Do purists really exist?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 03:48 AM

There are gate keepers and gate openers. Each think the other are in dereliction of their duty.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 03:40 AM

I hear what Jim Carroll is saying, and his long association with the filing cabinet side of folk prompts him to have such views. I respect that, perhaps a bit more than Jim has previously respected my take on folk.

However, sorry Jim, if a tsunami hit every UK folk club, the music that would survive? Well, for starters iTunes would be the universal oracle on what is folk, and tell you what, the interestingly diverse offerings that have a folk genre attached by these experts in UK folk, (Californian corporate executives) is a thread in it's own right.

In any case, you live in Ireland where folk for the masses is second only to American country and western. Something that has always bemused me. The serious nature of traditional music in Ireland can be summed up by when you are doing the tourist bit and listening to music in Templbar or at Johnny Foxes. The tenor banjo player isn't just introduced as Shamus, Michael whatever, no. He has to be the three year running all Ireland tenor banjo champion.

You don't get that over here....

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 09:32 PM

I was recently, indirectly, maybe, accused of being a purist because I happened to like the tune to which a certain song had been set, two and a half centuries ago. The accuser had found the lyric in a book of poems and set their own tune to the same lyrics, not knowing that it already was a well-known SONG; not an unpleasant tune by any means but had failed to use this wonderful tool of the internet to find out it if there was already a tune to the same lyric (it could have been found in less than 2 minutes!). Having listened to both versions, I would still unfailingly go with the original as being he better tune: but does this make me a purist, just because I prefer the earlier tune? REALLY?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 07:41 PM

I realize I have outlived my own context. But, to me, that context will always be what folk is.

Art

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 06:32 PM

Well, music is a sensation that we seek out, and we do not have to seek out music that we do not enjoy. To me it is the sound that is produced. I do not care of monkeys at a typewriter produced it, or space aliens or computers or someone yesterday or someone 500 years ago. Although I give extra points for 500 years ago..or even yesterday...So it is not being disrespectful to other musical preferences to not want them to enter into a group that is already established and enjoys what it enjoys. The trick is to meet kindrid souls and join them and not disturb people who do not want to hear jangly music or old songs about shepherds or too many sea shanties at once or whatever. A bit of stretching the envelope is OK..too much and people who have been attending something for 20 years just don't return because it does not sound like what they want to hear. A percentage of them will have purist tendencies, but most will not like the new sound. If the new people produced equally pleasant sounds, and some do and some don't, they would be more welcome. In the meantime, thank heavens most of us live in free countries and can assemble with others of our musical persuasion.

The key, as always, is not to impose musical preferences on established groups, arguing that it is folk music really or whatever. See if there is interest and acceptence, and not mere politeness, and go from there. If there is not interest, or you want to sing rugby songs and they want to sing heavy metal, have separate groups or start an "I like all kinds of music" group..and many people do like all kinds of music..I personally have a pretty narrow range of what I like..I like pretty voices singing pretty tunes with a good steady rhythm. I can not stand to hear jazz. It makes me want to run out screaming. ALl the scholars in the world could not make me like it. I don't want it at a folk club I go to, if I were so lucky as to live near one. To each his own, said the old woman as she kissed the pig. mg

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 02:55 PM

It ain't the mix I used to play (as far as I recall) but I'm sure I used to play this in the reggae club

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36ojJymYh40&feature=related

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 12:30 PM

Bert;
"You missed the fact that when most of us started, we couldn't sing worth a damn."
Didn't miss it at all; that's a problem we all had to face no matter what kind of music we chose to follow, but in an atmosphere like the one created by nasty little discussions like this one, the job is made a damn sight more difficult by snidey intolerant infantile name-calling like this that take the piss out of other peoples' tastes when you're attempting to draw youngsters into your music.
All this has nothing whatever to do with this argument and doesn't alter the fact one iota that youngsters are flocking to "purist" traditional music in Ireland while in the UK........; somebody must be doing something right somewhere!
"You missed the fact that if we don't listen to new self penned pieces then the tradition will certainly die."
Didn't miss that one either; the person who influenced me most in the time I've spent following folk song was the best singer of traditional songs I ever met, yet he managed to write ten times more contemporary songs based on traditional styles than anyone I know, some of which have become all-time classics that are often mistaken for real traditional songs.
I was referring to some of the navel gazing, introspective self-indulgent angst that passed for folk-song in many of the clubs I no longer go to exactly for that reason.
In the end I don't give a fiddler's fart who listens to or sings what, when or where; what does piss me off is ignorant and intolerant attacks on other peoples tastes, usually from people who throw all their toys out of the pram when their own music is criticised in the slightest way.
One thing is sure; if every 'folk' club in Britain were to be struck by a tsunami tomorrow, the music that would survive as 'folk' would be that which has been defined, collected, documented, researched, archived, published and generally made available as "folk" – the stuff that people sneer at here as "purist".
How about a bit of "live and let live?"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 11:18 AM

"Purist means pandering to your own nostalgia."

True or not...that's the best line in this entire thread. ☺

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 11:15 AM

McGrath of Harlow: For example, would it be unreasonable to expect that the menu in an Indian restaurant should prfereably not be dominated by dishes such as shepherds pie or chicken chow mein? Even if these are dishes you might very much enjoy.

Actually, the menu in an Indian is likely to be dominated by either Bengali pastiches of Indian regional cooking, dishes cobbled together out of the wreckage of empire sensibilities, or dishes/ styles of cooking that were *entirely* generated in the UK in the last 30-40 years (Tikka Masala, Balti, etc). If you've lived your life sampling the cuisine only from UK or US "Indian" restaurants then you'll be gobsmacked the first time you try "authentic" Indian food.

There's an analogy there somewhere, and as JC said, it's probably quite apt :-) :-)

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 10:35 AM

NoNOno, you cant call jazz, folk.jazz is jazz and is defined by improvisation, folk music can be jazz if it involves improvisation,, but if it doesnt it aint, and never will be.

If my Folk as Flotsam hypothesis holds, Captain (which is does BTW, as tight as any brandy barrel) then it's yesYESyes. Folk as Flotsam you see - besides - the sort of Jazz you'll hear in a folk club won't be real Jazz, it'll be some vernacular approximation in which improvisation might play a part but it's not going to make you howl at the moon; could be a beginner, or a rank amatuer who can't get to play amnywhere else, though at a recent session we had a trombonist and a bass clarinetist turn up who tore the place apart, especially on the Irish stuff. I suspect they were proper musicians though - and they could improvise, and how. I improvise on ballads all the time BTW but I'd never call it Jazz, even in a Free Improv context I've always been the token folky...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 10:25 AM

PS - Those Morris Dancers I mentioned a couple of posts back turned out to be Black-headed Gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus who flew off as soon as I ran over to check them for their flagrant abuse of The Tradition. I really must get my eyes tested...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 10:21 AM

"Folk" to me doesn't mean a genre of music, it means people, and Folk has always been people music. Matters not If it's ballads klesmir rock blues reggae or punk its the on the level delivery person to person and when I've done... my bit be clapping and singin or dancing to the next person (after a fag of course). Older people you can learn so much from and younger people you can be inspired so much by. In this world of tragedy and despair we are truly blessed. That's why I go to Folk Clubs :-
NoNOno, you cant call jazz, folk.jazz is jazz and is defined by improvisation, folk music can be jazz if it involves improvisation,, but if it doesnt it aint, and never will be.
blues is folk music, punk is not it is a version of tin pan alley,Klezmer is, and can also be jazz if it involves improvisation, calypso is, reggae is not

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 10:16 AM

I liked the Meters too.

God yes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X-6_0YqgeI

But it's not reggae...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 10:13 AM

all music CAN be folk.

By which I meant it only becomes Folk in a Designated Folk Context. This is my Falsifiable Hypothesis which I think of as my Folk as Flotsam Theory. Anything that floats CAN be Flotsam, but not necessarily IS Flotsam - it only becomes Flotsam in a very specific context. In one context it is Flotsam, but it remains a fishing crate, football, used condom, dead fish, rubber duck (&c.) which it would be anyway. As one chap just said over on the Fleetwood Folk Club facebook page:

"Folk" to me doesn't mean a genre of music, it means people, and Folk has always been people music. Matters not If it's ballads klesmir rock blues reggae or punk its the on the level delivery person to person and when I've done... my bit be clapping and singin or dancing to the next person (after a fag of course). Older people you can learn so much from and younger people you can be inspired so much by. In this world of tragedy and despair we are truly blessed. That's why I go to Folk Clubs :-)

That's the reality of Folk; it may not float my boat, but so what?

Otherwise - I personally don't think you can call U2 Folk any more than you can call JSBach or John Cage Folk, but if someone turns up in your local folk club singing U2 songs to the wrong chords (or even the right ones) or doing their damdest to essay Bach on their out of tune guitar, or performs 4'33" in 4'36" then that's Folk. By that point of course I'll be back home with my feet up with a nice cup of cocoa watching my I, Claudius DVDs, but, hey, that's just me. Again I say - Purist? Moi? Nah - I'm just an irksome snob who feels that whilst musical ability is seldom an issue, aethestic intention has to be.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 10:05 AM

My absolute fave was Derek Harriott's "Message from a Black Man". I might still have that 7". I think it was taken from an earlier soul rendition by the Temptations. I liked the Meters too.

Then there were the great cliches - Prince Buster's "Al Capone", "the Skinhead Moonstomp" - must be others but I should be working.

And the fantastic vocals from Desmond Dekker and/or Toots Hibbert.

I might still have analogue tapes of some of the vinyl.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 09:33 AM

Ah but Sheffield apart, (I cut my teeth in Sheffield clubs...) you have the answer there, all music CAN be folk.

So, are U2 folk?

The evidence? Their acoustic album has a recording of Sunday Bloody Sunday on it. Guitars and vocals, a song describing an event that angered people, ensuring the lessons to be learned are not forgotten by the medium of recording it in song. Add in the Irish bit and I doubt anybody could argue it isn't a folk song.

Ewan McColl wrote a few pure unadulterated love songs. No downtrodden workers involved, just lust, love and affection. Recorded by Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart, Elvis Presley, Roberta Flack (who charted with "First Time" and there you have it.

Ewan McColl is not folk according to some descriptions here and U2 are.

If you ever need help nailing jelly to the ceiling, I'm always here..

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 09:24 AM

I wonder if there are heated discussions between symphony know alls and string quartet purists?

Of course not, because Folk is predicated on a concept of a music rather than a music in itself; it is a selective concept which ironically proves to be as all inclusive as Mr Armstrong's horse. Thing is, in the context of the Grizzlier End of the 21st Century Folk Scene (though I believe this doesn't apply to clubs in Sheffield), not all music is folk, but all music (or at least imitations & approximations thereof) can be folk. 21st Century Schizoid Club Folk lurks somewhere in the hinterlands between intention on the one hand and result on the other, and thereby great nights are had by all, but maybe not by me (mutter, mutter...).

Is this discussion heated by the way? Doesn't feel that way to me - & besides, it's far too hot for heated discussions: right now I'm loafing on the beach in the shade of my brolly, gazing out o'er the hazy horizons whilst listening to Jananese hip-hop on my iPod trying to figure out if the Morris Dancers presently paddling at the water's edge are real or not. I suspect I'll go home in a mo and get on with some work...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 09:18 AM

I've got to admit that I've never really understood what THE TRADITION is. For decades I've been fascinated by the vast multitude of traditions that we have in this country, many of them obscure local ones. Most have never been recorded in song, which is why I like to put some of my local ones into my songs. The songs I write are not part of THE TRADITION, but they are about A TRADITION (or a legend, story or whatever). Whether that makes them folk songs or traditional or not I have no idea, nor do I really care.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 08:26 AM

Well, there you go. Just goes to show there's nowt as queer as folk.

Folk is whatever you want it to be, or whatever you KNOW it to be. Problem is, the next person knows the exact opposite to be true.

I wonder if there are heated discussions between symphony know alls and string quartet purists?

As for reggae, you live and learn. Good on you, although then you go and spoil it by saying you know right from wrong. I don't know right from wrong, I admit it. I think I know, but I fear it is like most things, perception. Everything is relative, after all. Just ask Albert.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 07:04 AM

The whole thing was dead by way of natural selection anyway, but maybe that's beside the point. One of the great Folk Conceits is that people today are writing the Folk Songs of tomorrow when, in context, the Folk are quite happy with the songs they've got and the processes of Popular Music have continued unabated for the past 35,000 years irrespective of what a handful of Folkies might think. This was the context of the Old Songs when they were new; in the days of Diocletian when there was no Folk Music. Awareness of these idioms filters through into other aspects of our broader culture - Kipling was certainly aware of them, others were too - but they are certainly redundant today, even in that aspect of Folk that cuts through into the mainstream. Rather, they are kept alive in the same way enthusiasts keep old steam trains alive - or even railway modellers strive to preserve picturesque vignettes of the past in plastic and modroc. All of which is admirable - just don't expect Hornby 00 to supply rolling stock to the rail networks any time soon.

The broader picture is one of Tradition Process of Traditional Popular Music which is big, thriving, complex and beloved of billions. The idioms of hip-hop, R&B, dance music, jungle, drum & bass, dub-step etc. etc. are all Traditional Musics subject to the living cultural processes outlined in the 1954 Definition. That doesn't make them Folk, which can only ever be an afterthought, but please, write / sing / play what you will just don't tell me this stuff is in any way shape or form the same as The Old Songs, or will become so in the future.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 06:42 AM

...But please - you can't conflate the glories of Traditional English Speaking Folk Song & Ballad with the stuff people write in a revival context...

Of course not. the stuff people are writing nowadays will have to go through the same forces of attrition that have always weeded out the bad stuff. Then maybe we will be left with a song or two which may get added to the tradition.

One thing that bothers me though, is that the songs that were gathered by early collectors may represent a vignette of what was being sung at the time, and thus may include songs which would have died if they had been left to the natural selection process.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 06:32 AM

Great stuff, Richard - tell us more about the music you played, which (for someone for whom Reggae is a matter of King Tubby's, Studio One, Rockers and the Ark) I probably don't know too much about...

*

You missed the fact..

That's the Folk Purist's Litany right there; to be intoned to the Luke Warm Dirge. But please - you can't conflate the glories of Traditional English Speaking Folk Song & Ballad with the stuff people write in a revival context (though more power to them for doing so). Or was the point of the Revival to create a new breed of Folk Song Writers rather than putting the Old Songs at the heart of our National Culture where they belong? Hell, these days they're not even at the heart of the Folk Scene.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Colin Randall
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 06:26 AM

... this thread hasn't done badly for a question that prompted Good Soldier Schweik
to ask a fair while back: "Who cares apart from Folknacious?"

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 06:11 AM

...then intoning...some self-penned piece which may have meant something to him but..... I wonder if I've missed something...

Yup you sure did. You missed the fact that when most of us started, we couldn't sing worth a damn.

You missed the fact that most of the singers who were collected a hundred or so years ago started like that.

You missed the fact that all traditional songs were once self penned pieces.

You missed the fact that if we don't listen to new self penned pieces then the tradition will certainly die.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 05:09 AM

Yep. The pub (known as "Arry's" it's real name was the Blue - er something) shut long since, but when I used to DJ there (and I DID have the biggest subs in town, and, as tradition required a monstrous valve amp with rows of glowing bottles) it was almost all skin'ed until about closing time and then the West Indian seamen off the ships that tied up in Rochester used to start drifting in and the ladies of the night. There was another DJ up the other end of town (Graham) who had bigger audiences than me but I had the hardest skins and a bigger proportion of West Indians which gave me good bragging rights: a matter of some value when I was a hippy working in a reggae club!


I'm not a manual worker (or farm labourer) either, and I don't seek to exclude all bar those from folk clubs or folk music but I know where the music's roots are and I know right from wrong.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 04:59 AM

Adding pedantry to the list of charges (or accolades) illuminates not a whit.

Purism is a Pedantry; and like Pedantry it doesn't apprecaiate the way these things work. Purism might only thrive in a guarded situation of contrivance which much of The Folk Revival embodies by way of genuine passion (of course) but as the saying goes - the more you know, the more you don't know. Thus, Purism becomes unfounded reactionary claptrap that flies in the face of the nature of the thing itself, much less its broader cultural context.

When I was questioned for playing a Turkish Fiddle on an English Folk Song by a Guitarist, I could see the Holy Spirit blazing in his eyes; and he was a booked guest at a festival!

As for Religion - a Religious believer is a Purist Pedant who feels they are right and others are wrong. I meet Folkies who only ever listen to Folk, though few of them are self-confessed Purists. The Purists of my experience appear to be of the opinion that Folk is a Morally Superior Musical Philosophy. They are the Baptised but the woefully under-read. But whilst out & out purists are rare, that Ritual Religiosity isn't at all uncommon in Folk - nor is it to be (overly) scoffed at.

There are, and always have been, great things afoot in Folk, but it still feels pretty Cultish - be it in terms of its Doctrines, Orthoxies, Rites, Rituals, Heresies (I'm being careful not to use the word Traditions here) and the near deification of its celebrities. Mostly though, I suppose it's the curious absense from The Real World that makes Folk a religion; or Academic Theology; a world within a world with a very specific appeal. I must confess, that's why it appeals to me - at least the Folk Part of me...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 04:47 AM

I hear what you are saying spleen cringe, it is a hobby and as such, people have expectations over it. I do think that as such it is a fair debating aspect of "purist" all the same.

Ah but... social workers... Now then, there's a tale. I started at a club in the late '70s and like many miners in the folk scene then, I was bemused by people from other professions singing about how hard I worked. Flattered really, as I thought I was a lazy bugger at best of times.

Social workers have always been well represented in the folk world hence being used as a metaphor for "most people." No, the bad bit about such stereotyping is the ridiculous comments I have had to put up with on these pages by people who, once you volunteer the fact (in context to a debate) that you may be, as in my case, a businessman, comfortable from a financial view and not wanting a workers' revolution, you get told you have no place in the folk world.

Now THAT is purism. Of the most odious variety.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 04:28 AM

"Dan just loves good food, each dish is as unique as it is exhilerating, and he's never looked at a recipe book in his life, he's just eaten with his friends, living, loving and learning by way of everyday pragmatics."

"Everyday pragmatics" may work in some situations - like cooking, for example, but I know that it doesn't work in others. In my previous life I was responsible for devising and writing test methods which were then used by the whole company - both at home and abroad. I based these methods on the laws of experimental design and statistics and each one was thoroughly checked out before I published it. Unfortunately, I had one colleague who believed in "everyday pragmatics" and used to write his own test methods - which he never bothered to check out and which gave wrong and misleading answers. This caused absolute havoc - until he was eventually fired.

In the course of my life I have encountered many people who think that their 'creativity' and 'natural superiority' entitles them to ignore precedent and to make it up as they go along. Sadly very few of them really have what it takes to completely ignore the work and thought of those that came before them. Truly creative people are well aware of precedent, for example even the mighty Isaac Newton "stood on the shoulders of giants"!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 04:20 AM

Folk music is like Oscar Wilde's comment on the truth - rarely pure and never simple. And all the better for that!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 03:52 AM

"I want folk clubs to thrive, and a full club of the same people who were there thirty years ago isn't thriving, it is perpetuating, and that has a shelf life"...

I doubt this has anything to do with "purism" versus "top quality light entertainment" or whatever the simplistic reading of a somewhat more complex and three dimensional (thank god!) real world is on this, the latest version of an ancient thread topic. I suspect that it has more to do with a popular 1960s/1970s hobby remaining the preserve, largely, of the faithful remnants its original generations of hobbyists (cf other popular pastimes of the seventies that are now seen as a bit quaint and odd). Young people, whoever they are, do their own thing - just like you lot probably did yours.

Nice to see the ever popular folk devil/bogeyman, the singing social worker, rear his maligned head a couple of times in this thread as an example of all that's wrong with folk clubs. Using that honourable profession in such a way is almost becoming, y'know, a tradition.

PS - Shimmy - I think you're overthinking the issue of the youngsters who turn up once at the singaround and never come back. It's almost certainly a case of "Shit! Wrong sort of event for me!" rather than a fit of pique about lack of interest. In fact, not coming back is actually very respectful....

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 03:32 AM

Bugger purism!

M'Unlearned Friend used to DJ reggae???

Nurse!   I need more medication, this is getting surreal!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 03:25 AM

""I think you'll find that should Spens, by the way"
Purist!
Jim Carroll "


LOL!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 01:52 AM

I'm a "purist" and I don't care....


Telecaster... Class A Valve Amp.. Greenback Speakers.. Treble booster.. Germanium Fuzz Box.. Slap Back Echo

trad folk song.. go man go..!!!!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 01:14 AM

Maybe they're religious too, unable to cope with the beauteous randomness and perfect common chaos of reality.

Not sure why you need to have to drag religion in to this but that aside,

I can't think of anywhere I've been more than once that is like that. Participants tend to sit in the same places. Regulars generally know what is "in keeping" and what isn't for the event. In a session, if someone starts a tune, others will take this as a cue to join in. A "random chaotic" happening of someone striking up a tune when another one was playing would (unless the "culprit hadn't heard it) be considered rudeness. No one is likely to repeat a song or tune that has already been done, etc.

Of course there may be no written rules but rather than random chaos, I would suggest there is a fair degree of social interaction and understanding,

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 08:44 PM

"*seriously* jangling the nerves of hard-core traddies."
A slight practical problem with all this.
I'm a Brit who, after attending, singing at and helping organise folk clubs in Manchester and London as far back as the early 60s and who started recording traditional singers in Britain and Ireland nearly 40 years ago, finally moving to the West Coast of Ireland about thirteen years ago.
Around the time my wife and I started, apart from a handful of elderly singers and musicians, the music was very much on the wane - musicians who turned up at bars with their instruments were shown the door, the media took the piss and described traditional music as "diddly di" and airspace was virtually non existant..... it was about to die out with the older generation.
A handful of stalwarts got together and decided to put it on the map - not the erzatz navel-gazing, guitar-scratching bollocks you will find in many folk clubs in the UK, but the real thing.
The Irish Traditional Music Archive was set up in Dublin, giving Ireland the two finest traditional music centres in Europe.
Here in the West locals started a week-long traditional music school dedicated to recently deceased piper, Willie Clancy; not long after that other locations in Ireland began to hold song and music weekends dedicated to singers and musicians who had passed on.... the situation was turned around completely.
Youngsters flocked to traditional music, sitting at the feet of the old-timers who passed on the skills, tunes, understanding and love of traditional music to youngsters who were anxious to listen and learn.
Last St Patrick's day in this rather remote one-street town in the arsehole of nowhere we had over 100 young people, from primary school age up to late teens on the local parade playing traditional music on fiddles, pipes, concertinas, flutes (not a bodhran in sight tbtg!!). We have produced 3 TG4 (an Irish language television station award) 'Musician of the Year' winners. Now we have the grandchildren of the old generation of musicians we were recording back in the early 70s playing the music, some to world class standard.
In the academic field, up to the recent financial crash art organisatons were throwing government money at us; applying for a grant was pushing on an open door - we received a award a couple of years ago to transcribe the Irish Traveller song tunes we had collected in London. Local traditional music centres have begun to spring up; by the end of the year we will have established one here on the West coast with a huge archive, a library, a teaching facility, regular albums of local music, and a building in the town to house it.
We can turn the radio and television on most nights of the week and get programmes dedicated to traditional music and song: art programmes, discussions, live sessions and archival material, local nd national.
Traditional music has been guaranteed a lease of life here for at least another two generations, not by slavishly emulationg the pop scene to the extent that one has become indistinguishable from the other, nor by wingeing that "we don't know what folk music is so we'll play what we fancy and call it folk", but by making the older styles and materials relevant to modern life - plenty of room for experimentation, but not at the expense of the traditional stuff.
When I read my way through smug and uninformed threads like this, and when I remember all the clubs in the UK where, with about a dozen other folkies, I've sat though some tone-deaf prat trying, and often failing, to tune his guitar, and finally not bothering because it was "near enough folk folk music", then intoning (and probably forgetting) some self-penned piece which may have meant something to him but..... I wonder if I've missed something - is the folk scene so great in Britain that you can all afford to sit back and snide at those who take their music seriously, and enjoy it all the more for having done so?
My memories of what the British scene was like and the picture I get of what I'm likely to find in all but a few dedicated clubs, and compare it to any one of the 4/5 high standard sessions I can go along to every week in this town inclines me to say "You show me yours and I'll show you mine".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:48 PM

"Like many "movements" it is evolving"

It is? Me, I'd say it isn't - possibly because the 'young turks' or 'heretics' (aka nicely established thirty somethings with equally nice young families) are too busy making nice music that appeals to a demographic which is virtually twice their age to worry about *seriously* jangling the nerves of hard-core traddies.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:48 PM

I reiterate: it's not just the one time I have been derided as a Purist, though never, God forbid, as a Pedant.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:16 PM

Dear Fluids, if you don't wince at LZ's attempt at reggae then you have no ears. I DJ'd reggae for some years. Apart from that, keep taking the tablets, you may be finding some of them beneficial.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:00 PM

And then he pulls others up for grammar...

I'm not sure the chinese, indian or potato shop comparison helps here.

You know what you want and whilst delighted if it is slightly different, a chow mein is something you know even if the word is apparently just Cantonese for scraps.

Folk means something different to me, you, M'Unlearned friend, (not fair really, I am finding his medication is working as I keep ruddy well agreeing with some of what he says, only some mind...) and our take, based on mainly nostalgia shapes what we like. Now.. Like many "movements" it is evolving and some may not like that. Fine, but it doesn't mean you are right and others are wrong.

Jimmy Page is indeed a fine guitarist and when Led Zeppelin were playing traditional song it would not be easy to say they weren't a folk act during that song, especially if Sandy Denny was up there with them. If D'yerMake 'er sounds like reggae then they may not have been Bob Marley but playing reggae beats makes it as much a reggae song as a rock song. After all, they are all ways to describe a musical set of sounds designed to appeal to a certain audience.

One way to bugger up this discussion is to see how iTunes guesses genre.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 05:37 PM

Indeed ~~ am I a 'pedantic purist', I wonder? I have been accused of 'purism' in my days of writing a regular Folk Review column in which I would occasionally lament the fact that not that much folk music [by any reasonable definition] was to be heard in quite a few 'folk' clubs; and, as I have related before, a friend posted on another forum that I frequent, "MtheGM, your pedantry is legendary".   

But, now, do these two separate and discrete observations make me a 'pedantic purist'?

It would not be seemly for an alleged purist, and an alleged pedant, like me to answer, I suspect...

~M~

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:47 PM

That depends, dear Sweeney, on who the alleged purists are, and what they do and say. Adding pedantry to the list of charges (or accolades) illuminates not a whit.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:44 PM

Somewhere, maybe at 76 The Larches in Penge, Mr Wilson is following his recipe book to the letter in the sincere belief he is making Genuine Chinese Cuisine, whilst next door at number 74, freegan Dan is freestyling with a bunch of vegetables he's rescued from the bins of the local green grocer. Mr Wilson is a Purist Food Pedant who produces turgid mush resulting from his obsessions with being Authentic; Dan just loves good food, each dish is as unique as it is exhilerating, and he's never looked at a recipe book in his life, he's just eaten with his friends, living, loving and learning by way of everyday pragmatics.

Of course when we go to a Chinese Restaurant we're dealing with a living tradition of cultural cuisine on a very different level to the effirts of Mr Wilson. That said, at my favourite Chinese Restaurant and Buffet (China Pa-Pa in Preston where we treat ourselves once every three months) you will find all sorts of Western and Oriental cuisene catering for all tastes. They even have fried fish and near perfect chips! Such are the pragmatics of life in a multi-cultural society.

One wonders how much of this echoes the Folk Cuisine of Chinese kitchens, the things people are eating on a day to day basis; we often prowl the markets of our multi-cultural England; we love the Polish shops, the Chinese supermarkets etc. which all contribute to a greater cultural context. Essential attributes of England, which comes down to the individuals involved and forever on the move. It's a wonderful world, with no room for the pedantic purist.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: goatfell
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:26 PM

yes because most of them come on to this site

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:00 PM

OED

(1) one who aims at affects or insists upon scrupulous or excessive purity, esp in language or style: a stickler for purity or correctness.

(2) one who maintained that the new Testament was written in pure Greek.

An illustration from Hazlitt's lectures in 1820. Italians who scrupled to use any word or phrase not to be found in Cicero.


In many cases this cannot apply to a folk singer or folksong singer since we know that the ipsissima verba or "ORIGINAL TEXT" is not to be found.

It would seem to be the case that many including me who arrange the style of folk songs are also not purists.

I wonder indeed who is.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 02:40 PM

"Do people apply the same kind of criteria when it comes to food?"
Do you mean if they go into a shop and ask for potatoes, do they go out happy if they are handed bananas and are told it's ok as long as you "enjoy" them - I don't know many.
Nice analogy with the "Indian restuarant".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 02:08 PM

I suspect that the "purist" bugaboo first appeared defensively and self-righteously in the liner notes accompanying self-described "folk" groups of ca1960 who were clearly "pop" (or at least "semi-pop") groups.

If they were responding to anything but their own consciences, it may have been to perfectly appropriate criticism by academics that their lyrics, arrangements, and performances seriously misrepresented tradition even while their publicists proclaimed to the masses that they were delivering "the real McCoy."

I can think of a few names but won't mention any.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 02:07 PM

Ah, but what IS chicken Chow Mein?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 02:07 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrwfuveekG0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrwfuveekG0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFpqDo-vNN0the second version clearly learned from christy moore, it makes the same mistakes in the lyrics, which means it doesnt make sense.
I am a purist when it comes to story songs making sense.
this is the version that makes sense
To work his twa best horses,
Cart or harrow or plough,
Or anything aboot fairm work
I very well could do.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 01:36 PM

Do people apply the same kind of criteria when it comes to food?

For example, would it be unreasonable to expect that the menu in an Indian restaurant should prfereably not be dominated by dishes such as shepherds pie or chicken chow mein? Even if these are dishes you might very much enjoy.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Bert
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 01:30 PM

It was funny though.