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Subject: Republic/ Conservative Folk Singers From: GUEST,Guest - Cathy Date: 17 Oct 12 - 02:00 PM I live in U.S.A. and have always loved folk music - both traditional and contemporary folk music, as well as some folk/rock music. I don't know about U.K. in regards to this but it seems like most well known folk singers/groups and listeners of folk music here are Democratic in their political beliefs and I guess it has always been that way. I don't know if there are any well known folk artists around who are Republicans or just more conservative in their political choices or not. I know from attending concerts over the years of many well known folk artists/groups that the audience too seems to be made up of more liberal people which is no surprise - but I have been wondering if there are any conservative (or willing to admit to being so) and listeners of folk music who (attend concerts, etc.)who are Republicans? |
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Subject: RE: Republic or Conservative folk singers From: Will Fly Date: 17 Oct 12 - 02:10 PM I have always separated music from politics - music is too precious a thing to be tainted with political slogans or beliefs. I have several personal strong social and political opinions, but I've never put them into a musical context. I also don't believe that a "folk" song - whatever that is - has ever had any real significant lasting political impact. Just my personal two-cents-worth, Cathy... (and I'm from the UK, by the way). |
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Subject: RE: Republic or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,Doc John Date: 17 Oct 12 - 02:26 PM Folk songs, where there is any political or social leaning, are left wing so the people who sing them or listen to them will also have this political leaning. Bascom Lamar Lundsford who recorded and collected folksongs for the Library of Congress had very unpleasant right wing leanings, as reported on the mudcat by those who met him years ago. However I can't think of anything he recorded being of a politcal nature. |
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Subject: RE: Republic or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,Guest - Cathy Date: 17 Oct 12 - 02:28 PM Message to Will: Thank you for your quick reply to this thread. Just wanted to add that many of the concerts I have attended (not political events) but are advertised in the newspaper and other ads as a concert at medium to large venues, where you buy your tickets ahead of time, etc. and are held in large concert halls. I have found that many folk artists will start talking about their political agendas on stage between songs - (well known folk artists.) Don't want to name names here but it does make me feel uncomfortable. Some artists do this more then others. Yes, I know, I don't have to go to their concerts, etc. but I do remain fans of their music and do like to hear "live music" so I am always hoping that the concert will be just that - a concert and not too much political talk going on. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative Folk Singers From: Richard Bridge Date: 17 Oct 12 - 02:53 PM Can we shoot them now? Transferred from a deleted duplicate thread. --Mod |
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Subject: RE: Republic or Conservative folk singers From: Jim Carroll Date: 17 Oct 12 - 03:08 PM The earliest songs ever to be gathered together in a collection are to be found in Wright's 'Political Songs from John (1199) to Edward II' (1307) - in French, Provencal, Latin, Anglo-Norman and English. Echoes of politics in the shape of The Enclosures can be found in our Transportation Songs, the Bothy Songs reflect greedy masters and overworked and exploited farm workers, many of our sea and soldiers songs record the hardship and injustice of being ripped from land and family and forced to fight in bloody and rapaciously murdeous wars. In Ireland, the thousands of emigration songs came about from what is often referred to as Ireland's Holocaust - The Great Famine; and the Irish repertoire would be decimated without the songs of struggle for independence. It is virtually impossible to discuss the American Civil Rights struggle without remembering those wonderful protest song, many of which brought many of us into folk music in the first place. Politics, like the poor, is always with us and political songs reflect that fact. They have been part of our self-expression for a long, long time and long may that continue to be the case. (or are we just talking about left-wing political songs?) Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: artbrooks Date: 17 Oct 12 - 04:10 PM There is at least one active singer/songwriter and folk music performer (and Mudcat member) whose personal opinions are at the Tea Party extreme of the US political spectrum (and I won't name him), but this has no effect at all on his music. There are a few individuals on Mudcat who articulate intelligent and well thought-out conservative points of view (and a number of, IMHO, pure idiots), at least one of whom I spent some time enjoying music with at the Getaway. The line between bluegrass, which is usually (in the US) seen as a sub-set of folk, and country is pretty thin, and there are many country musicians who are very right-wing. Generally, however, folkies trend left. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Richard Bridge Date: 17 Oct 12 - 04:17 PM I see my post has been deleted. Well done censors. Not. Folk music is the antithesis of art music (and opera): the playgrounds of the ruling class. It is one reason why the 1954 definition so (wrongly) derided by the new upper middle class remains important. 600 years (at least) of oppression and rapine discarded on the whim of a moderator, and probably one whose national history is less extensive than the foundations of my house. If it's just a pretty noise - get thee hence. You are one of the oppressors.
[no post has been deleted- perhaps it did not actually post-Mudelf] |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,999 Date: 17 Oct 12 - 04:34 PM Richard: the OP had started two threads with approximately the same title. You and I posted on the other thread which was deleted. So, in fact your post was deleted as was mine, but only as part of the other whole thread being deleted. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,mando-player-91 Date: 17 Oct 12 - 04:43 PM Conservative folksingers I didn't there was any or not that I can think of.... |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,mando-player-91 Date: 17 Oct 12 - 04:46 PM Of course it wouldn't matter to me anyway unless they were singing in favor of white power or something. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Jeri Date: 17 Oct 12 - 04:52 PM I deleted it. As 999 said, it was the second of two threads started by the OP, and it was meant to correct an error. Richard, I'll transfer your message into this thread. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: pdq Date: 17 Oct 12 - 04:55 PM It's quite refreshing to listen to Doc Watson, Ian & Sylvia, Burl Ives and other who left politics out of their music. Even Stephen Stills, when he heard that "For What It's Worth" was being called a "protest song", got a bit angry, claiming a protest singer says "I hate this, I hate that, I hate fucking everything! I'm not a protest singer!". |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Allan Conn Date: 17 Oct 12 - 04:59 PM "but it does make me feel uncomfortable" I find it irritating. We put on concerts too and two instances come to mind where well known (here in the UK)artists did insist on preaching to the audience. The problem with doing that to a small audience is you get someone who disagrees with the performer and what should be entertainment turns into a politicl debate. I kind of resented paying good money to see two guys argue with each other and wouldn't fancy paying good money to have someone preach to me either. I've no gripe with songs having messages etc but they should mostly speak for themselves perhaps just with a short introduction rather than a big monologue. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,Tony Date: 17 Oct 12 - 05:06 PM Cathy, there's always been a connection between folk music and the political left, at least since Woody Guthrie. So it's natural for performers and audience to enjoy that esprit-de-corps at a folk concert, in the same way that GW Bush speaking at a defense contractors' convention grinningly called them "my base." My impression is that conservatives who are inclined toward folk music usually go with country-western/bluegrass instead. It's too bad no one explained that to the Dixie Chicks, but their loss of income is a good indication of the degree of political conservativism in CW fans. Richard, your folk/art music dichotomy really interests me, since I recently concluded that all the songs I like best, which I think of as folk songs, probably started life as 19th century art songs. And my favorite contemporary song-writer is someone who writes solidly in that art-song tradition, though he sings in a gritty, boozy rock or jazz style (I hate his singing). |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,999 Date: 17 Oct 12 - 05:14 PM "And my favorite contemporary song-writer is someone who writes solidly in that art-song tradition, though he sings in a gritty, boozy rock or jazz style (I hate his singing)." I think that is a great compliment to the song-writer. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Larry The Radio Guy Date: 17 Oct 12 - 05:20 PM I think all music's political. Except some (a lot of what is called 'folk music') is more honest about it. Songs about how the purpose of life is to look good enough or say the right things that will get you the 'chick' (or the guy). Or how life isn't worth living once that significant other (who defines you) disappears. That's political, is it not? Most vapid pop music is, from my perspective, 'conservative' in that it avoids looking at how we can truly enhance the lives of all of us in a meaningful way. Isn't it great that we can find some music that doesn't do that? |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Jack Campin Date: 17 Oct 12 - 05:22 PM Peter Bellamy was some sort of Conservative, and it did influence the way he performed. Wouldn't have been a problem for me (I never saw him) as he was genuinely using that background as a source for artistic ideas. There is a well known singer-songwriter in the UK scene who throws anti-abortionist propaganda into his act. I've never seen or heard the poisonous little shit and never intend to. That's completely beyond anything I regard as tolerable. There are some performers in the Borders who do the local hunting songs in a way that rather strongly suggests support for the whole hunting/Countryside-Alliance/forelock-tugging-rural-Toryism bag. I can tolerate a certain amount of that for its anthropological interest (and sometimes, terrific singing) before deciding I'd really rather be somewhere else. I used to live in an Orange area of Glasgow. Their music was genuinely fun, but they would never have thought of themselves as being "folk" and neither would anybody involved in the officially-named "folk" scene (except maybe Adam MacNaughton). |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: kendall Date: 17 Oct 12 - 05:24 PM I know one. He doesn't flaunt it and he is an outstanding musician, singer and songwriter. He's very popular around here and thats all we care about. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Cool Beans Date: 17 Oct 12 - 06:04 PM At least a couple of folks that I (liberal) run across at open mics and hootenannies are right-wingers. We all get along and never, so far, have any of us sung political songs--it's just not something we do. If it weren't for Facebook, I wouldn't be aware of their political leanings. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Acorn4 Date: 17 Oct 12 - 06:29 PM You don't have to support hunting to sing a hunting song any more than you have to be a psychopath to sing a murder ballad. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Jack Campin Date: 17 Oct 12 - 06:34 PM No, but I think I can tell personal identification when I see it. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: pdq Date: 17 Oct 12 - 06:47 PM What Linda Ronstadt did in Las Vegas was badmouth G. W. Bush and dedicate three consecutive songs to him: "Your No Good", "Straighten Up and Fly Right" and one more. By that time, the crowd was filing out of the room and demanding refunds. They got 'em. The Dixie Chicks also badmouthed G. W Bush and said they were ashamed to be from Texas because of him, and that he was not their president. Note, this political crap is abusive of a paying audience and has little/nothing to do with the music. Reasonable topical songs like "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse", "Mary of the Wild Moor", "A Drunkard's Dream" and numerous other songs are reasonable fair. They aren't political in the same way as a song that proclaims "I Hate...". |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Richard Bridge Date: 17 Oct 12 - 06:59 PM 3 cheers for Ronstadt and the Dixie Chicks. Hate thier music: love their politics. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: dick greenhaus Date: 17 Oct 12 - 06:59 PM Lots of C&W types are conservatives. I'm not soure why Woody Guthrie is considered a folksinger when Brry Sandler (Green Berets) and Merle Haggard (Okie FRom Muscogee) aren't. I'd guess that most gospel siners tend to lean right, too. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Richard Bridge Date: 17 Oct 12 - 07:00 PM PS - refunds should not have been given. They paid to see and hear Ronstadt. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Elmore Date: 17 Oct 12 - 08:04 PM Arlo endorsed Ron Paul. I believe Eric Darling was some sort of conservative. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Bobert Date: 17 Oct 12 - 08:08 PM Here's the deal... Leave yer politics off the stage... Talk as much other shit as you want but if you bring yer politics you won't get future bookings... And, yes, this from me... B~ |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,999 Date: 17 Oct 12 - 08:31 PM Do it with the song. That's why people are there. They will spin it the way they want. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,999 Date: 17 Oct 12 - 08:40 PM "It ain't my job to tell you what to think. It is my job to give you something to think about." One of two smart things I ever said in my life. Since I ken you want the other: "Ignorance is a state of mind located between I don't know and I don't care." It isn't much to show for 65 years, but some of us are slow thinkers. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Bobert Date: 17 Oct 12 - 08:50 PM Yeah, brucie...Hide yer politics inside the songs... B~ |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Larry The Radio Guy Date: 17 Oct 12 - 09:20 PM For so many performers their politics is a big part of who they are. I think it's unfortunate that some of you wouldn't book a person who espoused the essential part of their 'being'. Bobert, pdq, kendall, Will Fly, Cathy.... Would you have boycotted or felt uncomfortable at concerts by Woody Guthrie or Utah Philips because they were so political? |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Gibb Sahib Date: 17 Oct 12 - 09:34 PM and probably one whose national history is less extensive than the foundations of my house. Congrats on having an old house (foundation). I hope everyone living in a nation-state formed less than a few hundred years ago (i.e. most of the world) feels appropriately inferior and unqualified to state their opinions. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,999 Date: 17 Oct 12 - 09:37 PM People who book will, IF it pleases their clientelle/cleantell/ cleantil audience. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Richard Bridge Date: 17 Oct 12 - 09:44 PM Where would the Sex Pistols have been without rage at the status quo (not necessarily the band of that name)? It will be a sad day when musicians are reduced to being mere entertainers. Some others whose politics were important: Bob Marley Woody Guthrie The Stranglers Pete Seeger Ewan MacColl Bob Dylan Yellowman Billy Bragg |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Bobert Date: 17 Oct 12 - 10:02 PM Times have changed, Larry-S... There was a 30% unionized country in Woody's day with politicians supporting them... Now it's down to less than 10% with an all out war on unions... B~ |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Songwronger Date: 17 Oct 12 - 10:02 PM A lot of hymn singers are conservative. Bible-belt, backwoods hymns. Beautiful stuff, sung by conservative people. No dope, abortions and Revenuers for them. The main character in the movie Bob Roberts is a conservative folkie, as I recall. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Effsee Date: 17 Oct 12 - 10:37 PM Mr Campin..."There is a well known singer-songwriter in the UK scene who throws anti-abortionist propaganda into his act. I've never seen or heard the poisonous little shit and never intend to. That's completely beyond anything I regard as tolerable"... Mr Campin, if that is the person who I think you are referring too, that is probably the most offensive remark I have ever encountered on Mudcat.If you have never seen him, then you know nothing! |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: GUEST,999 Date: 17 Oct 12 - 10:44 PM "A lot of hymn singers are conservative." A lot of pig fuckers are, too, but there's a difference between knowing one and being one. (That's to do with your politicians, not you.) |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Bobert Date: 17 Oct 12 - 11:04 PM I done a lot of spirituals... None about either liberal or conservative... Me??? They liberal... But to others??? Hearing them they hear what they want to hear... That's okay... B~ |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Oct 12 - 12:24 AM If living was a thing that money could buy Then the rich would live, and the poor would die All my trials, Lord Soon be over. No, nothing political there. Much. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: musicmick Date: 18 Oct 12 - 02:06 AM Dick Greenhaus nailed this one. Most traditional songs reflect trditional values and, in today's world, would be considered consrvative. There are a heck of a lot more old songs about Adam and Eve than there are about evolution and the Wee Cooper of Fife would be arrested for spousal abuse. Almost all the great old Country and Western stars were evangelical and politically in line with John Wayne. It is our own prejudice that calls Tom Paxton a folksinger but denies that designation to Barry Sandler, Bill Monroe or Whispering Bill Anderson. There are scads of Republican folksingers out there but we deny them because they don't agree with us. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Oct 12 - 02:34 AM There are plenty of folk songs about the servant shagging the master's wife. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Jim Carroll Date: 18 Oct 12 - 03:03 AM 'To censor or not to censor; that is the question'. "If living was a thing that money could buy Then the rich would live, and the poor would die" Sam Larner said that - wonder if the pro-censorship mob here would have given him a booking?? Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: MGM·Lion Date: 18 Oct 12 - 04:31 AM My views are possibly slightly right of centre these days ~~ tho not nearly so much so as some like Shaw, Woodson, Carroll, Bridge, who have taken it on themselves to turn virulently and unaccountably abusive because I couldn't go all the way along with all their explicitly and avowedly left-oriented asseverations, have appeared to assume ~~ but my tastes [like those of my dear dead friend Peter Bellamy, cited above by Jack Campin] are quite definitely towards the traditional, not in accord with Guest Tony's "impression ... that conservatives who are inclined toward folk music usually go with country-western/bluegrass instead". As Acorn remarks above,"You don't have to support hunting to sing a hunting song any more than you have to be a psychopath to sing a murder ballad" - I remember Norma Waterson, whom I was interviewing back in the 1970s along with Martin Carthy for Folk Review, using exactly this example in relation to her own opinions and singing practice. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Jim Carroll Date: 18 Oct 12 - 05:07 AM "who have taken it on themselves to turn virulently and unaccountably abusive" Mike - you have been as abusively nasty to others ("Jew baiter" springs to mind) as they have been to you. Personally, I am making an effort - would be very obliged if you wold do the same (have resisted borrowing your own phrase "diddums"). Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: stallion Date: 18 Oct 12 - 05:20 AM mmmm piss and wind, Karma good people, No one is truly objective and everyones political views are informed by their society and their perceived place in it. Right and Left have despots and politicians. Actually, I think most human beings are benevolent, some are not and use whichever of the two devices suffice to gain power over their society to enable them to improve their and their offspring to gain an advantageous position regarding the rest. It is that inequity that causes discord most off which falls on deaf ears, some of the benevolent people with a conscience reach a position where they have a platform and use it to draw attention to the inequity. Some in that audience will empathise and recognise the condition being pointed out, others will feel very uncomfortable because their conscience agrees with the sentiment but has too much to lose to embrace it and some will be re-inforced in their doctrine and opinions and use it as an excuse to be more extreme. Forget about left and right and examine just why you are offended? Accept that some people are different and learn to live with it. To react out of chagrin maybe suggests one hasn't thought it through properly, we are better than that, much better than that. Peter |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Jim McLean Date: 18 Oct 12 - 05:24 AM Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, an opponent of the Scottish union with England in 1707, wrote 'I knew a very wise man that believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation, and we find that most of the ancient legislators thought that they could not reform the manners of a city without the help of a lyric, and sometimes of a dramatic poet'. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Jack Campin Date: 18 Oct 12 - 05:32 AM ...a quote that might be repeated less often if people knew what Fletcher went on to say in the same paragraph. |
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Subject: RE: Republican or Conservative folk singers From: Jim Carroll Date: 18 Oct 12 - 05:46 AM "There are plenty of folk songs about the servant shagging the master's wife." And two wonderful ballads named 'Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard' and 'Child Owlett' about the master's wife shagging a servant. Jim Carroll |
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