Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jan 11 - 07:37 AM

Glueman ~~ the director of the Cambridge Folk Fest, many·many years ago, said to me that most people didn't care what music he gave them so long as it was good. He never responded to my request in my very next Folk Review column for the the Allegri String Quartet playing Beethoven's Late Quartets + the London Bach players performing all six Brandenburg Concerti as mainstay of the next year's festival. Wonder why?

Al ~~ your tone is saecastic; but why? I didn't say I was going to be the qualified and interested 3rd pty; but as I have been a professional critic of folk music since 1969, for journals as diverse as The Times, The Guardian, Folk Review, Record Mirror, TES, Cambridge Evening News [cont p 94], in what way do you regard me as a 3P neither qualified to comment on, nor interested in, the topic, please?

~M~

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 06 Jan 11 - 07:23 AM

A coop is where chickens are kept. A northerner pronounces cup as 'cup', not 'cap'. The Beatles sang as they did because they were influenced by Jerry Lee Lewis and Leadbelly and they, like numerous other English performers, used the 'voice' of their medium and unselfconsciously spoke scouse when not singing.

Billy Bragg, Neil Tennant, Morrissey, Noel Coward, used different forms of vernacular English to sing with, others like Gerry Rafferty use universal rock and roll. Who cares as long as it sounds good?

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 06 Jan 11 - 06:52 AM

So, lets get this right, you're going to be the 'qualified and interested third party'.

best of luck with the role, Mike.

al

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jan 11 - 12:57 AM

Al ~~ Somerset Maugham's point, tho, is surely that Strickland's compulsions were a matter mnemonic to him, but did not place the actual achievement of his art above criticism by qualified & interested third parties. Thus surely too McTell??

Thank you: & a Happy New Year right back to you...

〠Michael〠

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:58 PM

TATTIE BOGLE correct MCTELL was born in Farnborugh kent raised in Croydon

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:55 PM

Hootenanny, grr grr grr
Pub with no beer was written by an irishman,
It was popularised by slim dusty an Ausralian

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:49 PM

Croydon to be precise (that's if you're talking about Ralph, GSS - cross-posting has rather mixed things up!) I've just read his autobiography of his childhood and earlier years - fascinating stuff!

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:48 PM

ok i have just googled Mctell, he was born in Croydon and raised in Farnborough kent, I was born in lewisham, lived there until I was 10 and then moved to Downe kent[DOWNE IS 5 MILESfrom FARNBOROUGH]
Mctell has almost the same accent as myself, and it is hardly American.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:41 PM

ok,lets cut the crap.
he sings with a southern English accent,CUP, NOT COOP,he clearly enunciates, pity, not piddy, in the version i heard.
he does sing gal instead of girl, does that make him an upper class twit or a yank. his[mctells] diction is pretty good. my guess is that he is a south londoner possibly Streatham/Brixton /Tooting, not even soUth east london, his accent is fairly similiar to Carthy, who is a south londoner, and to myself, I was born in lewisham.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhAeV6EfzEs

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:40 PM

Nick Keir of the McCalmans sums it up in this song!

http://www.the-mccalmans.com/lyrics/lyrics-American-Accent.htm

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:20 PM

I refresh this thread with some hesitation ~~ it had gone on & on for some while ~~ because the unhappy death of Gerry Rafferty, & consequent U-Tube links on his obit thread to his Baker Street, have brought it all back to mind. Not speaking ill of the dead if I say that that was a perfect example of the phenomenon which made me OP this thread in the first place last Autumn ~~ a Scotsman (born Paisley) singing about a street in the West End of London in an accent which would have been much more appropriate to a street running somewhere between Broadway & Central Park in the W80s.

I hadn't noticed that song until he pulled off the ultimate publicity campaign for it this week (and will probably forget it forever in a few hours, in fact I can't remember anything of the tune a minute after it stopped, except that it was a faux-Dylan droning monotone of emasculated blues).

It does sound American to me at about the three-minute mark, but earlier on the voice is more like that of a Scottish actor trained in RP to get a job in the English-dominated drama cartel (I have known quite a few of them and always find their very existence depressing). Rafferty's Scottish origins are so throroughly disguised that if I didn't know better I'd have guessed he was a Liverpudlian putting that accent on.

Nice sax solo, though.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:15 PM

PS happy new year Mike!

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:14 PM

When I was 18, TS Eliot reading the Waste land was my favourite recording of anything. I listened to it many times. That is the voice that creared the Waste Land. The rhythms and resonances of of old Toilets voice still echo in my mind every time I read the lines now.

But that's neither here nor there Mike. what is crucial is McTell's right to create with exactly the brushes from the pallete that HE chooses. Not some prefigured stereotypical way a Croydon lad should sing.

Charles Strickland in The Moon and Sixpence is asked to consider what if he turns out to be a bad painter - should he have abandoned his wife and family.

Strickland says something like, when a man finds himself drowning in the river - he has to swim. It doesn't matter whether he swims well or badly. All he knows is, he has to swim, and that is my predicament. It doesn't matter whether I paint well or badly, I have to paint.

And I think that is Ralph McTell. A completely committed artist, who has put his best foot forward (as it feels to him) and people have to make what they will of it. Thankfully there are quite a few of us who find what he does acceptable - remarkable even. We know we couldn't do it as well.

What is stunning is that this chap from a very poor background has realised his ambition to be an artist. Ralph, when he started out had this persona as a sort of ragtime cavalier. His reference points were US folksingers and the glamour of the European continent that few of us had seen, but he had.

It was an ambitious pose. Perhaps a bit uppity for a working class kid. But I reckon he pulled it off, pretty damn well.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 05:28 PM

I say again, Al ~~ I have nothing but respect for Ralph McTell's CREATIVE ENDEAVOUR. Please reread my posts of 03 Nov 10, 06.10AM & 04.45PM. But that doesn't compel me to admire the taste or manner of his performance ~~ whatever might have been his contribution for however long

Have you ever heard T S Eliot reading The Waste Land? Toneless & horrible, to my ear. Any competent actor could do it better. I can't offhand think of a cover of Streets Of London; but I am sure there must be some more appropriate to the atmosphere & milieu of the song than Ralph's own renditions. The creator is not necessarily the best person to perform his own work: nothing ~ not even the fact of being the author, or having contributed for 40+ years ~ gives anyone "the right to sing in exactly the voice he wants", if that voice fights [in this case, literally, absolutely FIGHTS] the milieu & atmosphere of his work. The man has reduced his own cogent social comment to a crooning sentimentality which sets the teeth on edge. What amazes me is how he can have failed to have observed this anomaly for himself.

In those same bowels, consider you may be critically incorrect here.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 04:10 PM

Just reading back with disbelief at some of the sneering sods criticisng Ralph McTell's accent.

Some people wouldn't recognise creative endeavour if it bit their balls off.

Personally i count myself blessed to have seen Ralph work and own some of his recordings. His lifetime of songwriting work speaks for itself. His guitar work has been inspirational.

Over a period of forty odd years Ralph has established through his many achievments the right to sing in exactly the voice he wants. he has proved with his life the artistic validity of his contribution.

In the bowels of Christ, consider that what you think you know about folk music might be wrong.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 08:46 AM

Ha! No shit:

The Hog of the Forsaken got no reason to cry
He got to chew the angels fallen from on high
He ain't waiting for no answer
baking woeful pie -
Pie of eyesight pie blue-black
Woe that pie
The pie of by and by

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 08:35 AM

Akkadian is the favoured language of archangels, I like to think, a knowledge of Babylonian being pretty essential in the smiting business. This must surely be the soundtrack of any descent to the underworld:
Go

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 08:19 AM

Hmmm - never been too good with accents myself, which is why I never bother; even Santa Fe Trail tends to come out in the voice of a ex-pat Northumbrian Border settler, though I've felt odd bits of Americana creeping in of late - that said even on Hog of the Forsaken I don't stray too far west of Backworth.

My old favourites The Manband (or just Man as they called themselves to look big on posters in the days before internet search engines) sang beautifully largely on account of their being Welsh but did so in American accents. The great Eric Burdon is a Geordie who absorbed the blues as much as the blues absorbed him (even finding his way onto the cover of the Mothers' We're Only in it for the Money) and whilst his stage intros are done very much in character, in interviews it's Walker all the way.

Happily, people can - and will - do what they want.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 07:50 AM

... & glueman, the accent of fallen archangels is surely nearer to Miltonic blank verse than to Fleetwood Mac?

~M~

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree
aaaagggghh don't get me going...

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 07:47 AM

But, Sean, if I now & again depart from my native accent, I endeavour to do so in some way relevant to the topic or milieu of the song. Butter&Cheese is a Norfolk song. Cotton Mill Girls is a down-home rustic American one. But if I sang every one of them in the same cod-Mummerset [as so many folkies do], then 'oist should I surely be wiz my own petard {Mille remerciments, Will}.

~M~

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 07:29 AM

GR had that soft rock accent down pretty well. The sound of Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, a lost highway of broken dreams, the accent of fallen archangels one likes to think.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 07:24 AM

Zis "MtheGM" - 'e eez 'oist wiz 'is own petard, n'est-ce-pas?

(Just trying out a French accent over my native Lancastrian...)

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 07:15 AM

You're a man of accents yourself, MtheGM - when you sing Butter & Cheese & All (for example) it's hardly in the persona of your true Glittering Groucho Club Gliterato self. Likewise the down-home rusticity of Cotton Mill Girls isn't quite you either, is it?

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:40 AM

Good point, Will ~~ but does he sound as if he's come there from Paisley? Honest, now...

~M~

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 06:01 AM

A conundrum, eh, Michael? Well, you could say - if you wanted to - that the song is about a stranger in a strange land. It's about the hopes and dreams and failures of a non-Londoner musician in the harsh world of 'trying to make it down in London' who's yearning for home. So that, perhaps, crosses off one of your caveats. :-)

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jan 11 - 04:04 AM

I refresh this thread with some hesitation ~~ it had gone on & on for some while ~~ because the unhappy death of Gerry Rafferty, & consequent U-Tube links on his obit thread to his Baker Street, have brought it all back to mind. Not speaking ill of the dead if I say that that was a perfect example of the phenomenon which made me OP this thread in the first place last Autumn ~~ a Scotsman (born Paisley) singing about a street in the West End of London in an accent which would have been much more appropriate to a street running somewhere between Broadway & Central Park in the W80s.

Again ~~ why oh why? And did nobody but me think it strange?

~M~

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,glueperson
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 06:17 PM

The definitive spoken mid-atlantean was Kent Walton. Vintage grapple fans will recall him commentating on a Mick McManus vs Jackie Pallo bout from a crumbling town hall surrounded by abusive dowagers. Kendo Nagasaki, Les Kellet, Steve Logan and Mike Marino, we will not see their like again.

"Have a good week - till next week".

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 06:06 PM

Hoot ~~ without wishing to be heavy or touchy or any such, feel in justice to them & me that I should make clear that I am talking of real friends of 40+ years standing ~~ the sort from whom one will expect & get candour; not the sort of casual acquaintance who would feel obligated to be 'polite' to avoid offence.

Jim ~~ enjoy your Guinness.


~Michael~

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 04:51 PM

"I think it no accident that two of the greatest of folksingers, Ewan MacColl & Theo Bikel,"
Can't speak for Theodor Bikel Mike - my memory of him is a multi-language album not long after I became involved in folk; seem to remember him being a somewhat polished singer who didn't really leave much of an impression - sorry, probably being very unfair.
Ewan's connection between singing and acting was a somewhat complicated one. Don't know what he was like as an actor, but I know that he used Stnislavski's acting techniques to get a singer to connect with a song rather than to perform it - to internalise the song and make it part of them, using things like 'emotion memory' and 'application of the idea of 'if''.
His 'bible' in runnng the Critics Group was Stanislavski's An Actor Prepares. He in no way advocated a singer acting out a song, or using theatrical techniques, but to bring a song to the singer rather than a singer to the song.
It was quite a difficult process to get used to, but when it worked, I saw some of the most electrifying performances from some not very experienced singers using this method.
People have often accused MacColl's singing of being 'theatrical' - I have to say that, apart from some very early recordings, I never really saw this (though I do have a fascinating recording of him singing 'The Death of Hector' made for the BBC some time in the forties, I think) .
I don't really think accent has very much to do with this, except that, for me anyway, singing in an accent other than your own, or one you are not very familiar with, has the effect of not only externalising the song, but of holding it at arms length.
Happy to discuss this fully, but will have to sleep on it first (or rather, to have several pints, then sleep on it) - it's been a long time.
Another thought - when we started recording in Ireland, we got a load of very singable songs, but I avoided putting them in my repertoire because of my fear of sounding 'Oirish'.
The same with my love of Scots ballads; I spent most of my life listening to them but not singing them because I felt my Liverpool accent (now all but disappeared) didn't suit them.
Over the latter years I have taken to Anglicising the songs I like, and nowadays, now I am not singing as much, these are the ones I fall back on in sessions. Most of them (but not all) work perfectly.
Now where did I put that Guinness?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 03:38 PM

The comments about Jamaican accents and so forth reminded me of a social work colleague of mine who used to find people were taken aback when they met her on a first visit, because they'd assumed from her Jamaican accent that she must be black. In fact I believe something like one in five Jamaicans are white.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Tim Chesterton
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 03:16 PM

I have a natural mid-Atlantic accent. I was born in England, lived in several different parts of it, then moved to Canada at the age of 17. I'm now 52, and my natural accent is half way between. In conversation with fellow-Canadians, it gets more Canadian. In public speaking (I'm a pastor) it reverts to its British roots. I don't do this on purpose - it just seems to happen.

But I do agree that some English folk really make me laugh when they sing with American accents (funniest of all, to me, is Sting singing about being 'An Englishman in New York' in a very non-English accent!).

But I question this statement: ' "once you sing a song in an accent that is outside your own personal experience, then you run the risk of placing the song at arms-length from you and it becomes a 'technical performance' rather than an emotional interpretation".

That may be true if you were singing your own compositions. but if you're singing traditional folk songs, most of them are outside your own personal experience.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 02:29 PM

Remind me - what does an English Accent sound like again ?

I don't even recognise my own kids accent as English ( and they definitely are ...) !!

Ken

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 12:57 PM

Pip Radish: "Pub with no Beer" written by an Australian I believe and certainly made famous by an Australian singing about dingoes and the outback. It might sound fine in broad Lancashire but in my opinion it doesn't sound right in my accent despite some Americans mistaking my natural speaking voice for someone originating in the Antipodes.

MtheGM: Not being rude at all or doubting your word about the reaction you got, just suggesting that your friends like mine may have been too polite to react honestly to your efforts.

I too have a tendency to be polite about people's efforts unless I am being asked to pay money to see and hear them.

In the end it doesn't matter a jot what accent you use if the end result is enjoyable.

Enjoy the music and don't get too serious. Most of us do it for fun.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 11:32 AM

Not sure why - I think I've only ever heard it sung in a fairly broad Lancashire accent. Sounds fine

That'll be because of all those wild dingoes roaming the Lancashire hills, Pip.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 11:22 AM

I'd have thought that any attempt to sing anything to an audience is a performance - whether you're singing in your own accent or someone else's. By performance I mean making the effort to breathe some life and drama into the song by whatever means necessary.

Jim suggests "once you sing a song in an accent that is outside your own personal experience, then you run the risk of placing the song at arms-length from you and it becomes a 'technical performance' rather than an emotional interpretation". The difficulty with this, is that one's own experience is not merely limited to accent but also to the content matter of the song. In my case it would mean limiting myself to little more than songs about growing up in the Black Country in the 1970s and being a social worker. I don't know many traditional songs (or contemporary ones for that matter) about either subject. I suspect we need to worry less about authenticity - our entire folk revival is a pretty artificial construct anyway and none the worse for this - and more about enjoying the songs. If that means - for some people - performing in terms of accent and delivery as well as attempting to emotionally inhabit world other than our own, bring it on!

If I sing about a "minister's daughter in the north" murdering then being haunted by the ghosts of her children, I am not and will not become that minister's daughter...

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 11:14 AM

Don't you think it is rather rude of you to doubt my word about my friends' reaction, Hoot ~~ to me and to them? But, hell, "what cares I for praise!"

~M~

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 10:48 AM

to sing it in anything other than an attempted "strine" accent made it sound ridiculous

Not sure why - I think I've only ever heard it sung in a fairly broad Lancashire accent. Sounds fine.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 10:35 AM

I can't agree that singing a song is necessarily a performance. I am pretty sure that most people sing for their own enjoyment of a song because they like that particular lyric and or melody.
I remember many years back I used to sing for my own enjoyment "Pub with no beer" and to sing it in anything other than an attempted "strine" accent made it sound ridiculous. Likewise I have a liking for the songs of the American south. To sing about catfish, possum, grits and gravy etc. in an english accent sounds equally so.

Regarding Glasgow friends being most appreciative of and englishman singing "Rothesay-O", I suspect that they were being polite. I had a similar experience when I was asked to sing by a couple from North Carolina. I sang an american song and when I finished the husband turned to his wife and said "see when he sings he don't have an accent". Very polite those southerners.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 09:57 AM

Jim ~~ You write, "I'm not saying that singers, as well as actors, can't 'do' accents other than their own well - of course they can. But I do believe that once you sing a song in an accent that is outside your own personal experience, then you run the risk of placing the song at arms-length from you and it becomes a 'technical performance' rather than an emotianal interpretation."

I do see what you mean: but how would you define "outside your own personal experience"? I repeat, I have played Americans in plays, once getting the comment from American visitors that we were 'lucky to get a real American to play that part'. I have played Irishmen [in 'Shadow of the Glen'], Welshmen [in Under Milk Wood]. I won a Best Actor festival cup for playing a Scouse with an accent which the adjudicator admitted he thought was real. So in what way precisely are the accents demanded by such performances 'outside my personal experience'? Playing a part is personal experience, surely? And singing a song is a performance: I think it no accident that two of the greatest of folksingers, Ewan MacColl & Theo Bikel, were both professional actors. If I can bring them off on stage to convince an audience, why shouldn't I sing appropriate songs in them? I try to sound natural and avoid exaggeration. I have just been back to my Youtube channel & replayed my Skillet Pot, Longhorn Cows, Butter&Cheese... I try to be self-critical, & they do, honest, sound OK to me. Glasgow friends have been most appreciative of my "Day We Went To Rothesay-O".

& remember, I was OP of this thread, so you can tell that I detest accents used inappropriately.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 09:10 AM

Joe said "I think an American trying to sound British is "uppity" (except in the case of Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Grace Kelly)."


Cary Grant was not an American trying to sound British. He WAS British.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Ned
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 09:02 AM

This is a good thread. I agree with the original poster. Michael, you're not "the only person in the entire universe who finds anything at all odd about it". Reminds me of an Eddi Reader quote in the current issue of The Word. She was interviewed about Kirsty MacColl:

"It's a very English voice. In the sense that she's a really authentic singer and very much of her culture, I'd relate her to Sandy Denny. She used her accent the way Sandy used her accent - getting that Englishness across without sounding like Chas and Dave..."

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 08:44 AM

Well, Nicholas,there you go !! Elvis,until he actually met him (they became friends) always thought Tom Jones was black !!
    I have to say, I really do like the idea of an accent falling between two stools !!

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: CET
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 08:17 AM

I am trying to get my head around the idea that there are people on this planet (presumably, people who like music) who are capable of criticizing Janet Russell for sounding too Scottish. That's like saying: "Chaliapin was OK, I guess, but he would have been better if he didn't sound so Russian and didn't have such a deep voice."

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Nicholas Waller
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 08:14 AM

Joe Offer - Now, if you want to hear Britons trying to sound American, listen to Lonnie Donegan or the Rolling Stones.

Or Elton John. I like a lot of Elton John's songs, and the Rolling Stones' for that matter, but I've never been enough of a fan of either to actually acquire much more than a best-of album, and I think that's partly to do with a resistance to the accents. (And just imagine the mockery if English artists felt they had to sing everything with a French or Italian accent).

Again, this is about British people singing with an "American" accent, or mid-Atlantic accent (which I read as being neither one thing nor the other, but falling somewhere in the sea between two stools). Americans singing in American - like Dana and Susan Robinson or anyone else - great, perfect. (Similarly, I don't much like to see British actors playing Americans, as it looks fraudulent - though oddly, as a Brit, I am utterly unbothered by Rene Zellweger or Russell Crowe or Cate Blanchett playing Brits).

There were a couple of good songwriters and singers in the West Country folk/acoustic club I used to go to (before it had to fold), and they too spoke in English accents but insisted on singing in American, often about American subjects too. Obviously they genuinely loved the sound and the stories and culture of US music, but I still thought of it as a pretence of some sort.

Having said all this, I recognise a singing voice is never going to be the same as a speaking voice, well, except for the likes of William Shatner, and no-one expects opera singers to sing with a voice like their speaking voices.

@ bubblyrat - Caribbean accent: when I first heard Tony Cozier, the cricket commentator from Barbados, on the radio, I assumed he was a black West Indian - but he looks like a white retired bank manager from the Home Counties.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 06:24 AM

As I said in a brief talk, about this time last year, as part of the BBC/Sage Gateshead Free Thinking Festival, "If you are not American, don't Americanise, for the love of our world being multicultural" - quickly stressing the difference between being anti-American and anti-Americanisation, of course.

And this year, by the way, at 3.30 on Saturday at the Sage, my brief talk will be: "Cut Capitalism."

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 06:04 AM

I blame the Bay City Rollers....

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 05:05 AM

"Now Theo Bikel ~~ there is a man brilliant at accents: remember his perfect Irish on One Sunday Morning? {Jim, please note.}"
Don't know a lot about Theodor Bikel, except a couple of his films I enjoyed - The Defiant Ones - still magnificent.
But he earned my lifelong respect when I read the story of his embarrassing Bob Dylan into participating in the Civil Rights Demonstrations - Dylan had said that he wasn't taking part (along with Seeger and many of the other singers at the time) because he couldn't afford the fare South - Bikel paid it, more or less forcing him to go.
I'm not saying that singers, as well as actors, can't 'do' accents other than their own well - of course they can. But I do believe that once you sing a song in an accent that is outside your own personal experience, then you run the risk of placing the song at arms-length from you and it becomes a 'technical performance' rather than an emotianal interpretation. I believee that this is what the Welsh singer I mentioned earlier did with an emotional experience of his own; and it diddn't work - for him, for me, for the other residents, and for some of the audience.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 05:19 PM

Accents are funny things ; there is someone I know ,who comes from t' Midlands by t'sound of it,but INSISTS on singing all his material in a dreadful faux-American (Am-err-ik-aine) accent .(No names,no pack-drill,but he lives in Carterton !!).
               As to Will Fly's earlier comments ; well, I recently heard that song about Messrs Mason & Dixon, about the eponymous "line", and,whilst I recognised Mark Knopfler right away, I thought that the other voice belonged to Dougie MacClean !! ( apparently it's James Taylor !!).Hmmmmm....
         Whether or not Lonnie Donegan affected an American accent or not is open to debate ; I always felt that he somehow spoke / sang like that naturally, to be honest !
    Some years ago,I was working with a guy whose accent really had me stumped ; he looked quite Nordic,or Germanic, with piercing blue eyes and blond hair --one day, I decided that I just HAD to ask him from whence he came; "Germany ?" I ventured,tentatively-"Israel?"
    "Why no, man ! " he replied : " Ahm from Kingston ,Jahmaiker !"
I spluttered a bit,and then he said "There's lots o whart folks dat comes from Jahmaiker,yer know!". One lives & learns.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 04:48 PM

Remember that lad from Salford Manchester who used to affect a Scottish accent

I can not claim to know Manchester but on accents and languages...

A couple of years ago I got talking to someone I used to know when I was living in Wales. Accent would say Welsh first language (there are differences on the N Wales coast) and (not that I siarad Cymraeg) he is fluent - it may even be the language he teaches in. I was quite surprised to learn he was from Manchester but had a Welsh parent - and had always known Welsh.

Subject: RE: Mid-Atlantic (accent) ~~ Why?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 04:45 PM

Another point re McTell is the style of delivery: every version of Streets is what I can only describe as "crooned", in a manner redolent to my ears of American pop singing styles of the pre-rock era [think Crosby, think Bennett, think Sinatra], which redounds strongly IMO to the overall feel of "American"-ness which others as well as me have expressed themselves here as sensing.

~Michael~