Change at the BBC folk awards

Subject: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Emma Hartley
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 06:08 AM

http://theglamourcave.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/change-at-bbc-radio-two-folk-awards.htm

Looks like there's change afoot at the BBC.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 08:34 AM

Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist.

Oooh, the conspiracy deepens; maybe Ms Hartley has been silenced by a sinister cadre of Hardingistas and other evil collaborators with the hated Folk Awards, all of them determined to overthrow Western civilisation by, er, giving an award to someone she doesn't like quite as much as someone else who might have been given the award instead ...

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 08:47 AM

Oh no! they're not letting in people who go to folk clubs!

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 08:52 AM

Emma Hartley's Glamour Cave

A blog about folk
Follow me on Twitter @emma1hartley
Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist.


What's this all about then ..................... why am I bothering?

Dunno

L in C#

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,al whittle
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 09:10 AM

read the article with great interest - apparently its all afix and the widget master and the widget register are going to get the front cover of Froots.

their knockout track is a reggae hip hop version of Famous Floower of Serrving men with you know who's guitar riff on a tape loop.

You just have to know how to read these things with total and completely justified predjudice.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Johnny J
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 09:11 AM

This one

http://theglamourcave.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/change-at-bbc-radio-two-folk-awards.html

seems to work but, maybe, we shouldn't bother as you say.
The OP has obviously got an agenda on the go.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 09:13 AM

The page does exist, it's just that Emma cocked up the link from Mudcat. Easily done. The article, meanwhile, is just a reprise of the conspiracy theory stuff from last year about a shadowy cabal of folkmasons using public money to feed their pampered jetsetting folkie chums more caviar as they wallow in a champagne jacuzzi whilst being licked by their gimps. Or something.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: LesB
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 11:03 AM

A 'folkmason' I like the image, should I roll up my trouser leg next time I pop into the Moorbrook?
Cheers
Les

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 11:18 AM

Watch for the guitarists who pick guitar with their pinky raised!

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 11:22 AM

Les. Preston is not exempt. Did you not know Lancashire is a veritable hotbed of folkmasonry?

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: LesB
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 11:31 AM

Perhaps thats one of the few advantages of me technically being in Merseyside. There again maybe not.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 12:00 PM

I am with you Les B

"a shadowy cabal of folkmasons" meet down the Beech every Wednesday:


Temple Website a>

Aided and abetted by one Big Brother S, cringe of this Parish

L in C#
trousers to the knee, bare breasts

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 03:23 PM

Have now read the article and it really is the same old bollocks as last year.

If I were a judge on the Folk Awards the first thing I'd insist on was anonymity, because otherwise your life up to the awards would be hell with all the relentless pestering from people with more marketing skills than talent, and your life afterwards would be hell either because @insert band name here @won or because @insert band name here@ didn't win.

Or maybe it all boils down to Ms Hartley #not# being a judge and therefore feeling she's not having her 'importance' in the folk world recognised?

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Oct 12 - 05:23 PM

being licked by their gimps

Oh, if only! I haven't been licked by my gimp in years - do I have to become a folkie to get this?

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Geoff the Duck
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 03:25 AM

I see that ms Hartley is still spamming Mudcat with her links.
Why should any of us bother clicking on them when she obviously has no interest in discussing the content herself. Every one of her spammings consist of a link to her "blog", without any reason why it might be of interest to anyone. She doesn't even have the good manners to explain why it is there.
Once she has put the first post she then totally ignores the thread.
If I had something to say that I wanted Mudcat readers to see I would post it on Mudcat not just put an unexplained link. I regard that as just rude. Essentially she is saying that as far as she is concerned, we are not worth her time or effort.
Well! nAs far as I am concerned, she is not worth My time or effort so I shall not be clicking on the link from this thread or any others she starts.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 03:46 AM

You intrigue me geof. Does Emma actually exist. Or is she a nom de plume? Perhaps a fat bloke called Oswin, who wishes he was Emma Peel, but is hopelessly fixated by Hartley's jam.

My cousin was taught by a teaching brother called Brother Oswin. The kids used to call him Ozzy. A bit like Jimmy Clitheroe's best friend in The Clitheroe Kid.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 04:07 AM

Like this, Al?

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 04:49 AM

As I have said before it must be a matter of public interest whether the BBC folk awards are bent. I am unclear whether there is sufficient to amount to a prima facie case that that might be so, but the prevalence of non-folk in the awards makes me think that there is a possibility that it is so.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: johncharles
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 04:56 AM

Despite being called The BBC folk awards the criteria state that
"The competition was open to soloists, duos and groups aged between 15 and 20 who perform folk, roots or acoustic music from any culture."
john

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 05:06 AM

Despite being called The BBC folk awards the criteria state that
"The competition was open to soloists, duos and groups aged between 15 and 20 who perform folk, roots or acoustic music from any culture."
john

John I think you're confusing the Folk Awards with the Young Folk Musician Of The Year competition. The winner of the Young Musician gets a gig at the Folk Awards as part of their prize, but the two are separate entities (albeit both associated with the BBC and Mike Harding's programme).

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 05:10 AM

Ah, HTML failure in my previous post. I admit I didn't preview it.

I demand a full enquiry into the evil machinations of Smooth Operations because they made me do it by, er, remotely controlling my keyboard from their secret bunker ...

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 05:20 AM

Dobcross is the secret sacred home of folkmasonry, Steve. It's those pesky Lancastrians. They're at it again.

Will, your gimp is clearly badly trained and in need of a good thrashing.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: johncharles
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 06:31 AM

Steve you are correct. Must get my brain working before using my computer. John

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: johncharles
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 06:59 AM

Steve, brain now working I checked on smooth operations website about the Folk Awards.
"Devised by Smooth Operations in 1999, the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards has developed into one of the must-see events of the year. Celebrating musical excellence and artistic talent across the folk, roots and acoustic genre, this evening of glitz and glamour acknowledges lifetime achievements, recognises stunning new music and and attracts mainstream media attention."
john

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 07:24 AM

Will, your gimp is clearly badly trained and in need of a good thrashing.

You say the nicest things! xxx

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 07:49 AM

Well written, Emma....

I'm sorry that you've now inherited The Hate Crown from The Folk Police, which once they put on me.

I too have asked, more times than I can recall, WHO the judges are in the Folk Awards. It was yet another reason why Smooth Ops banned me from their Radio 2 messageboard, so long ago now.

Once, I was their 'darling' for I sang the praises of the Mike Harding Show, and I could do no wrong. Encouraged, written to by Mel herself, from Smooth Ops...

But oh dear me, it all started to go so horribly wrong when I picked up on the dislike they then had for Show of Hands, who I 'adopted' and turned into Folk Heroes, much to the massive annoyance of the Folkie Police.... ;0)

Time's moved on though and now Steve and Phil have joined the ranks of fRoots and all who sail with them....

They'll never reveal the judges, Emma. It's a waste of good writing skills. The folk world is all stitched up by the Big Fish in the Small Pond, and it has been for decades.

It won't change until they either retire or drop down dead..

The BBC and Corruption are two words that sit well together......

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 08:03 AM

As there is no article there now, perhaps someone could enlighten us as to what it said?

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 09:22 AM

The Hate Crown from the Folk Police

Ah! This must be the sequel to the justly celebrated Weirdlore album (the review of which PROPAGANDA magazine rather perceptively called Rachel & I 'Gothic and Northern'). Word is The Hate Crown is a tribute to 'crown' related Folkery - Crown Sacrifice, Holly Bears the Crown, All Around my Crown, Commoner's Crown, The Ploughman's Thorny Crown, Crown of Horn, The Sacred Ejaculations of Corn Crowned Phoebus etc. etc.

Personally though, I WANT to believe there's such a thing as an Insider Folk Conspiracy at the BBC, but, like the belief in Folk itself, I know its all just paranoid delusion. Alas, this is more than be said for Lancastrian Folk Free Masonry (a different thing from Free Folk Masonry or Folk-Free Masonry). Entry would appear to be easy - the initiation is simply to be able to eat a bucket load* of Hot Pot and still be able to move an audience to tears with a rousing rendering of A Mon Like Thee. I failed - couldn't get past the first verse without throwing up all over the front row.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Sand Groan
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 09:26 AM

* A Lancastrian bucket load is a regulation 12 DM3.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: TopcatBanjo
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 09:46 AM

Geoff the Duck said:

"I see that ms Hartley is still spamming Mudcat with her links.
Why should any of us bother clicking on them when she obviously has no interest in discussing the content herself. Every one of her spammings consist of a link to her "blog", without any reason why it might be of interest to anyone. She doesn't even have the good manners to explain why it is there.

Once she has put the first post she then totally ignores the thread.
If I had something to say that I wanted Mudcat readers to see I would post it on Mudcat not just put an unexplained link. I regard that as just rude. Essentially she is saying that as far as she is concerned, we are not worth her time or effort.
Well! As far as I am concerned, she is not worth My time or effort so I shall not be clicking on the link from this thread or any others she starts."

I couldn't agree more.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 09:50 AM

sothe threads a misnomer.....no change.

Those of you who are making fun of Lizzie are wrong. The BBC's attitude to folk does matter and can't be left to a commercial view of things.

The folk music boom of the 60's and 70's produced some amazing stuff and none of it was filmed properly - Vin Garbutt, Roy Harris, Gerry Lockran. Derek Brimstone, Hamish Imlach, The Watersons Mk 1.

And yet I seem to have seen ten million programmes with Aly Blain sitting in a circle with some folk glitterati smirking at each other as they churned out some unmemorable cobblers.

Transaltantic sessions my arse, we should have got down some of the stuff that was under our noses.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 10:34 AM

No-one here hates Emma, Lizzie, as far as I can see. I think some people wish she'd come back and engage around her opinions rather than use Mudcat for hit 'n' run advertising. In any case, as she's a journalist who has set herself up as a commentator/blogger on the folk scene, she's bound to express some views that not everyone agrees with. Personally, I read her blog from time to time and enjoy some of what she writes, but I happen to think her crusade about the Folk Awards is misguided.It's her right to promote those views, it's my right to respond with slightly sarky comments about folkmasons and gimps. I'd happily have that discussion with Emma if she'd come back...

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 10:35 AM

Wouldn't the Folk Awards be alot more fun if they really included blue knees and Gimps?

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Folknacious
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 10:54 AM

The folk music boom of the 60's and 70's produced some amazing stuff and none of it was filmed properly - Vin Garbutt, Roy Harris, Gerry Lockran. Derek Brimstone, Hamish Imlach, The Watersons Mk 1. And yet I seem to have seen ten million programmes with Aly Blain sitting in a circle with some folk glitterati smirking at each other as they churned out some unmemorable cobblers.

Even ignoring your apostrophe abuse, ignorance of Travelling For A Living and gross overstatement ("millions"? really?) you really do have a problem. Think it through: they didn't film a lot back then so you begrudge them filming a lot right now? Oh, I see, they should only film old cobblers that you like? Derek Brimstone? Oh give us a break!

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 11:09 AM

I'm astonished that anyone actually gives a flyin' fuck about the BBC folk awards. Whichever little sweetheart of the moment, or blaring, noisy, out-of-tune band, wins it, it won't exactly make the earth's orbit change. Won't make the slightest iota of difference to any us, for that matter. It's all just a load of arse-licking bollocks. IMHO. YMMV.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 11:21 AM

BWM, you're not typing while driving are you? ;-)

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 11:26 AM

Nope, doing it from the comfort of my armchair, with a cup of Taylor's Yorkshire Tea by my elbow and Hannah James & Sam Sweeney on the hi-fi. Bliss! All is well with the world (my world, at any rate!).

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 11:36 AM

Ah! The same Hannah James and Sam Sweeney that were nominated for a Horizon award at the Folk Awards a couple of years back? Just remind me, was that in the "little sweetheart of the moment" category or the "blaring, noisy, out-of-tune band" category?

Of course, you know I'm just pulling your leg. As far as I'm concerned the Folk Awards are pretty much just a Radio 2 show designed to appeal to a Radio 2 demographic. Which is fine. As it was happening three miles from my house, I went last year (as a paying punter) and quite enjoyed some of it - especially as I have managed to blank out any memory of Don McLean - but the earth didn't move, either in a good way or a bad way.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 11:47 AM

And, of course, Sam is a member of the blaring, noisy out of tune band I had in mind too! :-)

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 11:48 AM

Gawd, you ARE a bunch of Moaning Minnies, whose spots *never* change..


I'm listening to FOLKWAVES! :0)

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Continuity Jones
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 12:10 PM

Big Al wrote:

"
And yet I seem to have seen ten million programmes with Aly Blain sitting in a circle with some folk glitterati smirking at each other as they churned out some unmemorable cobblers."

And I laughed.

Who'd be good on that show? I nominate Dick Miles and Michael Gill, playing some tunes whilst sat on opposite ends of a see-saw whilst gurning sweet kisses at one another and arguing whether concertina is pronounced conCertina or conSertina.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Folknacious
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 12:58 PM

Gawd, you ARE a bunch of Moaning Minnies, whose spots *never* change..

But they're moaning about the Folk Awards. And you don't like the Folk Awards.

*Hits forehead and whimpers*

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 01:17 PM

The Show Of Hands who are so cruelly and unjustly overlooked every single year by the Evil Hardingista Folk Mafia must, presumably, be a completely different Show Of Hands than the one that won two awards at the 2010 Folk Awards.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 01:19 PM

Alright you don't like Derek Brimstone.( named as an influence by Connolly, Carrot, Harding himself - all those people who went on to change the entire face of Brisih comedy - transforming from gags and catchphrases to raconteurship) Cosmotheka, Mr Gladstone's Bag, Alex Campbell, Brownsville Banned, magic Lantern.....

whether they fit your dumb little theories about the nature of folk music....these were people who had a massive influence on the way folk music is practised in the folk clubs of England and BBC TV was absolutely bloody nowhere.

Same as it is nowadays.

No change.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Oct 12 - 01:31 PM

I used to support The Folk Awards a LOT, then I got fed up with the secrecy about the judges, the 3/4/5 Awards to one artist, the same old same old winning Awards all the time...It should be as wide a show-case as it possibly can be for Folk Music, but...it ain't.

Biggish Fishy Fishes in a Small Pond which should be HUGE..

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Oct 12 - 01:46 AM

Its a weird thing....just yeterday a Canadian, probably someone who never got to see him live started a thread about how terrific Johnny Silvo was....its just so bloody typical of the English folkscene. (Ooooh i like REAL folk music,not like YOU! Not like Derek Brimstone, who graced the English folkscene for forty off years...') you're sodding pathetic!)

What you don't seem to realise is that if you've been around the English folk clubs - you have had a ringside seat at one of the great artistic movements in the world! You should have some pride in what you've seen, and what you've applauded whilst the frigging BBC was all but asleep - or flogging the latest pile of poo.

Its almost as though, the Victoriansd are still in charge - all those idiots who thought Picasso and Van Gogh were mere daubs.

What was it Sue Townsend said, through the voice of Adrian Mole, I want to wake up and find myself on Planet Radio 4.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Oct 12 - 05:37 AM

Mind you, it IS ok if The Oysterband win absolutely EVERYTHING! ;0)

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Oct 12 - 08:41 AM

I worked for the BBC in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was a member of the BBC Folk Club (known as 'Clanfolk' because of its weekly venue at the Marquis of Clanricarde pub in Bayswater). I ran the club for a spell and we booked people like Derek Brimstone, Mike Chapman, the Yetties, Martin Carthy, poet Adrian Mitchell, the Thamesiders, Tim Hart & Maddy Prior and many others.

As head honcho of Clanfolk, I was a regular recipient of tickets for the weekly recordings of Wally Whyton's "Country Meets Folk" programme recorded live at the Players' Theatre in Charing Cross. Whyton was the presenter, and the great Brian Brocklehurst (who died not so long ago) was the resident bass player. The programme was sometimes an odd mixture of acts, but I recall seeing Pentangle, Ralph McTell and many other names from the Les Cousins end of the folk spectrum there. A gang of us would get the tube from Bayswater, go to the theatre for the recording and then down a pint or two at the "Sherlock Holmes" pub just up the road - where some of the acts and production team could also be found.

Jim Lloyd (for example) was one of three or four BBC producers who had a deep interest in folk music - not just of the UK - and the music certainly wasn't ignored. Quite a lot was actually filmed but, in those days, videotape was expensive, was used over and over again, and inevitably some hard decisions were made at the time as to what should be kept and what should be wiped. A great many now legendary programmes - not just folk stuff - were lost for ever, and that was the environment in which TV was made in those days. So, to complain that artists weren't filmed as much by comparison with today is to compare two radically different broadcasting periods.

I haven't seen Ralph Jordan (Ralphie) on Mudcat for a long time, and I'm sure he could expand on all this in greater detail.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Oct 12 - 11:49 AM

Well yeh but......

40 years on - haven't we learned anything?

Bernard Wrigley. Wouldn't you rather see him than Dolly Parton strumming indifferently?
The songwriters....Alan Bell, John Conolly, Pete St John, jeremy Taylor.

is there footage of Peggy and Ewan?

there again the groups like The Yetties, and Ian Campbell's group - that inspired so many of us. Weren't they worth an hour's programme.

Some of them could be got now - many of them could have been got in the last fifteen or so years whilst they've been promoting Bunkum. When your great grandkids tell you they know all about music in the 1970's, 80's, 90's, the noughties ...they've seen the films of Kajagoogoo and Sigue Sigue Sputnik and they'll on the mainstage at Cambridge next year - you'll can only blame those buggers at the Beeb.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 12 - 03:22 PM

The whole thing stinks of back handers and bungs and the BBC folk show is very bad.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 12 - 06:58 PM

Bernard Wrigley. Wouldn't you rather see him than Dolly Parton strumming indifferently?

In all honesty, no. And in terms of listening rather than seeing, definitely no!

jeremy Taylor . . . The Yetties, and Ian Campbell's group

All made it onto the TV. Taylor was on regularly, Campbells were certainly in the ATV Hullabaloo series and I'm sure others. Yetties' own web site refers to "numerous TV appearances".

You can usually tell if there's any real demand for stuff by whether it turns up on YouTube.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Oct 12 - 08:57 PM

yeh they were squeezed onto shitty news programmes, or Taylor endeared himself to Spike Milligan - and got squuezed for a few minutes in front of rthe camera.

But really you shouild know better.

These were important people with a story to tell about the creativity - its sources and its practice.

Bonnie Sartin of the Yetties for example - his family supplied the Hammonds with some of the songs for their collection. Ian Campbell what a seminal character - a folksinger Dad, there at the time of the folk Ballads records , there on the records with MacColl, and his kids go onto form UB40 - a real multi cultural phenomenon.

Every bloody one of them has a more interesting and compelling tale to tell than what passes for folk music.

What about that Bolton power house of humour and folk club acts - the Bob Williamson, Brownsville Banned, Bernard Wrigley axis.

I understand - you don't get it. You think every thing is hunky dory. Well I've been on and around the folkscene - and I think they've got it 1000% bloody wrong.

They twat on endlessly about some boring pile of bollocks from the 18th century, and they are missing a motherlode, an explosion of talent and interest in folk music. In a hundred years they will write books about what bloody pillocks the present cognoscenti of the folk world are - and they'll be right.

Easily as stupid as the neo Georgians, trying to write poems in the style and language of the 18th century when the industrial revolution was kicking the shit out of England and its society.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 05:33 AM

some boring pile of bollocks from the 18th century

Well, Al, you're just going to have to beg to differ with lots of other people who don't share your viewpoint or your taste in music. That's the whole trouble with any discussion of "folk music" and the "folk scene" - ideas of what constitutes tradition and what's important can only ever be personal and subjective.

I was out with the ceilidh band last night - full force (saxes, melodeons, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, bass, drums) - giving it some wellie at a wedding reception. The room was rammed, everyone danced their socks off all night - and most of the tunes were piles of English, Irish and Scottish bollocks (as you might say) from all centuries, not just the 18th.

And here's the rub: we play these tunes - not a vocal in sight, by the way - because they're bloody good tunes regardless of when they were written, and they're just great to dance to. Many of them were written in tune books at the time and have survived, with variations, all over the place. We don't play them because they're "folk music", or because they're social documents or because their associated cultural phenomena. That's just so much baggage that gets piled on top of the music itself. And that baggage gets piled on your heroes just as much as anyone elses heroes.

And this lunchtime, having put away my gear from last night, I'll be swapping amps and guitars, getting out the archtop and playing some '20s and '30's jazz (as a duo) in my local pub. No arguments there, by the way - once again the tunes speak for themselves. Why can't we let "folk" music do the same?

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 06:17 AM

I dunno why its not working. But its not. Lots of people feel the same and have just faced up to the fact The middle classes have got it wrong - once again - like voting for Thatcher, closing down the railways, appeasing Hitler......

It may be the confrontational style of the middle classes with all their holier than thou, this is the way it SHOULD be done style, you know nowt attitude.

However as SOH hands said in an interview - whatever the British public want, its not 'traditional' English musc. All that gang are better at the trad stuff than I'll ever be, and they've tried flogging it hither and thus.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 06:49 AM

It may be the confrontational style of the middle classes with all their holier than thou, this is the way it SHOULD be done style, you know nowt attitude.

Well, I know that you've encountered opposition to doing your own thing in various folk clubs at various times over the years, and I think I know what you're referring to. I wouldn't necessarily call it a "middle class" attitude though - I think you're adding a bit of your own cultural and sociological baggage here... :-)

I suppose I've been either very lucky or very thick skinned in that I haven't come across the 'holier-than-thou' attitudes very often - though I've met one or two very unpleasant and rigid individuals now and then in folk clubs. To which I should add I've met some lovely people in folk clubs, but I wouldn't attribute a particular class to any of them either. People is just people, good or bad.

I suppose I have very simplistic view of music - just play the bloody stuff, in any way or style you choose - and take the consequences of doing so. Sometimes you'll end up getting the cold shoulder or laughed at, and sometimes you'll be worshipped as a minor god with people asking you to sign your records. I've had both in a long life but all I care about in the end is playing the the music(s) I love without reference to anyone else, or awards of any kind.

Al, I like what you do. You write great songs and play good guitar. But why blame a "folk" scene for perhaps not being appreciated in it? One of the reasons that I rarely attend folk clubs is because I know at heart that, although I love traditional tunes, I'm not really a devotee of folk song. I wouldn't know a Childe Ballad if it came up and bit me on the bum. So I go to a club occasionally - mainly to keep up acquaintance with people I know and like, for a bit of musical variety, or to try out a new bit of guitar work. But folk clubs are not where I do my main thing because I don't really fit. I spent years playing in pubs, working men's clubs, bars, British Legions, etc. You know where you are in these places! So why rail against a scene that - at heart - you were probably never really a part of? I'm just guessing here, so no offence intended.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Bobs folk show
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 06:58 AM

Well said will fly. There are only three kinds of music, music you like music you dont like and music you have never heard.
Why are folk music fans so negative? Just enjoy what you enjoy and stop slagging of the rest.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Johnny J
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 07:46 AM

Firstly, I don't really agree with the idea of awards.
So, the question of transparency(or not) is quite irrelevent as far as I'm concerned. However, they(Awards in general) will continue to exist as those who win these are unlikely to criticise or boycott them.
It's a bit like the Honours system. As long as people are willing to accept these, the nonsense continues.

Secondly, if there are only three kinds of music then why have a folk scene, folk clubs, or *folk shows* in the first place, Bob?
Why not just have a music scene, music clubs, and general music shows?
(The above could apply to any genre)
There's no real point in having a folk scene or organising "folk" clubs unless you can distinguish(however, loosely)what music is suitable or appropriate to represent this concept and/or should be included.

Was it Karl Dallas who once said something like "Folk clubs exist so that one day they no longer need to exist?" Has that time now come?

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 08:02 AM

There's no harm in principle in categorizing music, or anything else, into genres, even though we may argue endlessly about what constitutes a genre, or what fits into it. The sad thing is that the argument often seems to be endlessly combative, like sects and sub-sects of a particular religion bickering over the One True Way.

The fact is that no music is conceptually "better" than any other and, in the end, all that matters is that you/we the players play what we want to play and that you/we the listeners listen to what we want to listen to. Hopefully, the two things occasionally coincide!

But, within Bob's area of folk music - and any other area of music - his words about there being three kinds of music are essentially valid.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Silas
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 08:02 AM

Well, its seems the bloody woman has done it again.

Lets just post last years thread and be done with it.

As for mad Lizzie, I was also a member of the message board and her recollection of events is quite different to mine.

Is the spoof, but very entertaining 'Gemma Kidney' blog still going?

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 08:07 AM

I haven't read the Hartley blog and don't intend to - and I don't give tuppence for the BBC folk awards or any other awards. I was just interested in Al's take on the filming/recording of artists by the Beeb now and then, and on his view of the folk establishment.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 08:17 AM

In my umble opinion BBC Folk and the Folk Awards badly needs to move with the times, with the exception of Ian Campbell and the dubliners who thoroughly earned last years awards. The whole thing was like looking at a living graveyard, I honestly thought half that audience had long ago passed on! There are loads of good new talents around the Folk clubs who never get featured on the beed. As someone else on this thread points out THE Beebs output seems to largely consist of transatlantic sessions and endless repeats of James Taylor. The old stuff dserves it's place in the grand scheme of things, but the Beeb needs to come out of the dark Folk aqes and recognise we're 12 years into a new century!

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 08:20 AM

The Gemma Kidney blog looks to have been abandoned since November 2011. Rather hits the nail on the head though ...

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Silas
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 08:27 AM

Hi Will
I agree that the awards themselves are pretty meaningless, but it does give mean that some TV coverage is given over to Folk Music for a refreshing change and last years coverage was pretty good despite the breakdowns in transmission.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 08:46 AM

The Kidney blog is hysterical in places. I love the 'how tall is Mike Harding' piece.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 10:25 AM

I don't really mind the awards. I'm not really bothered about recognition for my own paltry efforts - its not about that.

Itell you what its about.

Alan Bennett said in one of his talks about English poetry. There is no more difficult period of history to appreciate and understand than the recent past. And that's the problem - in a nutshell.

the temptation is always to go for the easier option - the remote past. I remember when St helens council brought out a book about the history of the town. i was amazed, because it was all about the 17th century. The St Helens that my parents and grandparents talked about was being swallowed up every day, by town planners, incomers, the mass media....

And now the same thing has happened to me. I lived through this amazing period where ordinary people picked up guitars and tried to express themselves. And according to folk music experts - its not folk music. It never was folk music. Every little town with two or three folk clubs. But it wasn't folk music. And the people who sang there, they are without honour or memory. Look how someone sneered at derek Brimstone's life achievments on this thread - just a few posts ago.

The trouble with Show of Hands is that they sing 'We've lost more than we'll ever know...'   But they don't believe it. If its lost its lost and the corollary is that to express our lives - we need yo create the new, and we need the example of those who started the job.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 10:34 AM

Big Al …you've got it right! (IMHO)

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 04:31 PM

Well no point in going on about it. I respect many trad musicians and count most of the ones i know as my good friends. I have more in common with them, than i do with people who follow the X factor.

However I really think people should think more about the music, about the artistic movement that we are privileged to be a party of.

Particularly - people like journalists and BBC people. They should visit folk clubs and understand the movement at ground level - how one half disowns the other. And in my opinion its one of those great great British class tragedies - like the Battles of the First World War.   Something wonderful is being lost for ever.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 06:53 PM

Something wonderful is being lost for ever.

Not lost, Al - perhaps set aside for the moment. We have audio recordings of these people, at any rate and, in years to come - like everything else - these things will emerge and have their day again.

There's no point in yearning for the past - let's just get on with the present and play our music and enjoy ourselves.

I'm writing this at 11.50pm, having just returned from my local where we had my monthly acoustic session. We played and sang blues, old rock'n roll, 1930s songs, old-time fiddle and guitar music, unaccompanied ballads, Jim Croce and many other things, And - do you know - no-one mentioned folk music, folk, the folk process, folk awards, the BBC or anything connected with anything. We just sat round a table, drank beer and wine and played and sang our hearts out.

Subject: RE: Change at the BBC folk awards
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 08:07 PM

That's a good part of what music is meant to do. imo.