Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 07:43 AM

"Rummy Conjuring Tricks" - Peter Live and Kicking Ass.

Don't tell me this would not compare favourably with any genre 'cos you would be wrong!

If you ain't heard it before, it will delight and scare the pants off you, in the same minute...Genius is a term used too lightly...but he was one of the few that has yet come to light, out of our music...he was a wild, unstable, reliable, volatile, scary, honest and true, gentle-man.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: pavane
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 07:03 AM

I have a copy of KOK, signed by PB - but not for me - bought s/hand

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Brian Peters
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 04:38 AM

Both Sides Then. Bought it mainly for the YT / Watersons big band, was disappointed by those tracks but loved everything else on it.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 05:29 PM

We spent the day being happy tourists in sunny Chester today. One part of this pilgrimage was to visit THIS on the old Bellamist trail. Thanks to PB, I've become a huge RC fan, collecting many originals, including The Fox Jumps Over the Parson's Gate, which furnished the art for PB's album of the same name which, for shame, gets short shrift on the otherwise very welcome Fair England's Shore CD reissue.

Talking of PB albums, my favourite is Keep on Kipling in its original vinyl form as the CD re-issue messes up the continuity with various extraneous session tracks with mess with the original sequence. They would have worked better as extras! Anyhoo - I won the album off PB at a gig as part of the raffle, and asked him to make the choice for me. He have me KOK saying it was the best thing he'd ever done. Both Sides Then runs it a close second, CD re-issue included. which features Maid of Australia, one of PB's near perfect duets with Swarb. Shame they didn't do more together really.

What's yours?

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 08:50 AM

I didn't think it was entirely for lack of ability, though.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 08:34 AM

Yes Pip, so you're obviously not a criminal.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 04:39 AM

Didn't Thatcher get rid of doing?

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 04:11 AM

'them as can, do, them as can't, criticize ' [ or teach ]

Steady on. I teach criminology.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 03:07 AM

Well Catherine you know what they say here in Yorkshire, ' them as can, do, them as can't, criticize ' [ or teach ]

Dave H

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 02:43 PM

Dear Catherine - profound apologies for mistakenly referring to you as Caroline in my last post. (As it happened, I had a CD by somebody called Caroline on my desk at the time of writing.)

And please do enlighten us - here, or on Will Fly's "more pretentious than Bellowhead" thread - as who and what you would like to hear more of at folk festivals. You never know, some festival organisers might be following this correspondence, so this is the time to ...

"Accentuate the positive,
Eliminate the negative,
Latch on to the affirmative..."

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Howard Jones
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 12:12 PM

It might be worth pointing out that Will Fly has started this thread to discuss the issues Catherine Foster has raised:

'More pretentious than Bellowhead'

Perhaps Catherine could visit that and explain what she'd prefer.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 07:34 AM

Not being a folkie really I never heard of PB.
Been for a listen on Spotify and enjoyed listening'
Cheers all

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 06:47 AM

Brilliant Sean

Les

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 05:57 AM

People who love apples and don't much care for bananas have a perfect right to organise apple festivals. And people who love bananas and despise apples should look somewhere else for entertainment.

I think we should all strive to the ideal of the fruit salad, though there are times when only a single fruit will do. Do people approach vegetables in the same way? Even your Traditional Roast is a thing of complements and contrasts; added to which are the mustards and sauces, which are always a matter of taste. Peter Bellamy was like a fine Horseradish Sauce - an essential garnish to The Traditional Roast Beef of Old England, though perhaps a bit strong for those who prefer everything boiled to a pulp.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 05:56 AM

MoN, I disagree with your assessment of what I took to be Caroline Foster's point, which is that the music she hoped to find had been mis-sold. An analogy might be entering MacDonalds and asking for a double cheeseburger and expecting it to look like the thing on the poster. The mistake was her's but it was an error of expectation, not type.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 05:56 AM

" ... Catherine how would you like IT to be presented?"

Yes, Catherine, I think we should be told. You can't just tell us that something is rubbish without telling us exactly why you think it is rubbish. Some examples and counter-examples (derived from what happens in other countries, perhaps?) might be a good place to start.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 05:48 AM

I think Peter would have been greatly amused by what's been written on this thread, and infuriated by some of it. What he would have posted in reply, I can't imagine – but I'm sure that even if I disagreed with it, I would have enjoyed reading it.

The earlier question of what he would have thought about today's folk scene is (IMHO) unanswerable. Like the Elephant's Child in Kipling's "Just So Stories", Peter was possessed by a "satiable curtiosity". This made him a perpetual seeker, experimenter, and challenger of entrenched orthodoxies. He was always asking new questions, exploring new territory, and offending somebody's sensibilities.   So if he were still here today, he wouldn't have exactly the same tastes and opinions he had twenty years ago (though many people would still have found them infuriating). I wish he had given us the opportunity to discover what they would have been.

Not having been at Shrewsbury Festival, I have no basis for questioning Caroline Foster's assessment of the performers she encountered there. But the general tone of her comments suggests that she is making what Professor Gilbert Ryle used to call a "category mistake".   This is like regarding an apple as something that has tried to be a banana, and failed. People who love apples and don't much care for bananas have a perfect right to organise apple festivals. And people who love bananas and despise apples should look somewhere else for entertainment.

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 05:23 AM

Thanks Ms / Mr Hesk, that's very kind.

I have been involved with the Big Green and much fun it was. We are thinking of a Ceilidh in Januaryish involving as many Chorlton environmental and community groups as possible.

Perhaps you and you family & friends will come and shake a leg?

Les

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Hesk
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 05:17 AM

Hi Les,

We've never met, but I think you may have met my daughter, Helen, who helped to run the Green Festival, at Chorlton.
I have read many of your threads with interest and want to thank you for your good common sense.
Your recent post, above, was a case in point. I couldn't agree with you more.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 04:02 AM

I wasn't going to bother Soldier but since you have brought it up:

"comforted that their mediocre tradition is safe in the hands of the even more mediocre ......... "

This simply misses the essence of music - it either does something for you or it doesn't. That's it really. Calling it mediocre is irrelevant.

"our entire nation should be celebrating" This is never going to happen. I don't think this entire nation has ever celebrated anything has? The end of WW2?

My experience, only nearly 50 years, is that if you present old songs and tunes well in the right environment lots of people enjoy it. That's it really

L in C#

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,JTB
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 07:03 PM

Did anyone catch young Lucy Ward at Shrewsbury. It would be hard to call her boring or mediocre.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 06:27 PM

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Catherine Foster - PM
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 01:51 PM

Hi Les,

I was there this year and it was my first year, but your response sums up everything I was "banging on" about. Shrewsbury FF is a FOLK FESTIVAL. It appeals to folkies and within those hallowed, insular walls each and every one of them can feel comforted that their mediocre tradition is safe in the hands of the even more mediocre Kerr, Fagan, Sartin, Hield, Kerfuffle, Causley etc. A more dull and less exciting, forward looking event would be hard to find.

You may want to bring up the Afro Celts. Christ so would I. More pretentious than Bellowhead (and that's saying something), but musically inferior.

It was folkie through and through with a capital F. What upsets me so much is that this is music that our entire nation should be celebrating and as long as we present it in this kind of way, Joe Public isn't going to sit up and take notice. No other nation would stand for their traditional music being treated as such.

Catherine
This is a good post, Catherine how would you like IT to be presented?

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 05:21 PM

Bellamy live was more than a bit special. I was lucky to see him 2 or 3 times and it really made me understand that at the heart of this old music is being in a human sized acoustic space, say a room, and hearing somebody sing a song that really hits all your senses.

I didn't expect everybody or even most or even quite a lot of people to feel as I did. Name any genre of music and most people will probably be unmoved by it.

Luckily some people come down the Beech and sing songs and I think we all appreciate what everybody sings. Sometimes am greatly affected and sometimes not. But soemtimes is not bad. Providing the "human sized acoustic space, say a room" is the first step and showing friendship and respect are others and PB knew that. I feel sure most people on this thread will feel likewise. As for cerrying this great music to convince all the people to like it? Forget that daft idea

L in C#

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 05:13 PM

OK ... I've got a confession to make ...


Ummm ... I'm not terribly fond of Theodore Sturgeon's fiction ... There! I've said it!

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 03:17 PM

One of these fine days, old man - you're going to actually bother to read what I write before cracking off yet another frenzied obnoxious reply which misses the point by several merry country miles. Just in case anyone else missed it - when I say nothing is crap I mean it in relation to Sturgeon's Law discussed above. Bellamy's singing was an acquired taste for some (the best things in life very often are) but I loved as soon as I heard it.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 02:58 PM

"Nothing is crap"
SO'P - as far as I can see you are the only contributor to have used the term 'crap' in relation to Bellamy's singing - a 'straw man' technique of arguing that you seem to be rather fond of.
A piece of creative art, which is what I believe all singing to be, works or doesn't work in relation to what the artist claims it to be and what he or she sets out to achieve with it.
Bellamy's singing never worked for me (happy to discuss why), and eventually it ceased to work for others on such a scale that led to an empty booking diary. To suggest that it was anything other than a failure of his part to satisfy an audience that he had chosen to provide his bread and butter, is dishonest in the extreme.
"The world isn't ready for me yet" is an argument that belongs far more with Tony Hancock's 'The Rebel' than it does to the folk scene.
"..... who blew my brains out as a live performer;"
Is that where they went?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 01:50 PM

Nothing is crap, only to those who find it crap; there are no absolutes, only a vague sort of conscensus whih in the folk world has a habit of assuming a frightening level of orthodoxy. Here's a thing whilst I collect Peter Bellamy's albums avidly, I don't think he made anything like a good one, he made a few good folk albums (and never a bad one) but even at their best it's NOTHING compared to what he was like live. Even S&RCT is nothing compared to what he was like live. When I sing his praises, I sing the praises of the man who blew my brains out as a live performer; I listen to his records in echo of that, but they're pretty remote at best. I love watching Christy Moore live but his over-produced albums leave me cold; same with Jane Siberry; same with Robin Williamson, though his ECM album The Iron Stone is very special (I wonder, how would Peter Bellamy have fared on ECM?). Folk albums - IMHO - are generally shite with few but exceptions; for whatever no folk albums do it for me in a way that a proper rock, jazz or classical album does. There is no folk album to match Unknown Pleasures. Bright Phoebus comes close (Danny Rose is the greatest recorded folk song ever) & Jim Eldon albums are in a league of their own (I have no words to account for Rockin' With The Band such is its perfection). Jim Eldon is my Folk God anyway - he's a far greater singer of Traditional Song than Peter Bellamy and he makes better records; Jim Eldon makes both good albums and good folk albums too. Again, just My Humble Opinion, guv, but to me Jim is the Real McCoy in a way that Bellamy, regretfully, never was.

There's a lot of great music out there; great singers & musicians most of whom I'll never hear let alone fall in love with. On the phone to Spleen the other day I think I realised I'm too old to fall in love with musicians the way I used to. I fell in love with Peter Bellamy and I continue to be in love with Jim Eldon; in singarounds I honoured to hear some amazing singers & roar in hearty transcendence for the sweet joy of life itself, and for this I a truly thankful; likewise the great singers I meet & share the stage with at festivals. Makes me sad to think I'll never love any of them with unreserved adoration, but, most essentially, respect where respect is due...

There is no bad music; no absolutes, just opinions; all music is great to someone. Today in Blackpool we passed a wooden shack selling Commercial Irish Music, out of which oozed the most syrupy rendering of Fields of Athenry you could imagine. It struck me as the purest expression of that song I'd ever heard - perfect, in fact, in terms of authentic folkloric experience & it probably sells by the shed load. Certainly put a smile on my face anyway.

Context is all; love what you love & love what you are.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 12:17 PM

YY - you've been missing out! (As indeed I was until recently.) There are some links in my commemorative blog post.

Interesting about Sturgeon's Law - I didn't realise the proportion was as low as 90%!

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:59 AM

I suspect that Foul Ole Ron had Sturgeon's Law in mind (when he referred to "surgeons law" above). For those not familiar with Theodore Sturgeon or his ("law"), he was a brilliant science fiction writer who is reported to have said (I'm paraphrasing here), "90% of Science Fiction is crap. But of course, 90% of everything is crap."

(Actually, I just Googled "Sturgeon's Law" to make sure I had it right, and my quote/paraphrase above is not entirely accurate -- though it does correctly represent the general idea of what he said, which (it turns out) was at greater length and rather more complicated. If you want to check it out, you can here.)

I've being reading this thread with great interest, as I have only ever heard of PB -- never actually seen or heard him myself.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:48 AM

Millneeium hand and shrimp.

I'll have some of that - with a side order of rice and chopped chives.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Foul Ole Ron
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:42 AM

Cobblers to thread drift! Look there are peple trying to make a nice noise & then there are peple trying to capture TAHT sound, the one that nobodys' made bofore. Some of the peoplel with the nice noses noises i mean are briliant, most of them arent', and if you go ot a folk fest looking for seehr briliantness you'll be disappointed. You might hear some nice noises noses I mean though. No I mean noises.

Where was i. Some of hte people trying to capture THAT sound are briliant too, mos of them aren't, sods law or surgeons law or somethig. But Bellamy was briliant I reckon, brillant maybe even. Some people don't think he was and that's up to them. But wether you can get any sheer briillantness in a rusty cart at a folk fest is neither here not the other. Millneeium hand and shrimp.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 08:17 AM

To add to the thread drift, my feeling is that you're possibly more likely to find interesting interpretations of folk songs from musicians from genres other than folk (just so long as they're not actually trying to do 'folk'. Take this version of The Cruel Mother for example. Not a cart of rustic merry-makers to be heard..

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,glumman
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 06:23 AM

Ashtray had it right when he said Bellamy would have found new and different champions if he'd have hung on, once the folk scene had exercised natural de-selection. Unfortunately his own dark night coincided with that of his career or we might have had a sort of folk Robert Wyatt, with his own South Bank Show and continuing retrospectives.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 04:35 AM

LH: "I can't comment on the festivals in the UK, because I haven't attended any of those yet".

I think you'd be pleasantly surprised, LH. Your description of Canadian festivals sounds just like a lot of UK folk festivals.

Glueman: Tasteful

Ok, maybe distasteful was too strong a word, but I think Catherine's all out attack on the perceived failings of the current UK folk scene probably is better served by its own thread... especially if dreary wallpaper music like the Mumfords and Marling are the alternatives being championed.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 05:55 PM

You would, I think, find the North American folk festival scene much more to your liking, Catherine. There are a tremendous number of absolutely great young performers and newcomers to be seen at the Canadian and American folk festivals, as well as the oldtimers and more nostalgic acts from decades past. There's also a tremendous variety of music being offered. It's definitely not a narrow little alleyway just for trad music at Ontario folk festivals, but a showcase for all kinds of different styles and ages.

I can't comment on the festivals in the UK, because I haven't attended any of those yet.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: brezhnev
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 05:46 PM

i think a thread on peter bellamy is the perfect place to bang on about endlessly dreary folk singers. Not sure that they're unique to this country, though.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,gluemania
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 05:27 PM

Tasteful? Surely people are missing the point?

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 04:36 PM

For what it's worth, I agree with Michael. Catherine, start a new thread why don't you? I'm sure you'll get a few takers. I've got a couple of points I want to make back at you, but not on this thread where so many people who were friends with Peter Bellamy have shared their memories. It would be a little distasteful.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 03:50 PM

Right, gluemania; very fair point. Neither did I take it as any sort of criticism of Peter; simply as perhaps a drift too far from what we should be remembering him for. I still feel we are getting a bit too far from what I perceive as the purpose of the thread: but that's no sort of novelty on this forum, to be sure!

~M~

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,gluemania
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 03:45 PM

The thread has remained on topic. Peter Bellamy's lack of bookings may be a barometer of the expectations of 'the' 'folk' 'scene'. I read Catherine Foster's rebuke as a warning that nothing had changed on that front, not as a criticism of PB.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 03:35 PM

Without wishing to sound censorious, in either the literal or the conventional sense, I feel I owe it to the memory of a dear, dead friend to remind posters that this thread was intended, as I understand, to pay tribute to the memory of a fine man and fine singer; and should not be allowed, I feel, to drift into an animadversion on the current state of the club and festival scene, or denunciations of the talents and qualities of those involved therein. Would it not be more seemly to start a new thread for such a purpose, rather than to hang it on speculations as to what Peter might have thought of this or that regarding the current situation, or to inveigh against "Elevating Bellamy to this status" ~~ [which 'status'? who has?]?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,gluemania
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 02:42 PM

Good opinions Catherine. I'll buy you a beer for those any time you like.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Catherine Foster
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 02:39 PM

Hi Hesk,

Unfortunately I'm not playing Devil's Advocate. I do think this scene celebrates mediocrity more-so than any other musical genre. As I see it (and hear it) the performers revered as the professional top of their game are no better than the eager amateur elsewhere. This is not the case in exponents of any of the other international traditional musics that I have encountered, enjoyed and engaged with over my many years of listening. As long as this mediocrity continues the masses will continue to be turned off by something that they should be proud of.


I'm sorry to hijack this thread, and do not wish to sully the memory of anyone who has passed, but let's not go overboard harking back as that will only fuel the apathy.

The current folk festival scene is oversubscribed. There are too many similar festivals with the same artists (I use the term generously), the same audiences and the same insular, self-gratified non-inclusive outlook.

Catherine

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Hesk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 02:17 PM

Are you playing Devil's Advocate, Catherine? I find it difficult to tell?
Do you really find Bellowhead pretensious and many of the young musicians mediocre, or do you mean to state the opposite?
This thread started as a reminder that it was 19 years ago that Peter Bellamy committed suicide, and for the most part, what followed was a series of memories, mostly fond. I really can't see the problem with that.
As for the current festival scene, it seems pretty healthy and enjoyed by a large minority. As with any interest, it is largely ignored and disliked by anyone outside of it, and again, as with any interest, has a wide range of opinions within it.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 02:11 PM

Yes, Catherine, but consider the sheep! They are giving it their all, and not in a pretentious way either. In fact, they've always struck me as rather modest animals, quite self-effacing.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Ian Gill
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 02:08 PM

Tam Batyellper, they used to call him in the mags... I reckon he was a great singer and a great artist who influenced more folks than like to let on.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Catherine Foster
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 01:51 PM

Hi Les,

I was there this year and it was my first year, but your response sums up everything I was "banging on" about. Shrewsbury FF is a FOLK FESTIVAL. It appeals to folkies and within those hallowed, insular walls each and every one of them can feel comforted that their mediocre tradition is safe in the hands of the even more mediocre Kerr, Fagan, Sartin, Hield, Kerfuffle, Causley etc. A more dull and less exciting, forward looking event would be hard to find.

You may want to bring up the Afro Celts. Christ so would I. More pretentious than Bellowhead (and that's saying something), but musically inferior.

It was folkie through and through with a capital F. What upsets me so much is that this is music that our entire nation should be celebrating and as long as we present it in this kind of way, Joe Public isn't going to sit up and take notice. No other nation would stand for their traditional music being treated as such.

Catherine

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 01:32 PM

Catherine, go to Shrewsbury Folk Festival and you will find more exciting quality music than you can hope to fit into a few days. Performed by all sorts and ages and endlessly brilliant.

As for looking backwards and searching old books and wax cylinders? Well 'folk' now a more or less meaningless word, but traditional or just old? Yes that's what it is part about.

Since the mid 50s a whole genre of music has been re-created and created in folk clubs, festivals, in books and in recordings. Some of us go back there to learn songs and tunes because we like them and we want to perform them. Bellamy was very important. If you don't like him fine. We really don't mind

L in C#

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: GUEST,Catherine Foster
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 12:56 PM

This whole discussion just serves to highlight why traditional music in the UK is in such a miserable state. You can argue all you like about how the "young guns" (Barber, Moray, Unthanks, Bellowhead et al) are part of a whole new wave of folk musicians who are putting the spark back into this ailing scene, but you must realise that it's really only folkies who are noticing this.

There may be a few more articles than normal stuffed away in a broadsheet or even a tabloid and other media streams might be picking up on this, but it's merely to pat this scene on it's head, not celebrate it.

The scene is far too backward and defensive. Elevating Bellamy to this status, again, highlights this. The anger over Mumford and Marling by folkies in the UK highlights this. Boden's self promoting, backward looking, love in (AFSAD) highlights this. Moray's obsession with scratchy old wax cylinders highlights this. And these are considered to be movers and shakers in this sparky new folk scene.

Unfortunately it's not just this that ails the UK folk scene. It's the level of performance that these guys think is acceptable. Moray wails, Boden bleats and no-one (outside of the cliquy scene) wants to hear it.

Sorry for going OT and for the perceived unkind tirade, but it irks me when people blindly keep defending this dying tradition with arguments and empty justification which will only serve to ultimately destroy it.


Get over Peter Bellamy.

Subject: RE: Boring, Bleating Old Traddy (Peter Bellamy)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 12:09 PM

Out of the mouths or something related