in Unicorn in Manchester during the 1980s (I'm biassed, it was my first and only club residency) where the mix consisted of about 60% traditional singing plus instrumental music, political/contemporary song, blues, poetry and some completely off-the-wall stuff. Nearly all of it good quality, in its own way.

What goes on in folk clubs, though, surely isn't the real point of the thread. What traditional song really means as far as I'm concerned is stuff that pretty much everyone in society apart from the upper classes performed for their own enjoyment - I don't really believe that Youtube sharers are quite the same thing, I'm afraid, much as I like their non-profit-making efforts.

As for the football chants that a few people here have seized on as a surviving singing tradition, while it's true that old chants are still going strong (and not knowing the words marks you out as a 'part-time supporter'), and that new ones are being made using all kinds of raw material, the fact is that this tradition is not as strong as it was in terms of particpation or breadth of repertoire. Too many modern trends conspire against it: seated stadia; sky-high ticket prices (not much under forty quid at Old Trafford these days) gentrifying the crowds; and deafeningly loud PA systems that celebrate goals and other moments of triumph with recordings of a tiny selection of fans' chants made by professional session singers, along with other irritating, high-volume bombast. At times you can barely hear yourself sing. I daresay this isn't a deliberate conspiracy to rob the fans of their traditions, but a marketing tool intended to intensify their experience, in the way that the pleasure of buying a new shirt or drinking a pint in a pub is intensified by all-pervading and ever-louder background music. Ultimately it will most likely kill massed football chanting, though.

Traditional song is, and has been, subjected to all the same kinds of social changes and commercial pressures that have killed off all kinds of things that used to be, but now aren't. You can call that 'progress', or mourn the casualties. Arguing whether or not people in folk clubs sing the old songs anymore seems to me to miss the point a bit.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 03:43 PM

"You've used it about a dozen times. What other evidence have you got, Jim? "
Bryan - both of us have been involved in threads on to whether standards are necessary or what one should expect at a 'folk' club, or if singers should be allowed to practice in public, or is it acceptible sing along with a solo singer uninvited, or whether ballads are too long, or if an evening of folk songs is boring at a folk club ..... over the last three years at least and witnessed the responses.
In the highly unlikely chance of your retracting your dishionest statement - can I suggest we forget it, stick to our own versions of what constitutes 'civilised debate' and get on with our lives.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 03:57 PM

Brian,
I'm fully with you on the crap that's blared out from the tannoys on the terraces, but don't underestimate the cop, the true fans. They even try to outsing the tannoys. Here at Hull City we have the god awful 'Tiger, tiger' poem blared out at us by some demented idiot with an overdramatic slur. BUT all of this goes on only before the match and in the interval. The match itself is left to the lads on the terraces. We've even had the temerity from some upstart wanting to usurp the cop distributing the words of their songs. Totally ignored of course. I know one or two prem teams have commissioned a fan or two to provide new chants, but the vast majority come from the lads who sing 'em and make 'em up on the spot, largely to the existing tunes. They're certainly not on the decrease, not in my experience, and long may that continue.

And it's Hull City, Hull City it is,
The finest team the world has ever seen.

One Brian Peters, there's only one Brian Peters,
One Brian Peters, ther's only one Brian Peters.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 04:11 PM

Brian, I hesitated before using your quote because I didn't want to drag you into this unpleasantness and I'm sorry if I misused what you said in any way. My excuse is that there are issues here that I care deeply about.

Folk clubs are struggling to recover from the damage done in the eighties (I blame Maggie Thatcher) in the face of a government that seems determined to stamp out all grass roots music of any sort.

Many people involved in folk music get highly agitated when some journalist gets a cheap laugh out of the folkie stereotype but I am more concerned with the damage done by those who should know better. The "I haven't been to a folk club for thirty years because I know how crap they are" brigade are of no importance but it causes me serious distress when someone of the stature of Jim Carroll seems to be determined to undermine the efforts of those of us who are doing our best to promote the music he claims to love. He is to be greatly respected for the valuable work he has done but now his contribution seems to be entirely negative.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 04:18 PM

OP
'Have we reached the stage yet where there are no more 'traditional' songs left to be collected?

Here is an honest attempt to answer the question.

First of all I interpret this as having nothing to do with folk clubs or the folk revival. (Paul is talking about collecting.) Okay, this absolutely depends on your definition of 'traditional'. Presumably we are talking about the English-speaking world so this would exclude the Corridos and the plena. we are also therefore talking about modern western society. Yes these are assumptions which may be incorrect. If you are talking about the broadside ballads and art songs that make up the vast bulk of what the first revival chose to call 'folk songs' then yes we have reached that stage. If you are talking about the songs sung in the bath, the coach trip, the odd bar-room, the songs floating about in people's heads, albeit the products of Tin-pan-Alley, then no. These songs people still remember from their youth. They're not the same type of songs as those 'folk songs' because they come from a different era, but they go through similar processes. Whether anyone would want to collect them or not, well again, only time will tell. The main impetus for collecting 'folk song' was because it was felt the songs were dying out and at least the tunes hadn't been recorded. We can't give that as a reason for collecting the songs of our youth.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 04:39 PM

Bryan - once again you (deliberately?) misrepresent what I say.
I did not stop going to clubs (30 years ago or thirty minutes ago), because I know how crap they are. I continued sing and to assist in the running of a club right up to the point when we left for Ireland. I stopped going to many other clubs regularly when it became virtually impossible to find one that guaranteed that I would hear a night of folk song (as I know it) reasonably sung. Perhaps you'd like to see some of the refusals Pat got when she tried to book in Walter Pardon for a tour only to be told - "Oh, we don't do anything like that, we're a folk club".
Far from being "determined to undermine the efforts of those of us who are doing our best to promote the music" I claim to love; I continue to be involved in the performance of song and music when the opportunity permits, and our collection has been available to the general public since we started thirty years ago, the main reason being we wish for the songs we collected to continue to be sung.
I involve myself in these often bitter and hurtful debates because I believe that the best way to keep the songs alive is through the clubs, but I also believe that the best way for this to happen is to adopt and apply standards to what yo invite the public to listen to and to honour the description 'folk' in a recognisable form in order to draw new people in.
The 'cheap laughs' I have seen have often been deserved through the poor standards that have developed in clubs. It lost us many of our audiences, it led to the closure of many clubs, the magazines we once had, our place on the media (as small as it was), shops catering for folk, record labels - all gone.
If I didn't care I wouldn't bother.
If you can't represent my opinion honestly, as apparently you can't, please don't refer to my opinions at all.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Paul Reade
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 04:43 PM

Thanks Steve - as you say, the thread was originally about collecting, in the English speaking world. I've never collected a song in my life, but I've sung a lot of traditional songs, and songs I thought were traditional but turned out to be recent compositions. I'm always on the lookout for new material.

If there are no more songs to be collected, then presumably a list of traditional songs could be compiled, and so put an end to a lot of the arguments. (I hesitate in calling it a "debate", because a debate where one side's stance is that the other shouldn't even be in the dabating chamber is bound to be a bit sterile).

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 05:05 PM

Paul,
There are plenty of versions of songs as yet unsung - I keep mentioning The James Madison Carpenter Collection which I hope will eventually available. Not so long ago The Greig Duncan Folk Song Collection was completed and made available in 8 large volumes. There are still many recorded collections lying around untouched. There has been no serious work done on the Grainger collection, recorded on cylinder in 1908, mainly in Lincolnshire, and still unpublished in a serious form. The making available of all these is completely dependent on folk song being taken seriously enough to generate the finances and the labour necessary.
As for a list of traditional songs' Steve Roud has done a magnificent job imn compiling one along with information as to where they can be found - see the Vaughan Williams Maemorial Library site.
Whether there are any more to collect; I agree partly with Steve that in the original sense, the songs ahve gone; whether what he described as still around can be described as 'folk' will continue to be debated on threads like this, certainly while I'm around. Whether they are worth singing is purely a matter of personal taste.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:21 PM

Sorry - me again;
I am in the process of compiling and indexing articles on the revival and have just come across an excellent article on the folk song revival by Peter Bellamy - nice to think I'm not on my own.

"If we could all work as hard to ensure that we present the best of which we are capable, whatever our particular musical bias, not only would the folk scene in general benefit beyond measure, but perhaps English traditional music would at last begin to gain the interest and respect which the world at large has denied it for so long."
Folk Review
November 1972

Wis I'd said thet
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Bert
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:22 PM

Sorry Steve, I guess that last sentence was a bit bitchy.

It wasn't aimed at you personally Steve, I was using your statement to make a point.

I think that you illustrated perfectly what traditional music is. The purists just don't get it that's all.

Keep on writing songs.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:24 PM

Paul,
Whilst we are not going to discover a Harry Cox any more, bits and pieces of interest are still turning up. In people's attics are old manuscripts with these songs in. I know I have recently been sent some.
Families still have old tapes lying around in a dusty box, of grandad singing his old songs.
Here's quite an exciting example. As a collector of songs in the 1960s it was always a pain to me that we never collected any songs of any note that referred to my home town of Hull. In the 80s I had a ceilidh band I ran and we needed desperately a new lead musician. A young accordionist who had nothing to do with folk was suggested and being keen and a music reader he quickly picked up the band repertoire. After being with us for about 10 years he remembered he had an old cassette tape of his previous accordion band in the loft. The recording was of the band playing at a senior citizens outing. They had left the tape running in an interval and an old lady just stood up and sang a version of the Gaol song specific to Hedon Road Gaol in Hull. Wonderful stuff! You can hear me singing it on the Yorkshire Garland website. There are many millions of people in the English-speaking world. Some of them must still have these old recordings that would be useful to us.
Apart from this, almost on a daily basis this very forum turns up interesting unrecorded pieces.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:24 PM

""Having said which, the point at which I actually decided not to visit any more clubs on the offchance was after having been to three of them on the trot where I actually heard no folksongs - all in the London area.""

And you, being the definitive authority, saw nothing which fitted your description of "folk".

Did you perhaps have a look round to see how many others had gone to those folk clubs, and found plenty to like?

And do you consider yourself the final authority on quality, as well as style?

You must be just about bent double under the burden of that responsibility.

I'll give you a clue, Jim.

They were folk clubs! So who do you think were the audience?.....Jazz fans?......Opera Buffs?.......Flamenco aficionados?

No mate. They were folkies! So perhaps you are not quite so au fait with the scene as your pride would prompt you to believe.

I get a very strong feeling that for you NON-TRAD = NON FOLK, period.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 02:46 AM

Bert: "The purists just don't get it that's all."

What don't you think "purists" get? Does the fact that I'm interested in very old songs, make me a "purist"? I like modern songs too, though I'm more into dance music and electronica than anything. Of course you can dance to traditional jigs and reels, so would someone distinguishing between modern dance music and a traditional Scottish reel also be a "purist"?

Do you think that a song written today, is just the same as a song that was composed (say) two hundred years ago? Do you think that archivists and enthusiasts, shouldn't distinguish between extremely old songs and modern ones?

Whether some very popular modern songs become 'traditional' for future generations is something I can't really specualte on, but I think it's *possible* depending on how future generations come to define what 'traditional' means for them. Though I rather think the 'folk process' will have to be eliminated from the equation.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 03:07 AM

Don,
I appreciate your post, very helpful.
"And do you consider yourself the final authority"
Nope - forty odd years of listening to folksong, singing at and helping run clubs, meeting and recording source singers, giving talks to try and get new people to listen and become singers themselves, issuing albums of traditional singers and writing on the subject have helped me recognise a good singer from a bad one, and what they are singing, have helped a little - but no, not a final authority by any means.
"And do you consider yourself the final authority on quality, as well as style?"
Again, certainly not", though music lessons at school taught me to recognise whether somebody was singing in tune and making a half-decent job of what they are singing - you find that sort of thing never leaves you, don't you think?
Of the three clubs we visited, one closed long ago - the audience must have been every bit as bored as we were and have come to the same conclusion we did.
The second one we gave another try a couple of years ago when we were in London and there was nothing much we wanted to see on the pictures.
Cold, unfriendly atmosphere, jukebox thumping its way up from the bar below, a crap guest who looked as if he didn't want to be there, around twenty people huddled in their seats who wouldn't have been out of place in a Beckett play. We stuck it out until just after the woman who tunelessly stumbled her way through Danny Boy with the aid of an exercise book, at which point we went off to find a warm pub that sold half-decent beer (learned to recognise that too down the years).
The third one might just still be going - we've got the details somewhere if you want to try for a booking, it gave the impression of being the sort of place that would put up with any old crap.
"I get a very strong feeling that for you..."
And I get the very strong feeling that if you had a head-cold you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a fart and a folk song.
Thanks for your assistance - a great reminder of why I stopped going to folk clubs.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 03:13 AM

BrianP: "(though naturally I've no interest in playing only to the converted),"

Jim worries about folk sessions potentially putting newcomers off. Yet by way of contrast it's nice to see how some people who are not used to hearing traditional stuff, can respond to it when they do hear it.

At the session run by Richard Bridge, the footie watching crowd (classic lager drinking blokes with hoodies, white trainers & shaven heads) in the other bar are often quite responsive - you hear the odd cheer and clapping or hollered appreciative comment. Sometime they even leave the footie to come and lean by the bar and have a proper listen. One chap who was having a fag out back when we left called to me and said "Thankyou for singing that song!", and he meant it. I don't know which song he was speaking about, but it was an unaccompanied E. Trad and probably thoroughly unlike anything he's familiar with.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 03:41 AM

That happens at our singaround too, CS. Some singers always manage a to draw a few people from the bar to the doorway of the snug for an appreciative and attentive listen.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 03:43 AM

Going back momentarily to ? of whether there are any more uncollected traditional songs waiting out there ~~ self-evidently we won't know till we have collected them, will we?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 04:51 AM

CS & SC - that's been my experience too. I think what happens in the real world is far more inclusive and inspiring than what is so often portrayed on Mudcat.

I worry far more about some of the more hostile threads on Mudcat putting off someone off folk than what I see/hear in sessions.

Pete.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 06:03 AM

CS, Not having heard Richard I get the impression that he is a good singer. I'm more concerned about bad singers putting people off.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 06:06 AM

Forgot,
One rainy night at the Singers Club, two 'working girls' came in and sat in the audience.
They stayed for around an hour, got up and apologised for having to leave "to get back to work" and said how much they'd enjoyed it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 06:20 AM

Jim ~ Nice story. Don't suppose anyone happened to sing The Magdalene's Lament or The Overgate while they were there did they?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 06:22 AM

"One Brian Peters, there's only one Brian Peters"

Kind of you to say so, Steve, although I suspect there will be sighs of relief in some quarters. Good to hear that Tigers fans are fighting back against corporate theft of their song tradition, though it sounds like you don't have to suffer the 'official' goal celebrations on the tannoy yet.

I'm sorry to hear about Jim's negative impressions of unamed London folk clubs. As I tried to hint, in listing what I'd heard last week down in t'Big Smoke (no need to apologise for quoting me, Bryan), you (Jim) might be pleasantly surprised by the music to be found at Sharps, Musical Traditions, Cellar Upstairs, Walthamstow, Islington, Croydon and others.

CS: Yes, people from 'the outside' often seem to enjoy folk music when they find out that it doesn't necessarily conform to their own stereotype. "I can't stand folk music, but I liked that!" is always nice to hear.

Re the so far unpublished collections, I've had a look at quite a bit of the stuff in Carpenter and, wonderful though it is, what we are not going to find there is a whole body of old songs previously unknown to us. There are, however, lots of great fresh versions of familiar songs, and some examples of quite rare ballads. You might, of course, claim that Carpenter was merely following a collecting agenda set by others before him - so he would be unlikley to record anything 'new' - but that's another argument.

Jim has already detailed how almost every collector in the last hundred and twenty years believed that they were preserving the very last vestiges of the old tradition, only to be proved wrong subsequently. I still feel, though, that the conditions required for 'folk music' (in the old sense) to flourish are gradually being whittled away.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 06:40 AM

""Of the three clubs we visited, one closed long ago - the audience must have been every bit as bored as we were and have come to the same conclusion we did.""

Of course, you didn't like it, so it collapsed and died of shame!
Or could it have suffered the most common form of demise, namely "Change of Management"?
But you weren't around at the time, so you can conjure up your preferred ending. Bottom line?......YOU DON'T BLOODY KNOW!

""Cold, unfriendly atmosphere, jukebox thumping its way up from the bar below, a crap guest who looked as if he didn't want to be there, around twenty people huddled in their seats who wouldn't have been out of place in a Beckett play.""

I've seen bad nights too, at a number of mediocre, and also some very good, clubs, but I'm a little more wary than you about how I interpret and extrapolate, and it usually takes a little more evidence than that to put me off.

""The third one might just still be going - we've got the details somewhere if you want to try for a booking, it gave the impression of being the sort of place that would put up with any old crap.""

Monumentally unhelpful, no evidence at all, and an additional gratuitous insult to me, whom you have never seen, or heard, perform.

And on the basis of that, you profess to know folk clubs. If you can ever get your head surgically removed from its current position in your fundamental orifice, do take another look round. You might be quite surprised at how things have progressed since you got it stuck up there.


""And I get the very strong feeling that if you had a head-cold you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a fart and a folk song.""

I think it is you with the cold, mate. I was singing traditional folk songs at the age of six, in primary school, and have never stopped.
I also write my own material, and I write music for other peoples lyrics (strictly in the "folk" idiom). I don't sing using a crib, because I have been blessed with a very good memory, but, unlike your good self, I have the humility and tolerance for others, to recognise that some are not so lucky.

I have heard many superb performances, by people reading from a sheet, which would, if people like you had your way, never have been heard. I have encouraged and persuaded many beginners who have gone on to earn money performing, who would not have found that improvement in performance and stagecraft sitting in front of a bathroom mirror.

So don't waste your breath any more in showing how little you know about me. I've been patronised by experts, and you just ain't cutting it.

I think that Crow Sister, who is somewhat newer to this than you, has more inbuilt instinct for what folk music should be in her little finger, than you have in your whole overinflated ego.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 07:25 AM

"YOU DON'T BLOODY KNOW!"
No I don't, I just know it was bad.
"gratuitous insult to me, "
Just as your "I get a very strong feeling that for you NON-TRAD = NON FOLK, period." was pure surmision on your part though you did have the opportunity to read my previous posts. If can't take shit, don't throw it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 07:33 AM

I'm more concerned about bad singers putting people off.

Hell, old man, I'm a good singer of Traditional Songs (I don't sing any other sort) and yet you dismissed me as a bad pop singer and continued to do so for some time afterwards - much to my instinctive umbrage of course. What thread was that on again? A bit of a hoot as I recall.

I like the humanity of Traditional Singers & singaroud singers alike; there is an increasing tendency to professional blandness these days that doesn't excite me much. I certainly don't listen for orthodox musicality in a singer of folk songs, rather the mediumistic ability to make them live & breathe. Some of the technically worst singers are among the best at doing this (hiya, Ron!) but more often than not I'm staggered by the instinctive quality of natural voices singing unaccompanied folk songs - chorus songs especially. A pet hate? Some singer with a microphone asking the audience to sing the chorus!         

I have no problem using cribs; neither did / do The Copper family. Rachel & I often use cribs in performance just so we know we're both singing the same variants of songs we have differently in our respective repertoires - also so we know if its the 12 minute version of Robin Sick & Weary or the 5 minute one. These days I find I can work up a song to performance standard long before I've committed the words to memory. If I'm working on a commissioned piece for a single performance then there's no way on God's earth I'll even think about memorising it. We live in a literate society; the ability to sing a song well does not equate with the ability to memorise it. Also - the older I get, the harder it gets to remember songs. These days I'd rather put my efforts into singing them than memorising them. There just ain't enough hours in the day!

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST,Eric Hayman
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 07:40 AM

So-called traditional songs are about times past, which have now become either the good old days or the bad old days. We either want to be back there with the happy beer drinkers and simple country folk or want to wallow in vicarious self-pity for the emigrant or hanged criminal.
Even Tom Lehrer will be traditional one day! There's a thought.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Bert
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 08:36 AM

Crow Sister, If you like modern songs then you are not a purist. WHat I call purists are those folk who think that nothing modern can be traditional.

You ask, Do you think that a song written today, is just the same as a song that was composed (say) two hundred years ago?

Not the same of course, but still part of a tradition. For example "Streets of London" is part of a tradition of being concerned for the poor and the homeless. Just because that particular tradition is restricted to a minority in most societies it does not make it less of a tradition.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 09:01 AM

"WHat I call purists are those folk who think that nothing modern can be traditional."

Oops, better call me a purist then. Or better still, 'someone who prefers words to actually mean something'.

"So-called traditional songs are about times past... We either want to be back there with the happy beer drinkers and simple country folk or want to wallow in vicarious self-pity for the emigrant or hanged criminal."

Er, who exactly are 'WE' here? Not me, for one.

"Even Tom Lehrer will be traditional one day!"

Funnily enough, I heard some of the local yokels bawling out 'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park' around a table in the snug of the Badger Baiters' Arms last Saturday night. Pull the other one!

'Traditional' was right there in the dictionary, last time I looked.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 09:11 AM

"WHat I call purists are those folk who think that nothing modern can be traditional."

But if I'm interested in learning about extremely old folk songs that were around long, long before the modern revival of the 50's/60's, what should I call them?

I understand that the word 'traditional' can be interpretated in different ways, and it's the different ways in which the word gets interpreted that makes things complicated.

But there is this very old stuff that was around a long, long time before the folk revival. So how does someone who is interested in the very old stuff in particular, sift it out from modern songs if there isn't a term that can be used to differentiate the old songs from modern songs?

For my own part I don't care what people call them! I just want to be able to learn about songs from the old folk song tradition, without things getting more muddled or complicated than they need to be!

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 09:27 AM

MikeL2 (sorry if I didn't get your ID right) proposed this as a 'modern' traditional song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E2hYDIFDIU based on the amount of covers it's inspired and how it's now being belted out at every pub Karaoke night on the planet! It's certainly a song that's been inherited by different generations, and will no doubt carry on being sung well into the forseeable future.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 09:30 AM

"I'm a good singer of Traditional Songs"
Self praise is no recommendation..... and all that.
For the record, I said what I thought of your singing without knowing who it was. Somebody put up three singers and asked what I thought of them; I gave an honest opinion, and would do so again in the circumstances. Had I made my own singing public by putting it up on uTube, I would excpect the same treatment. If you don't want opinions, stay at home and sing in the bath.
"We either want to be back there with the happy beer drinkers...." speak for yourself - lice, plague, cholera and sour beer....
I enjoy Shakespeare, but I don't want to be in Medieval Denmark or ancient Rome or Bronze Age Scotland..... they're good stories well written.
Do we have a cut-off date after which we must stop enjoying a piece of music, or a play, or a novel?
Many of our folksongs and ballads have provided plots for some of our greatest literature, and continue to do so.
A lovlely little film, a romantic comedy called 'Truely, Madly, Deeply' was released some years ago - a straight lift from 'The Unquiet Grave' (except for the dead husband sending his wife out to video rental shop to get him and his dead mates classic films to watch on TV).
It would be a sad old world if we weres stuck with Corrie and East Enders and counld no longer enjoy Dickens and Hardy.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST,Suibhne (Astray)
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 10:42 AM

Self praise is no recommendation..... and all that.

Agreed. Self-Awareness is something very different however, likewise the awareness of the nature of the craft as a whole, itself the result of some 35-years of Traditional Singing. When it comes to Traditional Singing the call to do so is the first & most significant qualification. Anyone who commits themselves to the passion of the craft is worthy of attention, encouragement and acknowledgement, all of which I give with due honesty, humility and, above all, consistency.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: MikeL2
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 10:42 AM

Hi crow sister

You did my ID right....

<" For my own part I don't care what people call them! I just want to be able to learn about songs from the old folk song tradition, without things getting more muddled or complicated than they need to be!">

I couldn't agree more with you.

regards

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 10:58 AM

SO'P
I really can't see your problem with my opinion of your singing.
We disagree on most things we discuss, so why should it bother you what I think - your opinion wouldn't bother me?

In the end, for me anyway, the most important thing about all singing is the understanding of a song and the communication of that understanding/interpretation.
It is what is missing for me in much of the singing I listen to.
Sure a good technique is fine - but I heard, and recorded many singers well past their sell-by date as far as singing ability goes, who have moved me to the point of tears.
They say that in Irish there is no such phrase as 'sing a song'; it's 'tell a song' and that is invariably what does it for me.

I've never met a live 'purist' in captivity - I'm not sure they exist as a species.
Being a purist is like expecting King Lear to be done in broad Birmingham - god forbid!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST,Suibhne (Astray)
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 11:29 AM

I think maybe it's the nature of opinion that bothers me, informed as it is by the subjectivity of impulse & reaction, rather than the objectivity of a more considerate criticism, which, ultimately must always be constructive. Do we expect mere opinions from a former member of The Critics Group? I should say not!