Who has done the most for folk music?

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: 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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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!).