Folk singer or folk wringer

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: TheSnail
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 06:01 PM

Sorry, Art, but in the face of a lot of negativity about UK folk music, I wanted to celebrate some of the good stuff that's going on.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 10:02 PM

I'm sick o' this.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: TheSnail
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 08:09 PM

Sorry to stir up old mud but Saturday night at the Lewes Saturday Folk Club this weekend reminded me of this line from Jim Carroll -

"Over the last fifteen years I don't think I have heard half a dozen ballads sung in all, and most of them were by singers who made a half-decent job of them."

Unlike many clubs, we remain open through August with open nights and, so far, things are going very well. Last night the set list included -

Ballads
Golden Vanity
Annan Water
Young Edwin
Lord Bateman
Georgie (Sussex traveller version of Geordie)
Wife of Usher's Well
Broomfield Wager
Bailiff's Daughter of Islington


Other traditional
Bonny Light Horseman
Claudy Banks
Gresford Mining Disaster
Bonny Labouring Boy
Down in yon Forest
I Will Guide Thee With Mine Eye - Southern Baptist
Widdecombe Fair
Tailor and the Mouse
Brighton Camp
Ar Far De Lo
Eriskay Love Lilt

Modern "in the tradition"
Dublin in the Rare Old Times - Pete St John
Coal Town Days - Jez Lowe
Normandy Orchards - Keith Marsden
Sussex Downs - Ranna Hurst

Others
Bastard Mastercard
Sally in Our Ally

Tunes
Various English dance tunes and one Irish if I recall.

There were a few others which I forget. I wasn't taking notes at the time.

Ranna is a singer/songwriter who writes songs reflecting her love of Sussex.

One rather elderly singer used a crib sheet. Another rather elderly singer didn't but possibly should have done. Another singer had a piece of paper for one of her three songs. One or two performers were, shall we say, alright, the rest were from good to superb.

Everybody who came into the room was asked if they wanted to sing and a few declined but seemed to enjoy themselves.

This was, perhaps, a slightly exceptional evening in being quite so ballad heavy but, on the whole, I think we must be doing something right.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: TheSnail
Date: 17 May 10 - 07:10 PM

Come to think of it, the last time I heard Willie McBride it was being sung by a trainful of Rugby fans on their way from Holyhead to Liverpool so I suppose that makes it a folk song.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 May 10 - 06:08 PM

it certainly is a testing song to sing,it is pretty important to have a note to pitch as it has a big range,it is also a difficult song to sing without making it over sentimental so to sing it with sentiment requires understatement[imo].
I have sung it [ not in folk clubs]and I think it is ok,I prefer Willie of the Winesbury,if somebody sang it in a Folk Club and sang it well,I would applaud.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 17 May 10 - 05:55 PM

Bugger!

Should read

"people who have heard me sing it before".

Don T.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 17 May 10 - 05:53 PM

To my eternal shame (no, not really), I have sung Danny Boy, the original not the US version, on numerous occasions at folk clubs and sessions.

It is indeed very difficult to sing really well, and the only evidence I can offer is the fact that most times I have sung it have been the result of requests from people who have sung it before.

In point of fact, I consider it a very good song, not traditional but worth a listen.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 May 10 - 05:04 PM

nice one Jeri

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jeri
Date: 17 May 10 - 04:47 PM

I did it, I confess. It took me about 45 minutes, and I don't doubt it shows. Parody of What Will We DO?. Thanks, Unc.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 May 10 - 04:25 PM

Jeri:

Oh, true lover, PLEASE tell me you wrote that wonderful little song!

(If not, then who did?)

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 May 10 - 04:09 PM

Snail,the fact that Fred Jordan sang it, means nothing.
of course it is a folk song,it is sung regularly at football matches,but that does not mean I have to like it,I dont think I said,ihad heard anyone sing those sungs in a Folk Club,I said I preferred Danny Boy,However I do not intend to sing it anywhere.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: TheSnail
Date: 17 May 10 - 03:48 PM

Jim Carroll

"How do you do it, Jim?"
I really don't know Bryan, but I'm not making it up.

I'm sure you're not, Jim. My problem is that you insist on extrapolating your limited experience of the current state of folk clubs to the whole of the UK. I know there are bad clubs out there. I have a simple solution; I don't go to them. I'm far too busy going to the good clubs and festivals and multitude of sessions available. It pains me that you are missing out on all the good stuff that is going on. I'm not making it up.

Yes, I do remember The Eyeballs in the Sky and the Inch Thick Tomato Ketchup sandwiches.

Not sure what your problem is with italics. You should just be able to cut and paste my examples and substitute your own text.

GSS

The last time I heard Fields of Athenry in a folk club, it was sung by Fred Jordan.

I have never heard anyone sing Lily the pink,THE BIRDIE Song,Tiptoe through the Tulips,God Save The Queen,The Soldiers Song in a folk club.

Willie Mcbride. Quite like it myself.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 May 10 - 01:18 PM

DANNY BOY is an extremely difficult song to sing well,it has a very big range and it has to be sung in an understated way[imo].It is a challenge to be able to sing it well.
personally, I prefer it to Fields of Athenry,Lily the pink,THE BIRDIE Song,Tiptoe through the Tulips,God Save The Queen,The Soldiers Song,and Willie Mcbride

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 May 10 - 08:57 AM

"How do you do it, Jim?"
I really don't know Bryan, but I'm not making it up. I don't think it would be fair to name names, especially as the one where I heard Danny Boy - twice; (complete with crib sheet) is a long running, well know club.
Not a waste of time though - I concede that my experience of the club scene is limited and that I may be walking around with my own personal rain-cloud (is anybody else old enough to remember Perishers?)
Nope - still can't get italics - message tells me my text contains a forbidden hot-mail tag - will keep trying.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: TheSnail
Date: 17 May 10 - 08:32 AM

Jim Carroll

my complaint has been (a) going to clubs and hearing 'Danny Boy' et al, sung badly, and (b) not hearing ballads (or folk songs, as I understand them) sung at all.
Over the last fifteen years I don't think I have heard half a dozen ballads sung in all, and most of them were by singers who made a half-decent job of them.
Maybe bad singers just avoid ballads in places I have been to.

I know this is a waste of time but...

In going on forty years, I have heard 'Danny Boy' in a folk club once as far as I recall, sung fairly indifferently but not actually badly.

I have heard more than half a dozen ballads sung well in the last couple of weeks.

How do you do it, Jim? What are these places you go to?

Since you ask -

<i>Text in Italics</i>
<b>Text in Bold</b>
<big>Big Text</big>
<big><big>Even Bigger Text</big></big>

If you're really nice to me, I'll show you how to do colours as well.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 May 10 - 06:30 AM

"How many hours have we spent ripping chunks off each other because your experience of clubs was that they were the problem?"
Oddly enough Don, my complaint has been (a) going to clubs and hearing 'Danny Boy' et al, sung badly, and (b) not hearing ballads (or folk songs, as I understand them) sung at all.
Over the last fifteen years I don't think I have heard half a dozen ballads sung in all, and most of them were by singers who made a half-decent job of them.
Maybe bad singers just avoid ballads in places I have been to.
Jim Carroll
PS HOw do you do italics on this forum - I've never been able to?

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 17 May 10 - 06:04 AM

"""MOST of the time you hear them murdered by a dreary boring interpretation."
Not in my experience - you must go to crap clubs.""

With tongue firmly in cheek, and only because I just can't resist the opportunity:-

WHAT????

How many hours have we spent ripping chunks off each other because your experience of clubs was that they were the problem?

All that wasted energy.


LOL
Don T

Would some helpful elf remove the first one please. it came out all in italics.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 May 10 - 03:21 AM

"What put the supposedly arbitrary limit of three minutes on songs was a relatively recent thing:"
According to BBC producer Charles Parker, his employers had a 'three minute' rule and he found himself having to 'fade' songs, before the end or use short ones in his programmes. He argued, and I think, won the right to play longer ones.
The idea that people could not listen to long songs was one promoted by broadcasters and sometimes performers.
MacColl described how, in the early days of the revival, he would break long ballads into two parts, singing the first bit in the first half of the evening, and take it up again after the interval. He did this on several occasions until, one night, after having sung Gil Morris in this way at the Singers Club, one of the members complained and asked him to sing them all apiece. MacColl suggested that it was his own lack of confidence in the listener rather than their inability to concentrate.
"restraining order"
Nope, couldn't continue the discussion after the adjudicator closed your thread and told you to behave yourself.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: theleveller
Date: 17 May 10 - 03:10 AM

"One of the elements I find missing in today's songwriters is a strong story line."

I find just the opposite. Many of the songwriters I know use local events, history and legends -and personal experiences - to produce intriguing story songs.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Bert
Date: 16 May 10 - 11:57 PM

Ya gotta learn how to sing these songs!

Right on the mark there Don. But if someone sings them well then it is no problem to listen.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: olddude
Date: 16 May 10 - 10:24 PM

Frank's post should be required reading for every songwriter. It is brilliant

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 May 10 - 09:54 PM

What put the supposedly arbitrary limit of three minutes on songs was a relatively recent thing:   the available length on recordable media many decades back. Three minutes was about all you could get on one side of a 78 rpm record. Radio stations got used to playing songs of this length and liked them, because they gave breaks between songs into which commercial messages could be bunged. Also, it was an article of faith among radio station program directors that the attention span of most listeners was about three minutes.

This, despite the fact that classical music stations in the era of 78 rpm records, would play entire symphonies, concerti, and full-length operas—spread over both sides of several 12" records, and packaged in an album. The DJ would simply play them in sequence, using two turntables, and try to make the seque from one record to the next as imperceptible as possible (how do I know? Been there, done that).

As far as the idea that peoples' attention spans are limited to three minutes, how do you account for the full concert halls during symphony concerts? Or equally full opera houses during presentations of, say, some Wagnerian operas that run as long as five hours (with maybe a couple of fifteen minute intermissions, i.e., potty breaks)?

The first record to break the three-minute barrier at pop and country stations was not Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," it was Marty Robbins' recording of "El Paso" from his "Gunfighter Ballads" album (12" LP, 33 1/3 rpm). Not long afterwards, Richard Harris with "MacArthur Park" (over seven minutes).

Just a little history to keep the record straight.

More history:    people spending an evening passing a harp or lute around and singing "vain and idle songs," as someone several centuries ago complained (Caedmon, as told by the Venerable Bede, I believe), was the equivalent in former times of sitting around of an evening and watching television. Only it was a more active and participatory form of entertainment. A lo-o-o-ong ballad that told a good story was no problem, any more than "Law and Order" (an hour-long program—with commercials) is now.

Perhaps the problem is three-fold:   first, you have many people who expect songs to be no longer than three minutes;   then you have singers who may not really understand the story of a ballad all that well and miss many of the nuances within it simply not putting the story across well;    then, akin to the first, audiences composed of people who have never learned to listen actively, really paying attention to a song.

"The Lass of Roch Royal" (Child #76) runs around 35 verses. "The Gest of Robyn Hood" (Child #117 – Robin Hood ballads comprise the largest single group in the Child collection and were very popular at one time) runs over 450 verses.

Most of the songs I sing run only a few minutes. But I do sing some quite long ballads. Never had anyone sit there and roll their eyes or walk out on me, because when I'm singing it, I stay aware that it is a story, and I make sure to sing (tell) it in a manner that makes the plot twists clear and maintains the suspense.

Ya gotta learn how to sing these songs!

And ya gotta learn how to listen.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Bert
Date: 16 May 10 - 09:33 PM

Very nice post Stringsinger. I'm going to print it out and post it where I can read it often.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 May 10 - 07:20 PM

One of the elements I find missing in today's songwriters is a strong story line. This is what has always intrigued me about traditional balladry. Woody Guthrie had an ability to do this by boiling his words down to essentials. Ludlow Massacre. 1913 Massacre. Tom Joad.

I like a song that goes somewhere from someplace and is not static about an ephemeral
misty emotion.

Also, I like songs with strong choruses that pull people into the act.

I think of the traditional folk song almost in a journalistic sense conveying a historical event (even if the history is not based primarily on fact).

Much of what is singer songwriter is in the shape of an art song or tone poem. It sets a mood, a lot of it melancholy. It seems less related to the story tradition and more toward
a feeling of the moment.

I like songs with political content as well such as "Which Side Are You On?" or "Banks of Marble". (Historical footnotes are sometimes required but the song fits situations today).

I think there are ways of listening to all kinds of music with different ears. I see getting into a space where a long story song can maintain interest but requires a kind of quieter and relaxed state of mind which is not part of the MTV generation. Sometimes it works in front of a campfire or on the back porch when the sun is going down.

I think that a well-written or a solid piece of song material is best served by a kind of receptivity that slows the process of general excitement down. Then you can get caught up in the song and it has a hypnotic hold over you. This is how I feel about the so-called traditional folk song done by a traditional singer.

Today's singer songwriters seem to have almost a pop song sensibility. It appears to me that the songs are sometimes written to amaze, to impress with their cleverness,and to reach as wide an audience as possible even if the subject matter is esoteric.

Boredom at a performance might be possibly the inability of the listener to appreciate
the story song in the atmosphere of a hectic modern pace. Also, there needs to be a connection (sub-text) by which the song is understood. This might be a knowledge of
the cultural background of a song or references requiring not too many footnotes.

Putting on "folk" ears is distinguishable from "jazz" ears or "classical music" ears.
Each idiom brings to it a different attitude of receptivity.

The best way for a folk audience to appreciate folk songs is to somehow involve them in the process by either knowing the song in advance or singing choruses. With folk songs,
even if you don't know the song, you do because it contains an element of familiarity.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: glueman
Date: 16 May 10 - 06:08 PM

I assumed you'd had the folk equivalent of a restraining order on those creepy PMs Jim, haven't had one for ages. Quite happy to whistle blow when the next one turns up.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Bert
Date: 16 May 10 - 05:46 PM

Let me remind you, I said early on that

this thread is about PAYBACK TIME for the idiot who coined the snigger/snogwriter phrase.

And it is working a treat. I've got all the morons who denigrate songwriters in a right tiz. Not one of them has the sense to realize that without songwriters we wouldn't have any songs at all.

They have proved that their main abilities are to poke fun at other peoples work and to call people names.

Jeri, you've got it right Mind you, in my present mood, this is more funny (in a Christopher Guest sort of way) than irritating.

Anyone who has listened to my songs will know that I'm not always too serious.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 May 10 - 05:03 PM

"
Big breaths Jim, then tell us about your collecting days. I ain't heard about those yet."
Big breaths and tell us about your being cyberstalked G
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Tootler
Date: 16 May 10 - 04:43 PM

How many posts did it take till we were back to "What Is Folk" again?

It was implicit in the OP.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: olddude
Date: 16 May 10 - 03:34 PM

it's a bit of non challenging, disposable, fluff and fun - just the same as much music is.

Crow Sister, exactly ...

most of all the music we heard in our lifetime is forgettable but fun .. including my own ... some maybe will stand the test of time but we won't be around to hear it ... in the meantime ... simply enjoy because life is short and when the music stops, it will stop for good ...

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: olddude
Date: 16 May 10 - 02:21 PM

I love DWDitty's classification, it is never singer/songwriter or blues singer or yada yada ... it is simply MUSICIAN / ENTERTAINER

When I would go to the record store in the 60's folk and had Frank or Art or Jerry or some other group ... by the 1970's folk had
James Taylor, Harry Chapin, John Denver.   What use to be for country people like Hank Williams or Patsy ... by the early 70's they had Neil Diamond listed ... good grief ... that is the US record business and nothing more ... why get upset about it ... if you like the song sing it ... if not pass on it ..

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 16 May 10 - 02:18 PM

PS. I do quite like a bit of Dickens myself (in the middle of a cold and grey English winter), but I prefer Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy. Like Trad Folk, neither of which (as with Dickens likewise) have ever ceased to attract readers. There will always be those who prefer Mills and Boon or Jackie Collins for their reading interests. But so what? I'm reading some pulp fiction right now, I have to slap my critical side down a bit, but otherwise it's a bit of non challenging, disposable, fluff and fun - just the same as much music is.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 May 10 - 02:01 PM

BUT, that would require changing the 1954 definition. GASP!

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: olddude
Date: 16 May 10 - 02:00 PM

and from what I hear Bert is one fine songwriter and performer so maybe in 200 years people will be singing one of his songs and call it folk ... either way ... they will still be fine songs whatever they call it

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: olddude
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:52 PM

Everyday someone is arguing about definitions ... here is an idea. If an old song, a brand new song, or anything in between sounds good to you, has meaning in the lyrics to you ... then listen to it and enjoy it... if it doesn't appeal ... then don't ...

and if people who write songs have others who enjoy them, the problem is? What?   who gives a crap if it is folk or not ...

definitions are for record companies to classify music to sell records ... music is for people to listen to

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: glueman
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:27 PM

"More specifically, you got a ban for calling folkies a shower of c****s - acceptible to you maybe"

Acceptable when I was quoting someone else. Even more so when the antagonist was behaving like one. Plus that wasn't what I was banned for.

Big breaths Jim, then tell us about your collecting days. I ain't heard about those yet.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:22 PM

Here are some of my favourite songs from You Tube. First a heavily edited Suppers Ready
Groove Armada: Inside my Mind
One of the most brilliant covers ever, at something over six minutes Walk on By
The wonderful Salva Mea at ten and a half minutes.
Another Brown Paper Bag Another Birthday (remix) Another Tijuana Lady

I could go on and on and on.

Modern tastes? Well I don't know any music lover today (whatever the genre) that thinks a song shouldn't be longer than three minutes. It was perhaps the default back in 1960 when a three minute song was necessary to get airplay - but back in 1965 a folk singer called Bob Dylan broke that three minute mould with 'Like a Rolling Stone'.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:17 PM

"I am of the opinion that his affected finger-in-the-ear bullshit was just that."
I suppose you would say the same about broadside sellers muezin callers, Eastern European, Indian, Tibetan........singers - it's a technique that has been used worldwide for millenia (not to mention Lloyd, The Watersons (both hands over ears in their case) and numerous pop-singers?
"Folkier than thou" ones and ones who think what they like is the only thing the rest of us should listen to"
Once is a mistake - more than once is a deliberate lie - who and where has anybody told you or anybody else what to listen to?
"I got a ban for using the Words of the People"
More specifically, you got a ban for calling folkies a shower of c****s - acceptible to you maybe
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jeri
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:11 PM

Nope, apparently not enough hatred here yet...

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:09 PM

I cannot bring myself to reply in kind because you were a great help to me when those assholes were attacking me on Facebook. I still owe you for that, and I am sorry you feel as you do.

Sincerely, Bruce.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jeri
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:09 PM

How many posts did it take till we were back to "What Is Folk" again? Somebody should keep track of this stuff. I think it was Richard's first post, but maybe I missed one?

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:07 PM

Can you count?

Or are you one?

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:02 PM

Who you talking to, Richard.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 May 10 - 01:00 PM

Guest, one short of a grand, I don't think you understand the difference between a folksinger and a folksong singer. Or, probably, the 1954 definition.

It isn't about meretricious delivery. I'm at best an average singer, and at best a mostly poor chord-thumping (don't call it "strumming", please) guitarist, but I have been paid the compliment by a fairly well-known (in Kent) singer of mostly original songs that after my go he was not ready to go in a session, and said "Oh sorry I was too busy listening".

That is the difference - listening. If you can't listen then (fill in insult of choice).

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jeri
Date: 16 May 10 - 12:54 PM

I think it was supposed to be about badly sung traditional songs, and ones that were too long. Traditional songs Bert doesn't like. That's it.

My main beef is with assholes. (I don't think the bad language will get you banned--fuck that--it's probably more about who you aimed it at.) Anyway, it's about assholes. "Folkier than thou" ones and ones who think what they like is the only thing the rest of us should listen to. Assholes who keep trying to push rivers, even though the river doesn't need it, will keep going its own way no matter what, and that attempt to direct the undirectable will serve to make the person look like a complete, not to mention frustrated... asshole.

Mind you, in my present mood, this is more funny (in a Christopher Guest sort of way) than irritating.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 May 10 - 12:48 PM

One last thing. Mark Ross is a folk singer, and a damned fine one at that. Much of his material would not meet the 1954 definition, but when the protectors of the tradition were doing just than--and I thank them for their work--Mark was singing songs in hobo jungles and on union picket lines. Suggesting that a man of that calibre isn`t folk points to the real divide between the UK and North America. I think that never the twains will meet.

Good to see your posts, Mark.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 May 10 - 12:43 PM

Therein is a problem that has yet to be grasped by people in the UK. Folk music in the USA or Canada is very different. I think that in North America, people tend to perceive folk music as whatever isn`t something else.

Lyrics will have meaning. Songs will be sung by one or many. There is a tradition that preserves songs of the sea, songs that were meant to help one`s work along (think Stan Hugill), songs that protest government (and that is certainly evident in the UK tradition). I think that we are one people divided by a common language. I prefer the less anal-retentive North American `definition`. If Jean Ritchie`s work isn`t folk, then I have NO idea what is. She is also a song writer.

I don`t remember how many records I bought because ONE song on it appealed to me. I purchased a copy of a Wings record because Mull of Kintyre was on it. Frankly, I found the rest of the stuff on the record to be shit, Paul McCartney or not. However, that aside, I`d call a man like Bill Staines a folk singer. (He`s also one heckuva songwriter.)

I`m fed up with these fuckin`threads whereon people say what they`ve said before and the dog chases its tail. I wish yàll well resolving the issues presented on this and the other thread. I have nothing more to contribute.

Have a nice day, all.

(Good one, Jeri.)

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: glueman
Date: 16 May 10 - 12:37 PM

"Oh fuck here go the wankers again."

I got a ban for using the Words of the People, I hope you fair better. When I saw the thread title I thought it was about really badly sung traditional songs. If one had a pound for every one of those I'd have a better banjo.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 May 10 - 12:04 PM

Oh fuck here go the wankers again. Everyone admires the efforts of non-WASP cultures (and even some WASP non UK, Non US cultures) to connect with their roots. But let it be suggested that there is a depth of history that contains the roots of some of us WASPS (or WASAs, White Anglo-Saxon Atheists) and some moron will winge that it is boring.

If a handjob about the fluff in your navel suits you better, go and do it. Preferably where I can't see or here it.

When your songs have been handed down over generations and still contain something of relevance, well, congratulations, they will ahve ascended to the stauts of folk song.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jeri
Date: 16 May 10 - 11:58 AM

What will we do if someone sings Dylan?
Oh, true lovers, what will we do then?
We'll stare at our beers
This confirms our worst fears
Not those evil songwriters again!

What will we do if someone sings THEIR song?
Oh, true lovers, what will we do then?
We'll order more beers
If the hired help hears
Not those evil songwriters again!

What will we do if they only have crap beer?
Oh, true lovers, what will we do then?
T'would be a sad tale
No Trad Song and Real Ale
And those evil songwriters again!

What will we do if they sing something Fairport?
Or French, Kipling/Bellamy or even MacColl?
They're just what we need
No ego or greed
Like those evil songwriters again

How many pubs must a man hear have a beer in
Oh, true lovers, 'till he sing along?
And how many beers will it take till he knows
It's all in the service of song
And when will he think that his place is to sing
Not talk about what's right or wrong
The answer, my friends...

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 May 10 - 11:51 AM

Nowadays our listening habits have evolved and our needs are for shorter songs. No longer are audiences prepared to listen to eternal ballads of Dickensian boredom. Many 'folk songs' would have died a naturally deserved death years ago had it not been for sentimentalists trying to recapture a long long past.

In fact as far as most communities go many of these songs are already dead.

How interesting. I'm curious as to how you found about my needs - or what I'm prepared to listen to - or what goes on in my "community"? The fact is, you know nothing of any of these things, so please don't generalise or be simplistic just to be contentious. I'm just as happy to hear two minutes of Eddie Cochran as I am to hear several verses of "Lazarus".

"Dickensian boredom" says more about you than the music you're taking a pop at...

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 May 10 - 11:17 AM

`As I said, spent the last 30 years listening to snide remarks from the S.S. about 'finger-in-ear and 'folk police' occasionally it's cathartic to take a leaf out and get your own back.`

One would hope it`s beneath your dignity.

As for Mr MacColl, he was a great songwriter. I am of the opinion that his affected finger-in-the-ear bullshit was just that. Didn`t ever stop me liking his music.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 May 10 - 10:36 AM

I need drugs.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 16 May 10 - 07:58 AM

Well.... as long as Bert gets his payback.... ho hum....

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 16 May 10 - 06:04 AM

When I was younger I had a bit of a reputation for not liking any music until it was about twenty-five years old.That applied mostly to pop,I didn't really know what folk music was then.I suppose I didn't bother listening to anything until it had passed the test of time, and I still feel that way, it's just that I now realise time goes back a lot further.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 May 10 - 04:29 AM

The story about Dylan and van Ronk, which Mark Ross relates above, reminds me of a floor singer at one of my local clubs whose performances are usually interminable and, frankly, not very good (I'm trying to refrain from using the word 'appalling'). He can actually sing traditional songs reasonably well - if he puts his mind to it - or rather he's not the worst singer in the room if he sings trad. songs. But he tends to choose very long 'contemporary' songs which usually make me think to myself, "what the f**k made you go to all the effort of learning that?!"

Occasionally he has been known to write his own songs (I'll draw a veil over my opinion of these efforts!). One of these self-penned epics, which seemed to run to 100s of verses, was about floor singers who are not very good and go on and on and on without knowing when to stop! I can only conclude that some people have no self-awareness, or sense of the effect that they have on others, whatsoever!

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Mark Ross
Date: 15 May 10 - 06:27 PM

Somewhere I read about Dylan and Dave Van Ronk sitting around having a drink, and Dylan goes off on a rant about singer-songwhiners who have no sense of the tradition, no idea where the songs come from, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum....., at which point Van Ronk growls, "You've got a lot to answer for bro!"


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,Rod...
Date: 15 May 10 - 06:20 PM

Press the button, get the result...

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 May 10 - 06:15 PM

Well--I'm just trying to be open and--um--tolerant.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 15 May 10 - 06:07 PM

"While we're at it, all the vinyl and CDs and tapes containing any song—or piece of music—older than, say, from within the past thirty years ..."


You've got to be joking, Don! Thirty years! That's positively ancient history!!

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 May 10 - 04:00 PM

Well, now!! There's a Great Idea!

While we're at it, let's do a general dunging out of all that old, boring stuff!

Let's begin with Homer's Iliad. Who gives a bloody poop about a war that happened a couple or three millennia ago and lasted for ten years? And it was all over some dizzy broad whose mother had kinky sex with a god in the shape of a swan! What the hell! Beautiful? With that lineage, she probably looked like Daisy Duck!

The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aenaeid, these were all extremely long poems, and considering the state of literacy (or lack thereof) back then, they were probably chanted by someone who maybe had even memorized them (now there's somebody who needed to get a life!) while plucking away at a lyre or harp.   Nobody does that sort of thing anymore!

Beowulf. Supposed to be the first work of English literature. But it was about a Danish hero killing a monster who was crashing mead halls and eating everyone. Then he goes and kills the monster's mother. Then he goes and kills a dragon. Silly story! Ridiculous! And besides, nobody can read Olde English anymore!

Same for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. All those dull people telling boring stories!

Shakespeare! His bloody plays are so bloody long! And nobody real speaks in iambic pentameter. And if that weren't enough, all the characters talk funny!

There are whole bunches, but I'm just hitting a few high points. Somebody mentioned Charles Dickens. So life for most people, especially children, in big cities in England was really crap, what with general poverty, child labor, and all that. Dickens seemed to be hung up on that sort of stuff. But these days, who gives a damn? Let the little bastards earn their keep! They're lucky to have jobs!

And my Gawd, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronté? All that old stuff about social customs back in the early and mid-19th century. And would you believe it!?? There are Bronté societies and groups of "Janiacs" who get together to read and endlessly analyze and discuss this stuff!

All these collections of folk music and ballads? Since no one much is interested in this stuff anymore, and those who are insist on boring the crap out of everybody around them within earshot, just sweep these collections off the library shelves, then raid peoples' personal collections, and let's have a good old fashioned book burning!!!

While we're at it, all the vinyl and CDs and tapes containing any song—or piece of music—older than, say, from within the past thirty years—ought to go on the fire too. And that includes medieval chants, early operas by Monteverdi, songs and lute music by Dowland, Campion, and others, everything by Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Puccini, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Rimsky-Korsakov, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein—

ALL of it!!!

This is a MODERN world!! Let's not allow anything in it that's older than, say, at the most, thirty years.

Back in the Sixties, there was the motto, "Never trust anyone over thirty!" Let me update that in the light of our New Order:    Never read, listen to, or sing anything that wasn't written within the past thirty years.

And you songwriters out there!

Don't dare write any songs that last longer than two minutes and forty-five seconds!

Don Firth

P. S. Oh! And if you haven't heard it on the radio within the past two weeks—it's OUT!!

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: theleveller
Date: 15 May 10 - 03:57 PM

The whole argument seems a pretty silly one to me. Why does it have to be either/or? I'm a singer/songwriter but I also sing traditional songs. I like many of the traditional ballads but usually sing them accompanied with guitar otr cittern. The problem is finding the right place to sing them. In a singaround you can be accused of hogging the, often limited, time available, in folk clubs I've been criticised for 'going on a bit' and on stage you can sometimes lose a part of the audience who aren't interested in that sort of music.

Having said that, I don't think I could write the sort of songs I do without having a knowledge of traditional songs or, indeed, without a knowledge of the classic English novel and exceptional poetry.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Mark Ross
Date: 15 May 10 - 03:56 PM

Folksongs go out of style? I play every week in two different pre-schools. In one the pre-schoolers(up to age 5) want to sing FREIGHT TRAIN and TAKE YOU RIDIN' IN MY CAR, CAR every week, the older kids love JOHN HENRY.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 May 10 - 03:03 PM

"Jim, you come off like the truly miserable sort of person"
And you come across as somebody who makes inaccurate and unsubstatiated accusations without the courage to back them up - so we don't like each other - tough.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jeri
Date: 15 May 10 - 02:52 PM

Whoa! Five verses!

This is one of the more intentionally hateful threads I've seen in... maybe the last 20 minutes. (I had to get some lunch.)

Jim, you come off like the truly miserable sort of person that people who hate traddies think represents traddies, who hate those who like singer-songwriters because they act like... uh, they act like they hate people who like trad who hate people who like singer-songwriters.

If it's a war for you, maybe you should take up something besides music.

Where's Tom Lehrer when you need him?

And Bert. Bert thinks the main criteria of a good song is that it's short. I disagree.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 May 10 - 02:33 PM

Artist: Haggard, Merle
Song: Okie from Muskogee
Album: For the Record: 43 Legendary Hits Merle Haggard Sheet Music


We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
We don't take our trips on LSD
We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street;
We like livin' right, and bein' free.

I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all

We don't make a party out of lovin';
We like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo;
We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy,
Like the hippies out in San Francisco do.

And I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball.
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all.

Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear;
Beads and Roman sandals won't be seen.
Football's still the roughest thing on campus,
And the kids here still respect the college dean.

We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 May 10 - 01:48 PM

"Nowadays our listening habits have evolved and our needs are for shorter songs."
Make up your F mind one minute you're whinging about long songs, the next minute you say you don't mind them.
"The snigger-snogwriters I've heard don't represent any community - too busy gazing at their own navels??? "
As I said, spent the last 30 years listening to snide remarks from the S.S. about 'finger-in-ear and 'folk police' occasionally it's cathartic to take a leaf out and get your own back.
"MOST of the time you hear them murdered by a dreary boring interpretation."
Not in my experience - you must go to crap clubs. A song badly sung can be too long whether it's got two verses or twenty-two and whether it is three weeks or three centuries old.
what has the length or the age of a song got to do with its relevance?
"No longer are audiences prepared to listen to eternal ballads of Dickensian boredom."
You may find Dickens and long ballads boring - GSS has already summed up Dickens pretty concisely, long or short, old or new ballads are a matter of personal taste.
If anybody had banged on about your songs the way you are here, you would have leapt on the nearest chair squealing 'folk police'. Why don't you just go off and listen to what you like and leave us to listen to what we like - you're making an arsehole of what you appear to be trying to do anyway?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jeri
Date: 15 May 10 - 01:34 PM

The problem is that the people in that other thread are using the 1954 definition of a thread. No subjects, unless they appeared before the year x and nobody knows who started them.

Far be it from me to point out there was no internet back then, but I suppose the internet is just a different version of a town meeting or public stoning or something like that.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 May 10 - 01:23 PM

Hey B....Send me a buck two ninety-eight (American....not that phoney lookin' Canook stuff) and I'll send you a "Get Out of Dumb Arguments" card properly laminated to "stand the test of time."

Spaw

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 May 10 - 01:16 PM

Here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
Ya have to pay to get out of
Going through these things twice

Gospel of Bob

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 15 May 10 - 01:05 PM

I would like to point out, 'Bert' although the thread you referred to contained some negative comments (not the same as 'criticism') directed at 'singer-songwriters' much of the thread was concerned with debating the differences between traditional folk songs and recent/contemporary songs often labelled as 'folk songs'.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 May 10 - 01:00 PM

I know we're all assumed to have butterfly brains with an attention span tending towards nanoseconds, but there are still a fair number of people who aren't like that. And if that ever ceases to be the case, we are in real trouble as a society and as a species.

After all anyone learning to play a musical instrument has to be capable of a pretty extended attention span...

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 May 10 - 12:56 PM

Dickens was one of Englands greatest authors,in fact he is widely respected even by many colonials,but not the great literary critic [Bert]
analysis of many of his efforts,show that Many of his novels, with their recurrent theme of social reform, first appeared in magazines in serialised form, a popular format at the time. Unlike other authors who completed entire novels before serialisation, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialized. The practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by cliffhangers to keep the public looking forward to the next instalment.
how his work can be described as boring is unbelievable.
why dont you make acup of tea and listen to DanielODonnell

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 May 10 - 12:45 PM

That I can relate to. On looking at my own, I find that they range from 2mins 10 secs to six mins 45secs.

Willie's about right.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 15 May 10 - 10:26 AM

One reason I like Willie Nelson's songs is that he knows when to stop. If he's said everything after one minute, he writes a one minute song - If he needs six minutes, that's what he'll take.

Subject: RE: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Bert
Date: 15 May 10 - 09:58 AM

you don't like anything with more than two verses,
Look here

you don't like folk song!

Here's a few from my songlist that are kind of folky

A Roving        
Acres of Clams
Aiken Drum
Ain' No Mo' Cane on de Brazos
Ain't Gonna Grieve My Lord No More
Alabama Bound
All for me Grog
Alouette                
Amazing Grace
Ancient and Old Irish Condom D        
Annie Laurie
As I go Rambling 'Round                
Ash Grove - The
Auld Lang Syne                
Aunt Rhody

And that is just the A's


Two or three centuries, do you mean?

Yes, exactly. A few years ago, on Mudcat, Bruce Olsen treated us to a 'folk song' going back about three millennia.

...So far, you are the only one to criticize a whole genre of songs;...

and who said ...The snigger-snogwriters I've heard don't represent any community - too busy gazing at their own navels???

and there are too many folkies who think that they are gods and don't possess navels.


"Nowadays our listening habits have evolved and our needs are for shorter songs."

Most modern songs are rarely longer than three and a half minutes. They represent the listening habits of most of the population.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 May 10 - 05:55 AM

Folk songs had no competition back in those days. Each successive new style or genre attracts it's own adherents. This in turn thins the audience for other forms.
When will we learn to accept the fact that we are a minority interest?
Enjoy it, don't try to analyse it.
In the same way that pornographic pictures have gone from just pictures of naked people, to gynaecological text books. So some folk music adherents are in danger of analysing themselves up their own arseholes!
Both of which seem to me to destroy the enjoyment.

The thought occurs to me, that as pornography has gone from hirsuite to baby bald, will folk musicians evolve in a similar fashion?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: glueman
Date: 15 May 10 - 05:22 AM

A timely post Bert. There isn't much (any?) critique of folk songs that addresses their fall from popularity. It's usually blamed on the music hall, or cinema or the TV but that suggests the songs lacked something those media provided.

I'm happy to grade traditional music from sublime and transcendent to a load of old cobblers and have never understood validating antiquity and process for its own sake. The arrested nature of folk music is largely due to the captive audience to whom it is played, or who play it. Boos and catcalls, where warranted, would do more for the continuing folk process than any amount of applause.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 May 10 - 05:21 AM

Got the message Bert; You don't like Dickens, you don't like anything with more than two verses, you don't like folk song!
"The fact is that most 'folk songs' were collected over a relatively brief period of our history."
Two or three centuries, do you mean?
Guest Pete hit the nail on the head and Don was spot on in his response; Pepys was writing about Barbara Allen as being 'that old Scotch song' in the mid-1600s; name one modern song that you think could last a tiny fraction of that time with or without the aid of recording equipment - yours or anybodys.
"In that thread many posters jumped on the waggon to criticize songwriters."
So far, you are the only one to criticize a whole genre of songs; everybody else was just trying to define them.
"Nowadays our listening habits have evolved and our needs are for shorter songs."
Your listening habits and your needs maybe; some of us have no problem with a song which lasts up to ten minutes (usually the maximum for a ballad); and this afternoon I will sit down and listen to a radio play which will last for an hour and a half with no problem at all.
Don't put your own inabilities onto the rest of us.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 May 10 - 04:52 AM

The answer to that, Pete, is that none of us know.

If some of Bert's songs are taken up by others in the folk scene and sung again and again so that they become known throughout that folk scene and beyond, it is perfectly possible.

However, there is no way to judge other than with 20/20 hindsight.

Time machine, anyone?

Don T.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 15 May 10 - 04:01 AM

Bert, you live in an age where your songs can be recorded however good or bad they are. Will any of yours last as long as songs that are still here simply because people wanted to keep them and made the effort to remember them.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Bert
Date: 14 May 10 - 08:09 PM

Just as bad Phil.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 14 May 10 - 08:07 PM

What about long new songs by songwriters?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Bert
Date: 14 May 10 - 08:06 PM

...have universal appeal...

Yeah right! That's why you hear them on the radio all the time.

...To hear a long ballad sung well is a delight...

Yes very true, listen to Susan of DT, or Marti Rogers. But MOST of the time you hear them murdered by a dreary boring interpretation.

...Why is it then that people have to make this accusation of folk music?.. Well it is just MY accusation against those who were knocking songwriters in the other thread.

Yes there ARE bad songwriters so that makes it all right to 'snigger' at all songwriters.

We must also remember that there are many, many BAD Folksingers and an awful lot of dreary folk songs out there.

And this thread is about PAYBACK TIME for the idiot who coined the snigger/snogwriter phrase.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Tootler
Date: 14 May 10 - 06:44 PM

Codswallop!

People sing traditional songs because they speak to them in some way.

The long ballads contains superb stories which have universal appeal. To hear a long ballad sung well is a delight.

True, folk music is a minority genre, but so are jazz and classical music. Nobody says the music of Bach or Mozart or the Hot Five and Seven Recordings should be consigned to the dustbin because they are "out of date" or are only listened to by "sentimentalists trying to capture a long lost past". Why is it then that people have to make this accusation of folk music?

Music from all eras has the power to move us and this is true of folk music just as much as any other genre, so lets have less of this nonsense about consigning it to the past.

Subject: Folklore: Folk singer or folk wringer
From: Bert
Date: 14 May 10 - 05:18 PM

This object of this thread is to remove folk song discussion from the song wronger thread.

In that thread many posters jumped on the waggon to criticize songwriters.

So here, us songwriters can get the chance to criticize folk songs and folk singers.

The fact is that most 'folk songs' were collected over a relatively brief period of our history. Much of this collecting was done many years ago when people expected different things from entertainment.

There was no TV and no Radio and no recorded sound when many folk songs originated and people wanted ballads and sagas that would entertain them for fairly long periods.

Nowadays our listening habits have evolved and our needs are for shorter songs. No longer are audiences prepared to listen to eternal ballads of Dickensian boredom. Many 'folk songs' would have died a naturally deserved death years ago had it not been for sentimentalists trying to recapture a long long past.

In fact as far as most communities go many of these songs are already dead.