Subject: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 29 Jun 12 - 07:22 AM Can't believe no one has started a thread about this yet. I'll let the title speak for itself: What the folk! Nic Jones is back http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jun/28/what-folk-nic-jones-back |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: greg stephens Date: 29 Jun 12 - 07:36 AM "The decades following Jones's accident were largely barren for British folk music"...the article says. Interesting and provocative statement. You can't actually argue with it because of the sneaky "lagely" being inserted, but it's a good discussion point. And how about the decades before, come to that? Anway, that aside good luck to Nic and let's all hope this goes well. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Arthur_itus Date: 29 Jun 12 - 07:43 AM Shame he won't be playing guitar. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Bonzo3legs Date: 29 Jun 12 - 07:57 AM But his son is very good. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: GUEST,henryp Date: 29 Jun 12 - 08:04 AM 1982! Penguin Eggs still sounds fresh today. I'm sure Nic has moved on, but that's how many of us still remember him. I hope his dates go well. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: GUEST, Sminky Date: 29 Jun 12 - 09:03 AM "it was always open tunings, which I think now was a bit of a fake way of playing". No, Nic, no! I remember someone suggesting to Martin Carthy that playing in open tuning was cheating. I thought Martin was going to head-butt the guy - and I rather wish he had. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Ross Campbell Date: 29 Jun 12 - 09:37 AM Of course it's cheating (but playing in dropped "D" tuning isn't, so I'll just keep doing that!) Good luck to Nic for his return to the stage. Hope to hear him again. Ross |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 29 Jun 12 - 09:42 AM I think a number of the old blues players used open tunings, didn't they? I remember reading where Joni Mitchell seriously got herself on the wrong side of (?) Furry Lewis by saying something about playing in the same tunings he used (it has a name, which I can't remember at the moment - Sebastapol? Vestapol?) and he got the idea she was patronising him, and became hostile and defensive about it. She says she was just passing a neutral comment and he put some kind of negative interpretation on it. But if open tuning is "cheating" - which I don't believe it is - then Nic is is some pretty stellar company. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Steve Shaw Date: 29 Jun 12 - 09:47 AM The lamentable lack of availability of his early records is mentioned but glossed over. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: matt milton Date: 29 Jun 12 - 09:56 AM "The decades following Jones's accident were largely barren for British folk music"...the article says. Interesting and provocative statement. You can't actually argue with it because of the sneaky "lagely" being inserted, but it's a good discussion point. And how about the decades before, come to that?" well, the decades since would be 1982â€"2012. three decades. I don't know, I often wonder what the "classic" 1980s British folk albums would be. I know I don't own any. And can't say I've ever heard any. The majority of my British folk CD/MP3 collection are 1950s & 60s recordings. Then a smattering of 1970s, a smattering of late 90s things, before the decent amount of post 2000s albums from largely younger acts. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Phil Edwards Date: 29 Jun 12 - 10:03 AM "Largely barren"... hmm. I wasn't, strictly speaking, around - I was here, but I'd stopped taking an interest in folk music well before 1982 and I didn't get back into it for 20-odd years. But I do get the feeling that there was a sense of having taken folk into lots of different areas - folk, fine, but folk and what else? - the whole "folk-rock" thing being part of the process. So there was folk on Top Gear, folk on stage at the National, folk in working-men's clubs, folk on TOTP, even an entire folk opera (Bellamy and Townshend, Tommy and the Transports - compare and contrast). And, just as prog rock ran out of steam in the same period, there was perhaps a bit of a sense that it had all been done - after Lark Rise, after the Transports, after "All around my hat", after "Capstick Comes Home" (1981); a sense of "what are we going to do now?". Fortunately the songs were still there, preserved for a new generation (or, in the case of my age group, a new generation of old farts) beneath the icecap of general oblivion. It's ironic that now, when folk has become fashionable again, it's very much a retro, revivalist style - and what's being revived is by and large the 1970s, the heyday of prog-folk. I wish Nic well with all my heart, but from that article it sounds as if he's still thinking in those folk-and-what-else? terms. I dare say his own songs are all right - "Ruins on the shore" is OK - and I'm quite into Radiohead, but the old songs are something else. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker Date: 29 Jun 12 - 10:18 AM "What the folk! Nic Jones is back" What the folk! see what the writer did there ? genius..LOL* Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha priceless pun, cracks me up in hysterical mirth every time.... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha thank the comedy gods for lazy creatively bankrupt hack journalism. [* first and only time I'll ever descend to using "LOL"] |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 29 Jun 12 - 10:30 AM It could be the Graun which is to blame for the headline, rather than Colin Irwin... that's happened before... |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: matt milton Date: 29 Jun 12 - 10:31 AM I imagine you'll have a Guardian subeditor to thank for that, rather than Colin Irwin. Titles and captions are usually a sub's work. And that sub will have probably have had to churn out about 50 in ten minutes, on subjects that he or she didn't necessarily know anything about before writing them. So I wouldn't be too hard on them for resorting to the old "folk/f**k" chestnut. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: GUEST,punkfuckrocker Date: 29 Jun 12 - 10:53 AM bah... bloody public school day-release interns... Ok, seeing as this pun is apparently so venerable it is itself entering the folk tradition and thus should be honoured and respected.. for the rest of today, or until I get bored with it, I shall be "punkfuckrocker"... |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: The Sandman Date: 29 Jun 12 - 11:19 AM Iam pleased to hear this news. I take exceptionto the following comment writen by the journalist "The decades following Jones's accident were largely barren for British folk music" more crap from Colin Irwin, the standard of folk journalism is the only thing that was barren[and clearly still is] about the decades following nic jones accident. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Big Al Whittle Date: 29 Jun 12 - 11:42 AM yeh literature had Leavis, Tillyard, Wilson Knight. In folk music we had Karl Dallas and Colin Irwin. Was it Eliot said, the critics job is to isolate quality? I guess we were of such quality GSS that we were isolated by those two - so that the barren wastes of English folk music could be presided over by their favourites. It was their view of English folk music that was barren and ill informed. I think it was me who said to Martin that open tunings were cheating. He didn't headbut me, but looked quizzically, then I said, what I really mean is that it becomes a substantially different instrument - when you move away from the EADGBE tuning. And he agreed. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: matt milton Date: 29 Jun 12 - 12:14 PM well, it's an opinion, and an informed one. I don't see that you can dismiss the quality of someone's writing based on disagreement wth their opinion. I have to say I have many, many, many more folk albums that I know and love from the 50, 60s, 70s and 2000s than I have from the 80s and 90s. The 1980s were a funny decade for music: music production gimmickry went crazy in ways that weren't good for folk. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: The Sandman Date: 29 Jun 12 - 12:51 PM it is not informed at all, the 1980s produced some fine songs and songwriters, it produced bands who experimented with brass / wood wind, and was actually a period that was not barren but fertile as regards musical ideas, duos such as John Kirkpatrick and Sue harris[CONCERTINA OBOE HAMMER DULCIMER], bands like pyewackett, ,brass monkey, old swan band.TRADITIONAL MUSICIANS such as oscar woods, billy Bennington font watling, were introduced in to the folk revival, through the old hat concert party. "The 1980s were a funny decade for music: music production gimmickry went crazy in ways that weren't good for folk." perhaps you could qualify this wild statement |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: matt milton Date: 29 Jun 12 - 01:13 PM Wild statement qualified: recordings sounded more sterile due to the advent of small, deadened recording studios with reverb supplied digitally rather than by being in a natural high-ceilinged acoustic space. And as the decade wore on, horrible gated drums; and by the mid to late 80s you'd get people sneaking in synthesized sounds. Admittedly I'm talking about the RECORDINGS here, which is all I can go on, as I wasn't old enough to be at the folk clubs/gigs: I concede that the real life of folk always happens at live events, not on albums. I happen to not like Pyewackett, the Old Swan Band or Brass Monkey. I love JOhn Kirkpatrick, and I'm sure his 80s gigs were just as enjoyable as his gigs today, but I can't honestly say his 80s albums do anything for me. So, while I wouldn't use the word "barren", I remain unconvinced that 80s folk was as interesting as it was in the 60s. But this is all besides the point. You disagree with someone because you like some stuff he doesn't. Happens all the time. Doesn't make that person a bad writer. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: The Sandman Date: 29 Jun 12 - 01:39 PM yes it does, his comment is unqualified, as is yours. I WAS OLD ENOUGH TO BE DOING GIGS AND PLAYING FOLK CLUBS. many of the people playing music then are still doing it now including Martin Carthy,John Kirkpatrick, Dave Burland, Bob Davenport, Tom Paley,Bonnie Shaljean, Peggy Seeger, Brian Peters,Jez Lowe,Richard Grainger,Wilson Family,Dick Gaughan,Roy Bailey, Leon Rosselson, June Tabor, Martin Simpson,Dick Miles,Louis Killen,BillCaddick, Peter Bond,Pete Coe,Chris Coe, Roy Harris, Peter Bellamy. both you and Colin Irwin belittle all these performers with these unqualified generalised comments. Colin Irwin does not compare eighties folk music with sixties, this is some red herring that you have brought in.AS FOR YOUR REMARKS ABOUT RECORDINGS THIS IS MORE CRAP, and i speak from experience i made 5 recordings during the 80s and did not use any of the recording techniques you said were the order of the day. here is one, so much for being barren, cop on young man http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/5148 |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Big Al Whittle Date: 29 Jun 12 - 03:27 PM The 1980's, not only barren, but uninteresting now...... It also coincides with the period when the Melody Maker's folkchickens came to roost. All those acts warmly recommended who could empty a room 'faster than a trapeze artist with diarrhoea' as Derek Brimstone delicately put it. People in America read the rave reviews in Melody maker and got folk artists to tour whom the American audiences had zilch possibility of relating to. Result premature death of the folk revival |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: GUEST,henryp Date: 29 Jun 12 - 05:46 PM John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris may well play melodeon, oboe and hammer dulcimer on record, but I'd like to see them do it live! |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Steve Shaw Date: 29 Jun 12 - 07:32 PM Er, Peter Bellamy's been dead this last 20 years, Dick ol' chap. The only way he's "still doing it now" is as a member of the Choir Invisible. By the way, Dick, are you having trouble with your caps lock as well as your space bar? |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Steve Shaw Date: 29 Jun 12 - 07:34 PM Dick Miles was unknown then, and perhaps now. Ah, you tempter/temptress you, oh guest! |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Big Al Whittle Date: 29 Jun 12 - 11:46 PM 'Dick Miles was unknown then, and perhaps now.. Well he shouldn't have been. He's great. Very talented musically, and as a songwriter and interprter of trad material. Mayybe if Irwin had unclogged his bloody ears and got off his arse to review someone else, rather than ingratiate himself with great and the good - you would be better informed. Though I doubt it. Snidey little wanker! |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Big Al Whittle Date: 30 Jun 12 - 01:05 PM sorry about that - lost my temper! |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: The Sandman Date: 30 Jun 12 - 01:41 PM ok,here are some facts,and corrections Pete and chris coe Coe started in 1971, Jez lowe, Richard Grainger started performing in the eighties, however all the people I mentioned, Martin Carthy,John Kirkpatrick, Dave Burland, Bob Davenport, Tom Paley,Bonnie Shaljean, Peggy Seeger, Dick Gaughan,Roy Bailey, Leon Rosselson, June Tabor, Louis Killen, Pete Coe,Chris Coe, Roy Harris, and Peter Bellamy, WERE MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS to the uk folk scene in the 1980s., MY POINT IS THEY WERE MAJOR PLAYERS IN THE 1980S' I was not unknown in the 1980s,neither am I unknown now, Martin Carthy recorded guitar on one of my lps,... 1985, JEZ lOWE, played guitar on an lp in 1981 In 1985, I recorded an lp with The New Mexborough English concertina Quartet, plus I recorded several times for Folk on 2, and was playing at Folk festivals and clubs all over the UK. In the late eighties, I recorded and toured with Teesside songwriter Richard Grainger, these are all facts. I have played the following festivals, Warwick,Redcar, Saltburn, Loughborough,Sidmouth Chippenham, Kendall, Lancaster, Tenterden,Towersey,Chester,Norwich, Ely, Scarborough, Whitby,and many others, which is remarkable for an unknown. I apologise, but i feel it is necessary to correct nasty misinformation, now to get back to the subject of Nic jones, this is wonderful news, he was/is a talented performer |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Joe Offer Date: 30 Jun 12 - 01:49 PM I'm going to copy-paste the article, just in care the link dies sometime in the future. source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jun/28/what-folk-nic-jones-back
|
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: The Sandman Date: 30 Jun 12 - 02:07 PM John kirkpatrick and sue harris were performers together during the 1980s, the cowardly nasty anonymous guest,needs to check his facts, they recorded an album stolen ground, 1989. I remember seeing them a number of times booked at the same festivals that I was booked at, Sue Harris played both dulcimer and oboe NOT SIMULTANEOUSLY, to accompany Kirkpatricks accordion and concertina. ANOTHER FACT, John Kirkpatrick performed on a concertina compilation with myself, Harry Scurfield, Tim laycock, called Boxing Clever. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Brian Peters Date: 30 Jun 12 - 02:47 PM "The decades following Jones's accident were largely barren for British folk music..." Having played my first gig in 1981, I fear I must bear my small share of responsibility for those barren years. So too must Kathryn Tickell, Eliza Carthy, Nancy Kerr, Pete Morton, Janet Russell, Coope, Boyes & Simpson, Brass Monkey and many, many more artists who emerged during the deluge of mediocrity in the decade or so following Nic's accident. The established acts were also putting out desperately ordinary stuff during this period, of course. Even Richard Thompson couldn't run to anything better than Hand of Kindness and Rumor and Sigh. A few comments on the Guardian website about this, too... Regarding open tunings, any musician is entitled to criticise their own past output but, even though I don't doubt that a musician of Nic's talents could have constructed excellent arrangements of Canadee-I-O, Billy Don't You Weep For Me or Ten Thousand Miles in EADGBE tuning, I can't help wondering whether they'd actually have sounded quite as sweet. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Big Al Whittle Date: 30 Jun 12 - 03:27 PM I'm sure we are all glad that Nic is back performing. My first paid gig was as a support act to him . (Three quid at Tony Savage's old club in Ampersand. Must have been about 1976.) he was a good fiddle player, singer and guitarist. He is to be congratulated on overcoming many obstacles to sing to us again. The remark about the 1980's, by the writer of the article, was an unnecesary distraction. Bloody dispespectful to an awful lot of people, but it should not be allowed to cloud what should be good news. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: MGM·Lion Date: 30 Jun 12 - 06:25 PM "the standard of folk journalism is the only thing that was barren... about the decades following nic jones accident."... .,,.,.., Not entirely, I like to think, Dick! ~Michael~ |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Big Al Whittle Date: 30 Jun 12 - 06:36 PM Yes indeed, MGM, a man with his nib raised in defence of folk music. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: MGM·Lion Date: 30 Jun 12 - 06:42 PM Interested to see that pic of what Joe looks like now. Has punk had a revival or has it never gone away? Think the last time I saw him must have been when Nic & Julia, who lived just a few villages away from Valerie & me in N Cambridgeshire, brought the children for lunch at our house, not long after we moved here and not that long (2/3 years maybe) before the accident. Joe was, literally, a toddler, & Helen just a little girl. She has said on another thread that she recalls the occasion. Valerie & I were on both-way drop-in terms with the Joneses from about 1977 up to the time of the accident about 4 years later; but we lost touch when they moved North, & then SW. If you read this Nic, & are around this way again [I see you may be doing the Cambridge festival] give a ring on Ely 740738 & come over. Still in same house (tho different wife. Valerie dead 5 years now: & I am 80, so don't know how much longer I'll be here!) As ever ~M~ |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Steve Shaw Date: 30 Jun 12 - 07:41 PM Jeez. Can I come too? I had dinner with Thora Hird once... |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: The Sandman Date: 30 Jun 12 - 07:46 PM steve shaw,you are illustrating only one thing. MGM, my aplogies to you, as you know,I have cited your reviews as an example of how I think it should be done |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Steve Shaw Date: 30 Jun 12 - 07:51 PM That I can clench my buttocks as well as the next man? |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Big Al Whittle Date: 30 Jun 12 - 07:58 PM I suppose it depends Steve, if you have a good story to tell about the occasion. Mike would probably invite you if you got shag Dame Thora and took polaroids. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Steve Shaw Date: 30 Jun 12 - 08:01 PM Oh, I have a good story all right, Al. But I'm not about to megaphone it here! Any glory I ever possess is entirely my own. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: GUEST,Molly Date: 01 Jul 12 - 09:21 AM Come along children! Can't we remain calm and polite? This is not Facebook or Twitter you know. Stop trying to play "I know more famous people than you". We all should know that most journalism is rubbish designed to sell newspapers. Apart from the 'largely barren' comment, this is actually far better than most. Nic Jones was a star in his time - who knows what he might have achieved sans accident? He might even have fallen from grace and disappeared from the scene. There have been a lot of star performers since then - perhaps Nic and son and Belinda may be some of them. I hope so. And, by the by, I am old enough to have seen (and booked) John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris playing all their instruments live - always a class act. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: MGM·Lion Date: 01 Jul 12 - 09:40 AM Right. Someone said to me in an e-mail once "I don't know why you bother trading insults with Steve Shaw ... he's a notorious nutter for picking fights." I don't any more; but how typical that he can't tell a genuine friendship between neighbours, with shared interests in a field in which they have both achieved some success, from a name-drop. As Dr Leavis used to put it ~ he places himself. ~M~ |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Nigel Paterson Date: 01 Jul 12 - 11:17 AM Quoting from the article: "He got into folk when a schoolfriend invited him to join a popular folk group called the Halliard". That was me. The gig on 22nd sept. at C#House is when Nic receives his Gold Medal from the EFDSS. The evening will include The Halliard (Nic Jones, Dave Moran & Nigel Paterson) plus some friends, performing together live for the first time since we split in 1968. Do hope some of you can make it. Very Best to All, Nigel Paterson (Mandolin, The Halliard) |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 01 Jul 12 - 11:48 AM Wish we could! Can't think of anyone who deserves the Gold Medal more. Michael is from that area and can remember Nic back in the day, before he became famous. We'll be there in spirit - |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Big Al Whittle Date: 01 Jul 12 - 01:01 PM Was it that band that wrote The Calico Printer's Clerk? |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: MGM·Lion Date: 01 Jul 12 - 01:07 PM Yes; Dave Moran sang that one, I think. Nic sang Going For A Soldier Jenny, iirc ~M~ |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: Bonzo3legs Date: 01 Jul 12 - 01:10 PM Used to perform Calico Printer's Clerk with a singer who I believe was a resident at Chatham or Rochester Folk Club in the early 1980s! |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: GUEST,Folknacious Date: 01 Jul 12 - 01:15 PM Does it occur to any of you kneejerkers that the quote The decades following Jones's accident were largely barren for British folk music didn't refer to the quality of music being made, but to any recognition and success that traditionally-based folk was able to achieve outside its own inward-looking scene. With a few exceptions like the emergence of Kathryn Tickell in the late '80s, it wasn't until Eliza Carthy, Kate Rusby etc started gaining substantial mainstream respect in the late 90s that this altered in any substantial way. Billy Bragg, Pogues, Boothill Foottappers etc were great to see happen in the 80s, but they were hardly flying the flag for the same area of music as Nic, Carthy, Coes, Kirkpatricks etc inhabited.It took another generation to come along before that really happened. |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: The Sandman Date: 01 Jul 12 - 01:57 PM No , Folknacious, you are wrong, if Colin Irwin meant that he should have said it, he is a journalist his stock in trade is words, if that is what he meant he knows how to state it. what he said was an insult to all the UK PERFORMERS OF THAT TIME, whether they started in the sixties or seventies or eighties, it gives an impression that those performers were not producing worthwhile work, then irwin says The decades following Jones's accident were largely barren for British folk music, but when a new generation of musicians started to come through, one thing was notable – they all appeared to carry a copy of the one Nic Jones album they could easily get their hands on, Penguin Eggs. This is an interesting comment, IT IS INACCURATE, but the wording is interesting, he talks of musicians not singers. I dont wish to give any offence, because I have the greatest respect for Nic Jones as a musician and I am very pleased, he is performing again, but in my opinion his interpretation of traditional songs as a singer was not his strongest point, in my opinion the song that he sings best, on Unearthed, Is The Jukebox as She Turned, Which in my opinion is closer to Hank Williams than Walter Pardon. Of the revival singer guitarists who sang traditional songs during the 1980s, Tony Rose and Martin Carthy, are two who in my opinion are closer to traditional singers than Nic Jones. Nic says"I just thought: 'What's the point of singing songs about Napoleon Bonaparte?' I never knew him, I didn't know what he was like. I'm from Essex!' So I tried to sing more normally and moved from being a fake traditional singer to a fake rock guitarist." Nic was right to stop singing traditional songs if that was how he felt about them, because if you do not sing material you enjoy you cannot possibly interpret it properly. I Strongly disagree with Nics' sentiments, the fact that someone comes from Essex or sussex or northumberland has no bearing whatsoever on a singers ability to get inside a song, the situation is akin to being a good actor, but Nic was dead right about not singing songs he did not enjoy. I would not sing Lord Randall or Benjamin Bowmaneer, for the same reason, the fact that I come from Essex or Cornwall is[as far as i am concerned] irrelevant |
Subject: RE: Nic Jones article in The Guardian From: The Sandman Date: 01 Jul 12 - 02:40 PM Nics assessment of himself as a fake rock guitarist is incorrect, in my opinion he had great stage presence, his guitar playing gave an impression of being in total command, he played with great taste, knowing exactly what to leave out, he played the spaces between notes, his guitar playing was superb,his playing complemented his songs very well. |
Share Thread: |
Subject: | Help |
From: | |
Preview Automatic Linebreaks Make a link ("blue clicky") |