Who has done the most for folk music?

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Anne Neilson
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 06:58 PM

I'd rather rephrase the question as 'Who has had a significant influence in folk music?' -- in which case my answer would include all those fabulous influential people who turned up in young people's lives at just the right time. And it will be different for everyone!

For myself, that would be Norman Buchan, my English teacher at secondary school, who established a Ballads Club at my Scottish school in 1957 and was influential in introducing us to the music of Jeannie Robertson, Jimmy McBeath, Pete Seeger and the Weavers, Ewan MacColl and the radio ballads, Hamish Henderson and his collecting (Lucy Stewart particularly) -- plus an awareness of the important collectors from the past.
Before I had left school I had seen concerts by the Weavers, Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston, Rambling Jack Elliot, Jeannie Robertson, Flora McNeil etc. etc. and was well aware of performers like Davy Stewart and the Stewarts of Blair.

So, my answer would have to be - anyone who has opened the ears of young people and given them a passion for this particular kind of music (which I still pursue 58 years later!).

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,theleveller
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 05:54 PM

My vote would go to the entire equine race, without whom folk music as we know it would not exist.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,CupOfTea, no cookies
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 12:37 PM

I'd enthusiastically add my vote to Promoters of Folk Music - many, many, many, and so few of them known outside their own bailiwick. It's not just concerts, and clubs, but those who teach, host/anchor singing sessions, tune sessions, folk dances/ceilis, feature the music on TV or Radio - and now websites (Thanks, Max!) - The whole support infrastructure that makes it possible for us to know of, hear, or meet the people to whom folk music is an intrinsic part of themselves.

Who comes to mind as the carriers of the tradition with whole life involvement:

All the Seegers : Ruth Crawford, Mike, Peggy, Tony - Pete gets the most note, but the others are significant
Martin Carthy - every decent guitar player or ballad singer I've met revers the man.
Sandy & Caroline Paton - singers, sources, promoters, support and encouragment
Peter Barnes - made English Country Dance music easily available to all of us who will never play as beautifully as he
Jean Ritchie - there are chapters on how important she's been right here on Mudcat
Frank Harte - find an Irish trad singer who DIDN'T get at least one song from him, and I'll eat my hat.
Lou Killen - in so many ways, in so many situations, for so many years
John Roberts & Tony Barrand - who pretty much define a genre of their own.
The Armstrong Family of Chicago - Gerry, George and their daughters.
Art Thieme, of course.

My list doesn't include large swathes of tradition that aren't as close to my heart, but I know they're out there in cajun, old time, swing, western, early county, world music outside the US... we've a debt far and wide. I hope they all get the thanks they deserve while they live.

Joanne In Cleveland

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Sep 15 - 12:26 PM

I absolutely agree with Jim. If this were instead about who's done most for traditional Irish music, we'd possibly be saying "all those people who play it" and we might even be giving the expats and yanks an honourable mention for keeping it alive during the leaner years of the early twentieth century. I doubt whether we'd be so inclined to be naming names. Well one or two maybe. Cue Jim disagreeing!

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Sep 15 - 11:10 AM

THere was a previously-unmentioned Burl Ives

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Sep 15 - 11:06 AM

Know what you mean. But I can't bring myself to regard this as a particularly objectionable thread.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Sep 15 - 10:23 AM

Wasn't intending to criticise Mike and I certainly would include Bob Copper among the great and the good of folk, but all too often these threads can become fanzines where the superstars take centre stage and the movers and shakers get lost in their shadows
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Sep 15 - 08:10 AM

But, dear friends Jim & Dick: I don't think the thread name or the OP necessarily require just one named individual; but rather a list of nominations of the sort we have got. I should be loth to try and name just one person, but see nothing wrong with soliciting suggestions as to all those who should be particularly remembered for having contributed to the benefit of Folk. The fact that I drew attention to Bob Copper above doesn't mean that I would wish Ewan or Bert or Bishop Percy or Sir Walter Scott to suffer any neglect or disrespect as a consequence of my having mentioned him. They are all, surely, among those [note the plural] who have "done the most for folk music".

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Sep 15 - 08:01 AM

"I've always found that attempting to attribute accolades like this to one individual a little pointless"
Spot on, Jim.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Sep 15 - 03:52 AM

I've always found that attempting to attribute accolades like this to one individual a little pointless
The older I get, the more I think back with gratitude to all the people who have left their fingerprints over my life as far as my love of folk music is concerned - all for different reasons.
MacColl and Seeger would top my personal list, both certainly for the pleasure I have got from their singing and for convincing me that if you were going to sing the songs, you needed to put in the time, effort and thought, "because they're worth it" (as the cosmetics ad says).
Ewan for making me aware that it was worth lifting the corner and looking under the songs to find all the things that they carried with them and Peggy for opening the world of American balladry up to me - I'm reaping the benefits of that one at present as I archive our collection of Library of Congress recordings.
Which leads on to Alan Lomax, who did much to put the songs into a social context, and nudged all those Brits who were trying to be shadows of Woodie Guthrie into opening put our own National repertoires.
Bert Lloyd, who showed us complex and how skilful folk singing could be through the international "simple" singers with programmes like 'The Lament' and 'Folk Music Virtuoso' and 'Songs of the People'
Sharp, Child, Greig and Duncan... and all the other pioneers who gave us the raw material, and Bronson and other academics who made musical sense of it all.
Then, again personally, Travellers like Mary Delaney and Mikeen McCarthy, Clareman and women like Tom Lenihan, Martin Reidy and Nora Cleary, and quiet, self-effacing Walter Pardon, all of whom sucked us into the soul of folk-song and showed us what made them tick and why they were so important.
And, of course, all those who showed unhesitating, open-handed generosity in sharing their time, knowledge and opinions in passing on their songs and ideas on something that has filled most of my life with pleasure and interest.
Couldn't possibly put the blame on one individual.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 04:14 PM

British has to be Ewan MColl but worldwide it must be Pete Seeger

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 03:49 PM

Leave me out of your ramblings please.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 06:20 AM

furthermore i dont think tom munnelly made any financial gain.
how about Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Sep 15 - 06:18 AM

guest guest, you missed this [post
Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 02:31 AM

All the unsung folk club promoters and festival organisers who for no reward publicise folk music for the love of it.
anyway how do we know whether Malcolm gained financially, i agree its doubtful that he did but we co not know, but surely he is one of the unsung festival organisers, so why are you so busy going on about him? it is a little unusual,after all his contribution is worthy but no worthier that john taylor or alan bell or alan castle, all of whom organise or have organised festivals for many years.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Bert
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 11:26 PM

In Britain one must mention EFDSS, SIFD and BAASDC; despite their individual limitations Folk music would not be the same without them.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 08:12 PM

Amazingly apart from the very first posting when Malcolm Storey was mentioned all the other names given are of people who gained financially to a greater or lesser extent from their involvement.

UM!

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 06:14 PM

The Queen Mother.

Who made sure that Scottish dance music got played on the radio, and hence made other kinds of traditional music acceptable to the British media.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Malcolm
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 05:17 PM

The Wilson Family of Teesside, guests at many folk clubs and festivals home and abroad, while running their own folk club for forty years.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Andy7
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 03:13 PM

My friend 'A' (and many others like him).

Some years ago, he introduced me to folk clubs and festivals, and inspired me to pick up the guitar and start singing again. He's done the most for folk music in my life!

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 02:51 PM

Flatt & Scruggs for popularising the Banjo
Sean Ó Riada for making the bodhran so acceptable that people really really believe has been around since before the 1950s

(:-)

(Wiki cites the known documents as effectively tambourines and it was still a tambourine in the 1940s it implies, though method of playing was fingers and then cipin)

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 02:20 PM

The bloke who invented the electronic guitar tuner.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 02:18 PM

I gotta be loyal: Max Spiegel and Dick Greenhaus.


I have an aversion to what I call "superlatives threads." We have a lot of threads about the best or worst this or that, and there's never an answer. There a lots of bests and lots of worsts - and no doubt, some deserving person will be forgotten.

I'd rather see whom people would recommend, and why.

But in the meantime, I'll stick with Max and Dick.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 01:31 PM

Toodle Edmundsson
Jockie McMasters
Skip Rangle
Marcia Featherbum (Strops)
Lloyd Benwhittle (Jr.)

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 12:31 PM

The Watersons, Martin Carthy, Frankie Armstrong and those three wonderful folk rock bands who brought folk to a younger generation at the time, Fairport, Steeleye and Pentangle. June Tabor also deserves a mention. In A,erica, Joan Baez, she brought folk and ballads into the mainstream and many others followed.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 12:04 PM

Find above no specific mention of Bob Copper, tho one ref to the family. But surely his must be one of the pre-eminent claims?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 11:30 AM

somebody very kindly mentioned me, and unusually,i must show some humility, mentioning me is truly ridiculous.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Rockaday Johnny
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 11:18 AM

tom Paley, Mike Seeger, Ralph Rinzler, John Cohen Pete Seeger

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 11:03 AM

The intellectual and political problems I have with MacColl pale into insignificance compared with the problems which the early collectors throw up.

There's no point in going into them here, or to take issue with the elitism and nationalism and neo-Darwinism which many of these collectors displayed. But, as with MacColl, their pronunciations were products of their time. That doesn't mean we should reject everything they said out of hand. But neither does it mean we shouldn't be critical. The point is, not to destroy the past, but to critically analyse it and to come up with new and better explanations.

And it's worth remembering that, without the pioneering efforts of these people, we would have virtually no idea of the extraordinary crock of riches which their efforts garnered.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:52 AM

Or compilers of even earlier collections: Pepys, Percy, Roxburghe, Douce, Madden, Scott, Harley, D'Urfey...?

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:42 AM

But is enough credit being given here to the early collectors and compilers? What of Baring-Gould, Sharp, the Hammonds, Gardiner, Gavin Greig...?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:38 AM

I endorse all those named in Fred's post above; and would add Alan Lomax's father John, and Pete Seeger's stepmother Ruth, upon whose influences they built.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,R oger Knowles
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:38 AM

America? Mike Seeger!

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:19 AM

How come ain't nobody but Ray Padgett giving it out for Ewan MaColl? Yes I know he could be tiresome and dictatorial, to say nothing of argumentative. And I'm also aware of just how far away my ideas on folk music have moved from MacColl's since the days when I used to imbibe every single word he said without question.

But he was a true pioneer with a list of achievements which would dwarf those of practically everyone else in folk music. Plus it's in the nature of the present to argue with the past. If MacColl hadn't made such bold pronouncements in the first place, where would that have left those of us who came after him?

Plus, there's Bert Lloyd of course, and Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson and many many more.

Then there's that tall stringy fella with the adam's apple. Oh yeahh, Pete Seeger. Now where would any of us be without him?

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 08:24 AM

At least so far as England is concerned, EFDSS's gold badges are a fair indication.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Robin Hunt
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:50 AM

As individuals they are too numerous to list but the real heroes are the people who hav promoted folk music over the years, running folk clubs, festivals & the like. without these people many performers wolud not have had the chance to show thier talents. I think it`s a real shame that the folk clubs have greately deminished over the years. I & many others served our aprenticeship in these places. Nowadays young hopefuls have to go on X factor & look what that produces. No substitute for the folk background.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: BobKnight
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:39 AM

Sorry Vic, Hey you forgot to mention me, but then I haven't done much yet. ;) Thanks for mentioning the rest - a lot of them I didn't know, although many are/were relatives.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Stu
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:27 AM

Someone most of us have never heard of, in a pub playing and singing.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Vic Smith
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:19 AM

Bob Knight wrote:-
"How about all the travelling people - especially those from the North East of Scotland - Jeannie, Lizzie, Stanley, Lucy, Elizabeth, and the Stewarts of Blair. 

Then there's Jane Turriff, Davey Stewart, Blin. Robin Hutchison, Betsy White. Charlotte Higgins, Andra Stewart, Big Willie McPhee. Sheila Stewart, Bella Higgins, Jess Smith, Duncan McPhee, Toby Stewart, Christine Stewart, Harry Duffy, Isaac Higgins, Duncan Williamson, Jimmy MacBeath, Stop me somebody.... Cathie Higgins, Jock Higgins, Maggie Stewart, Geordie Robertson, Bryce Whyte, It's your fault, Bob, you get me started Jean Stewart, Ned Stewart, Gabrielle Robertson, Anthony Robertson.....

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 06:42 AM

Tom Anderson and his Shetland fiddlers

Tony Engle and the Topic record label

Bill Leader and his Leader and Trailer record labels

Paul Adams and the Fellside record label

Nic Jones for everything

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: BobKnight
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 06:33 AM

How about all the travelling people - especially those from the North East of Scotland - Jeannie, Lizzie, Stanley, Lucy, Elizabeth, and the Stewarts of Blair.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Kampervan
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 05:42 AM

I know that they're pushing for independence in the North East, but The Wilsons still count as English and they've done a lot for folk music.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 05:39 AM

What is Folk? does it include improvisation and when it does does it become Jazz?

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 04:57 AM

Ashley Hutchings without a doubt.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 04:52 AM

Yeah, we might!

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 04:05 AM

Don't know what's meant by 'most' but if you mean increasing its popularity in Britain, I'd have to say Bellowhead, Kate Rusby and Seth Lakeman. And probably Oysterband and Show of Hands.

I expect we'll now have the usual 'what is folk?' debate.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 02:38 AM

good job there isn't a prize for it.

all the same if there was a folkie god, and he made sure we all got our deserts. you wouldn't really want to be floating around on a cloud with some of these people.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 02:31 AM

All the unsung folk club promoters and festival organisers who for no reward publicise folk music for the love of it.

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 10:01 PM

Francis James child

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 08:36 PM

Bit of a conundrum here. If you've "done the most", it must mean that your music has been very widely disseminated, not just stayed local or "niche'". The trouble with that is that you are then more likely than not to have become commercial. Which means you may risk being put on a pedestal or lionised. Which may mean that you have to put "commercial" at the top of your agenda and stray somewhat away "from your roots". Your CDs will be professionally mastered with snazzy packaging and sell for fourteen or fifteen quid.

Don't you think that the people who have done most for folk music are the thousands of ordinary people who turn up of a Friday night at local pub back-rooms to have a go and endure everyone else who turns up to have a go? And the hard-working buggers who run the clubs or sessions, getting the best guests they can and putting them up on their sofas? Kudos to them, say I!

Subject: RE: Who has done the most for folk music?
From: BanjoRay
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 07:55 PM

English? The Watersons and the Coppers