Reaction of your parents

Subject: Reaction of your parents
From: Leadbelly
Date: 20 Apr 14 - 04:58 PM

What do you remember about the reactions of your parents when they became aware of your intention to present your music in clubs, pubs etc.?

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 20 Apr 14 - 05:08 PM

I am an oldie. My Mamma sang on radio in the 1940s. I didn't start singing properly in public until my late forties (2007). I think my Mom said, "About time!"

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 20 Apr 14 - 08:59 PM

Fortunately they were both dead by the time I started. I think my dad would have been appalled as my voice isn't really very good, and dad was a pretty good amateur operatic singer with a really nice tenor voice.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Crowhugger
Date: 20 Apr 14 - 09:08 PM

Mom booked the gig and played guitar, I played banjo, and we both sang including one I'd written. Folk & blues. It was at Rasputin's in Ottawa. So I'd call her reaction "big-time supportive."

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 20 Apr 14 - 09:15 PM

Gloriuos JOY! ! !

I'll show you mine...And don't want to see yours.

However, why do you ask?

"Intentions" implies you sought parent aproval. Perhaps, some of us never gave a "hill 0 beans" about what anyone thought. We just WERE ourselves, And were blessed.




Sincerely,


Gargoyle


My brothers were televised for their dancing...that I disappeared on Tuesday nights...was only apparent when grade/report cards were returned home.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Apr 14 - 09:28 PM

I was 16.
Haphazardly emerging Proto-Punk Rock was starting to blow stale old culture apart...

My parents were low income manual workers.
They couldn't have been more positive and encouraging.
Proudly taking out expensive long term Hire Purchase agreements
to buy me a decent quality electric guitar and Amp.

Though, perhaps if they hadn't been so loving and indulgent,
and maybe a bit stricter with me.
I might have applied more attention to school work,
failed fewer exams, and got a proper well salaried career for life ????

.... oh well....

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: GUEST,.gargole
Date: 20 Apr 14 - 09:33 PM

Ms Tam,

what is said about about late bearing parents....

Some (later life children) are born brillant.
MANY MORE have serious issues


Sincerely,
Gargoyle

So sorry about the deck ... life has dealt you.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Bert
Date: 20 Apr 14 - 09:49 PM

My Mum used to play piano in pubs.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Apr 14 - 10:02 PM

My two sisters and I always sang, and so did my dad. My mom and two brothers didn't sing, but the singers in the family were the majority and never got any flak about it.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: GUEST,VaTam via Android
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 03:06 AM

Snerk, I like the sound of that. Via Android like we are a virtual ventriloquist act.

Dear Garguy

I ain't complaining. I've had loads of fun in my life and I am singing now. Now is really all that counts.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 03:10 AM

My Mum sang and ran a concert troupe in the village in the '40s and up till the late '50s. My Dad couldn't sing a note and neither can my brothers or sister.

To be fair, I couldn't either and as an impressionable teenager, my first attempts at folk clubs were guitar and fiddle. (I played violin in the county youth orchestra.) It took quite a few years of bloody mindedness and practice to get my voice to follow a tune. The result being a prominent bass line with thumb pick so my voice has something to go by, and not sound flat as a fart.

My parents are long gone but my Mum saw me in concert in the orchestra as a 16 year old (Vivaldi's Gloria and Mussorgsky's Night on a Bare Mountain, I still remember.) But never came to a club, although had to put up with me practicing...... I recall her saying "Our Captain Cried All Hands" was disrespectful as the tune I used was a hymn tune. My teenage rebellious "I'm sure these words predate that nonsense " didn't go down too well. Despite both my parents stopping going to church before I was even born.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 03:38 AM

my father was a mandolin player. my mother didn't like that much or anything else.

they thought all performance was showing off and they hated my eventual career decision.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 04:02 AM

I wasn't at home at the time, so I've no idea.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 05:04 AM

Reactions of various people to finding out one sings folk can vary.

Slight drift: I am reminded of the bit in a Kingsley Amis novel, where the young guy meets a bird he fancies, and offers to fetch her a drink. >small>(From memory) "As he went to the bar, he wondered who she was, and what she was. Not that it mattered; with looks like that, even if she turned out to be a folksinger he was going to screw her".

~M~

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 05:40 AM

very witty. but it could grate - I remember KA was on the wogan show and one of my protégés was in a rock band - and he was quite horribly rude. it pissed me off.

loved his writing though - the old devils, the green man, lucky jim, the alteration, and his poetry. what was that thing about Eliot and Pound's poetry - like two maniacs running through a museum.

very witty. not to be taken too seriously though!

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 06:29 AM

Amis's "Memoirs" make fascinating, and very funny reading. Not so much an autobiography as a series of sketches about people he'd known - with no punches pulled.

His favourite music, as it happens, was (mainly) white jazz from the 1920s and 1930s. He hated Charlie Parker and all that went after him - which shows some small-mindedness and actual lack of real appreciation of music to me - but heigh-ho, that's just me...

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 06:50 AM

yeh that IS weird, isn't it. apparently Philip Larkin was a bit of a racist on the quiet - despite his much quoted love of jazz.

you gotta face it - humanity is a funny lot....

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: GUEST,phil cooper on spouse's laptop
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 08:27 AM

Mine were supportive, though I think they thought it was phase.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 09:19 AM

My Folks were supportive , came to my 'First Paid `Gig' when I got One Shilling and Sixpence appearance money as a sixteen year old trainee bagpiper at The Royal Tournament when I was an RAF Apprentice

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: GUEST,Tim Hague
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 01:43 PM

My father nearly had a seizure when I joined the Morris, but were quite amazed when they saw me on stage singing..

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 05:23 PM

You know how the experts on antiques programmes avoid saying something's worthless by using phrases like "it's a decorative piece" or (to the hopeful owner) "it must give you a lot of pleasure"? That was my parents. Don't get your hopes up, don't get above yourself, don't start thinking you're anything special. I think they genuinely thought it was safer to live that way.

They never passed judgment on my exploits as a floor singer and amateur traddie; my father had died before I started going to FCs, and my mother's death was one of the things that propelled me into traditional music. If they had, though, it would have been something along the lines of "it must give you a lot of pleasure"...

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: GUEST,Sue the Borderer currently cookieless
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 06:05 PM

My parents both died long before I ever started singing in public. I think my dad would probably have been quietly supportive but I know exactly what my mother would have said....... "SUSAN!!! Don't make such an exhibition of yourself!"
And she would turn in her grave if she knew that I'm now a morris dancer as well - particularly since it's noisy, exuberant 'border morris'.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Barb'ry
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 06:16 PM

Snide comments, put downs to friends and family and general belittling - but there again, that was the usual response of my parents. Doesn't do much for your confidence initially, but you deal with it and move on. I learned a long time ago that you need to listen to yourself and not others!

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Apr 14 - 06:22 PM

Now, maybe I should say how I reacted when my son started a garage band and had constant practice in our garage for five years....

I held my tongue, but it was really loud at times. Now he's 41, and his band is still making money. The garage band evolved into a punk band (the Yahmos) and had a minor hit with their recording of "The Fuck of Love." then They evolved into a "techno-dance" band called !!! (pronounced chk chk chk).

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 22 Apr 14 - 03:37 AM

Wow, Joe - there's glory for you! Well done on not shutting him down all those years ago.

I felt a bit exposed posting my comment; it's good to see from Sue & Barb'ry's comments that I wasn't alone.

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Musket
Date: 22 Apr 14 - 04:47 AM

Presumably you have put The Fuck of love lyrics in the archive Joe?

:-)

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 22 Apr 14 - 03:29 PM

My parents were generally supportive of my efforts, mainly classical stuff, piano and singing, but not so happy when a trumpet-playing chum and I (timpanist) decided to practice our orchestral pieces in the front room while they had friends in the back one! (Yes, we had been allowed to take the school gimps home for the holidays!)
Mum and Dad also enjoyed various am-dram productions, especially Gilbert and Sullivan, having done some themselves when younger. Not really sure what they thought of the folk music, tho' I did inherit some Corries' tapes from them.
Now, like Joe, the boot is on the other foot, being an admiring parent, complete with ear plugs, at exceedingly loud gigs my son's various "Indie" bands have done.
And then he and his girlfriend had to come and watch my (senior citizen) pals and I present our latest repertoire from our songwriting group. They professed to enjoy it, but maybe just taking pity on us poor old souls!

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 22 Apr 14 - 03:36 PM

Gimps? TIMPS!!

Subject: RE: Reaction of your parents
From: Shimbo Darktree
Date: 22 Apr 14 - 08:22 PM

My mother was pretty supportive, as she was musical (wish I had inherited her "pitch perfect" gene!). But, having grown up in a strongly Methodist family, pubs were not mentioned, and half my repertoire (Plastic Jesus, Chastity Belt, One-Eyed Reilly, etc) were not practised at home. One thing I recall is my mother's dislike of "unfinished" tunes i.e. those that finished on a seventh chord. Sometimes the comment came drifting through to my bedroom from the kitchen; "Finish it!". Some of my current folkie friends who know the story still use the comment as a heckle - shame on them!

Shimbo