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Was Mantovani a Folk Musician?
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Subject: Folklore: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 30 Dec 10 - 02:28 PM I was listening to a Mantovani LP the other night and I thought, "was Mantovani a Folk Musician?" My reasons for thinking this were: (a) I like Mantovani [I never thought I'd write that - but bear with me!]. (b) I once heard a bloke whistling 'Charmaine' on the bus and I thought, "he's one of the folk - so Mantovani must have been a Folk Musician (it's easy this - once y'start finking ... innit?). (c) Only Folk Fascists wouldn't like Mantovani ... and they don't count. So, that's it, really ... so let's 'discuss' this and seize the opportunity to beat the crap out of the Folk Fascists at the same time ... yeahhh!!! |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 30 Dec 10 - 02:45 PM You don't have to bring in random whistlers to fit Mantovani up with the 1954 Definition, Shimmy - the folk character of such music is pretty much guaranteed. And have you never heard THIS? Essential listening I would imagine. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: MGM·Lion Date: 31 Dec 10 - 12:59 AM I liked Mantovani ~ great noise. I recall a London Univ Ball I was taken to in mid-50s where his band were playing most enjoyably. As to whether he was "folk" or not: depends if you speak Mudcatese {"Folk means what I say it does not what you say it does"}, or some other language with its own definition [scroll thru all the 100+ definition threads & take your pick]. The fact that he and his string players once issued a record for the light-music market consisting of a couple of dozen familiar & popular "folk" tunes (Frere·Jacques, Hava·Nagila, Annie·Laurie), doesn't seem to me to prove anything much either way, Sean. ~Michael~ |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,glueman Date: 31 Dec 10 - 01:39 AM Mantovani popularised salon orchestration and brought it to the people. His oeuvre is borderline loungecore but there are distinct folk overtones. I'd lay money on his albums residing in more authentically folk locations round the globe than many other recordings. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: Acorn4 Date: 31 Dec 10 - 04:38 AM I think it's medication time! |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: Andy Jackson Date: 31 Dec 10 - 05:07 AM Quite a few people have heaqrd of Martin Carthy, so he must be Pop music surely? ;-} |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: Joe Offer Date: 31 Dec 10 - 05:12 AM This is getting tiresome. It's about the fourth "Is so-and-so a folk musician" thread we've had in two weeks. The answer, of course, is that it's folk music if the store clerk puts it in the folk bin. Further copycat threads will be considered for deletion. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 31 Dec 10 - 05:14 AM The fact that he and his string players once issued a record for the light-music market consisting of a couple of dozen familiar & popular "folk" tunes (Frere·Jacques, Hava·Nagila, Annie·Laurie), doesn't seem to me to prove anything much either way, Sean. My argument is that Folk is a bourgeois fantasy so ill-conceived it can be applied to any music - Mantovani included. The fact of him having done a Folk Album back in 1964 is neither here nor there really, just a bit amusing in the light of The Shimster's OP. Rolf Harris, OTOH, is different in that he has an overtly Folk Consciousness in line with the aesthetic of a Revival which is only Folk in terms of genre, rather than the patronising bullshit of the 1954 Definition, which ultimately, only tells us what The Horse Definition does - i.e. all music is human, all music is born of tradition, and the new emerges from the old by dint of a collective process poluated by creative individuals. Harry Cox was one such; Joe Strummer was another. Folk Music is part academic concept and part religious theology; both require a lot of faith, and neither (thank God) effect the supreme beauty of the music they're trying to contain, or exclude, or tell is us is somehow different from other musics because it suits their nefarious purposes to do so. Forgive me, I'm still a little paranoid after reading The Imagined Village a few months back - so much so a borrowed copy of Fake Song remains unread, though A Song for Every Season is shining like the newly re-born sun right now. The Exotica of Lounge is another issue - Rolf touched upon it with the brilliant Fijian Girl but the master was Les Baxter who served up his savage orchestral soundscapes which Martin Denny reduced with his small Exotic Sounds ensemble that went on to inspire Sun Ra's Nubian grooves. Ennio Morricone was in there too of course - I still find his Western scores supremely inspirational, not least because as a child he was the first to make the name SEAN seriously cool (and be sure to click that link there because that's still some of the best music you'll ever hear anywhere on the planet). |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 31 Dec 10 - 05:26 AM That should have been populated by creative individuals. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 31 Dec 10 - 05:31 AM Sorry, Joe! I was being ironic - as well as unforgiveably mischievous [although I'm immensely satisfied to see that the usual suspects have risen to the bait!]. You see I tend think that the only way to deal with absurdity is to pile more absurdity on top of it. Nevertheless,it won't happen again [can I possibly keep that promise?]. And now, to quote Acorn 4, "I think it's medication time!"
-Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 31 Dec 10 - 06:38 AM The only absurdity I can see here is that which underlies your pompous Folk Righteousness, Shimmy. Maybe it's time to read that copy of Fake Song after all... Otherwise: We tell these tales, which are strictest true, Just by way of convincing you How very little, since things was made, Anything alters in any one's trade! Go figure! |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: fat B****rd Date: 31 Dec 10 - 09:07 AM I believe Mantovani was an early user of the electric violin. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,glueman Date: 31 Dec 10 - 10:27 AM I've always considered easy listening to be a close bedfellow of olde music. Those keepers of the tradition of my acquaintance, which is to say people steeped in multi-generational word of mouth traditional song, have almost to a man and woman been fans of stuff like Neil Diamond and Perry Como. That being a damned fact one is forced to confront the reasons why such music proximity, even seamlessness might exist? In fact it's hard to think of the home of a song carrier without some Matt Monro or a Music for Pleasure album slowly warping by a peat stove. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,erbert Date: 31 Dec 10 - 10:55 AM basically.. folk songs were crap happy clappy singalong light entertainment subliminal Cold War brainwashing & torturing music manipulated for their own evil ends by weirdy dubious scout masters and sinister sunday school teachers.. then fortunately some hairy commie layabout students had the genius stoned idea to add electric guitars and drums and turn it into really good sexy grooving beat party music. Mantovani was possibly an evolutionary dead end, or perhaps maybe even a missing link.. involving cocktail parties and swingers and jacuzzis.. instead of canvas tents , campfires, and cold miserable church halls. So Yes Mantovani might have been almost possibly but not definitely sort of folk.. A bit more than Liberace perhaps..??? |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Alan Whittle Date: 31 Dec 10 - 11:35 AM The Mantovani family of Rottingdean, Sussex. Well it was all very unmemorable stuff. even they couldn't remember the words - so they had exercise books. Mind you, once they picked up their violins it was a different story. I often used to put their Holiday for Strings and Elizabethan Serenade on the autochanger of the gramophone and empty the grate out. That was memorable music and people used to enjoy and it entered into the national psyche - so yes I think it probably was folk music. later of course, the folk group THe Bachelors - veterans of the O'Donoghues sessions in Dublin with Luke kelly, and the rest of that crowd adapted the mantovani cascading strings technique for their vocal version of Charmaine and other light classics. Perhaps not folk music, but definitely influential. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: Bob the Postman Date: 31 Dec 10 - 11:45 AM In the poem "Stan Rogers In Heaven", the bard refuses to join the angelic choir because, "I can't sing this shit, not even a bit/'Twas charted by . . . yech . . . Mantovani". |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,glueman Date: 31 Dec 10 - 11:53 AM Mantovani would have occupied a similar position in the 1970s to the one folk attained a century earlier - vernacular, unfashionable, disregarded. The music of the disappeared masses and the dispossessed, except to a discerning few and those who considered it 'all music'. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Alan Whittle Date: 31 Dec 10 - 01:45 PM I suppose the point of all these stupid threads is - look at all those silly asses who think that the music in folk clubs is folk music. Whereas we traddies, we really know what we're talking about. Yes you do know what you're talkiing about, and its quite a feat! All this talk issuing through that orifice! |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: Bill D Date: 31 Dec 10 - 01:53 PM Go get 'em, Joe Offer! |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 31 Dec 10 - 01:58 PM "The only absurdity I can see here is that which underlies your pompous Folk Righteousness, Shimmy." Pompous? Who are you calling pompous? How dare you attribute that characteristic to me! Why, I'll have you horsewhipped you young jackanapes!! |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,glueman Date: 31 Dec 10 - 02:03 PM I think the idea is to show that folk music is a living tradition, not re-enactment or historical posturing, but I can't speak for the OP. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Alan Whittle Date: 31 Dec 10 - 02:24 PM 'not re-enactment or historical posturing' Que? |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,glueman Date: 31 Dec 10 - 02:27 PM On going Alan, not dead, finished, closed off or performed only in folk clubs. Living in all its manifold glory. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: Tootler Date: 31 Dec 10 - 02:30 PM Sweeny in his inimitable manner has it nailed. What he is really saying is that it's not that Mantovani is a folk musician, but that all folk music records should be placed in the box labelled "Easy Listening" Long live James Last I say! |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 31 Dec 10 - 02:42 PM Curses! Foiled again! Though The Shimster should get the credit. S O'P (currently listening to This in which our heroes manage to combine Krautrock, Easy Listening & Lounge Exotica in one languid lagoon of luxurious loveliness) |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Alan Whittle Date: 01 Jan 11 - 01:48 PM 'On going Alan, not dead, finished, closed off or performed only in folk clubs. Living in all its manifold glory.' A bit like Cheryl Cole then...? |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,glueman Date: 02 Jan 11 - 02:56 PM Cheryl Cole got a name check in my last book while I was under the impression she was someone else entirely. Although the conceit worked at the time, I do feel a pang of guilt that I meant a different member of Girls Aloud. Since I used the person(s) as an index of obscurity, Ms Cole's star has risen making the allusion a nonsense. However I'm sure Cheryl could knock out as canny a rendition of The Lambton Worm as any if she put her mind to it. |
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Subject: RE: Was Mantovani a Folk Musician? From: GUEST,Alan Whittle Date: 02 Jan 11 - 03:03 PM I think she's inspirational http://bigalwhittle.co.uk/id53.html |
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