What is Happening to our Folk Clubs

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 11:37 AM

I hadn't heard "Nancy Mulligan" before, so I just followed that YouTube link.

I'm not fond of the arrangement (boringly stereotypical folk-rock beat), but the tune is in traditional Irish idiom and the lyrics tell much the same story as "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine", which is another folk-ish song that went feral in the pop world fifty years ago, and which some of the best-informed folkies the time certainly approved of. I can't imagine a situation where you could sing "Spancil Hill" but not "Nancy Mulligan".

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 11:52 AM

Since my wife and granddaughter are both big Ed Sheeran fans I have to say that I have, over the months, become quite familiar with his work (I'm only the driver) although I'm not sure that I'd ever attempt any of it in a folk club, even after I have eventually mastered the guitar! However he does appear to have some grasp on folk music or at least the Irish pub music scene as illustrated in his song "Galway Girl" although his reference to the song "Carrickfergus" surely can't be the same version of which I am acquainted?

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 12:44 PM

I think we must be at polar opposites then, Jim. I don't see how you can say it doesn't resemble a folk song! As the twain shall never meet I suppose we must call it a day for that discussion. Not sure why you felt the need to take the piss out of his accent. He was born in Halifax but moved to Suffolk when he was a child. His parents were London born and his paternal grandparents Irish. Just out of interest.

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 01:49 PM

So Jim, what precisely is the difference between 'I Don't Like Mondays' and, for instance, 'Freeborn Man' that makes one of those 'folk'
Are you deliberately ignoring what I have said as well Baccy?
I didn?t say it was ?folk? and MacColl always denied what he wrote were folk songs.
I said songs based on folk styles (you might add here ?folk speech)
Freeborn man was constructed entirely from interviewed from interviews with Travellers as were some of his best (in my opinion) songs - some of those interviews can be heard on the Radio Ballad, The Travelling People.
It was one of those songs taken up by the Travellers and claimed as their own
One Scots Traveller we recorded told us he had written it and sent it to Ewan, who published it under his name ? great ammunition for the grave dancers among us.
We recorded it from several Irish Travellers who claimed it was an old Irish Traveller?s song
Shoals of Herring was similarly conceived, based on actuality recorded from Sam Larner ? Sam said he?d been listening to the song all his life when in fact he was listening to his own words reflected back at him (we have the actuality the song was based on on the shelf here somewhere)
The tune was interesting for both of these songs as they came from the same source ? Gavin Greig?s ?Sweet William (Famous Flower of Serving Man Child 106)
Ewan would choose a tune that fitted a song he had written and whistle it around the house, adapting it until it was unrecognisable from the original (and he had driven the household screaming mad)
Both songs are based on folk forms and on vernacular speech
?Mondays ? you work it out for yourself ? obscurantist to the point of being meaningless, totally lacking narrative and form, certainly not the form that went into the making of our folksongs

The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload
And nobody's gonna go to school today
She's going to make them stay at home
And daddy doesn't understand it
He always said she was as good as gold
And he can see no reason
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be sure
Oh, oh, oh tell me why
I don't like Mondays
Tell me why
I don't like Mondays
Tell me why
I don't like Mondays
I want to shoot
The whole day down
The Telex machine is kept so clean
As it types to a waiting world
And mother feels so shocked
Father's world is rocked
And their thoughts turn to their own little girl
Sweet sixteen ain't that peachy keen
Now, it ain't so neat to admit defeat
They can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need oh, woah

Not much folk speech, melody or even vernacular utterance there
?and the latter by someone who set himself up as an arbiter of good taste in the folk-world?
Never put you down for one of the grave-dancers ? ah well!!
MacColl did no more than people are doing here ? expressing a view of what was a folk song and what made one good or bad
I suppose it?s easier to deny him the right to do that when he?s been dead for so long
That MacColl was listened to is due to his contribution to folk song ? I never heard him bad-mouth his fellow folk enthusiasts publicly the way some are still bad-mouthing him nearly three decades after his death ? he must have done something right to receive such attention from such people
I only know that, while other folk superstars were busily getting on with their careers, Ewan and Peggy were throwing open their home and giving their time (for free) to less experienced singers
Must be that I was a recipient of that generosity that I am so ready to stand up for an old friend
"I think we must be at polar opposites then, Jim."
Must be Dave - you tell me what folk song it resembles in performance
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 02:02 PM

You don't know what my opinion is of MacColl, Jim. He was indeed a major contributor to the folk-music scene, then and now. But he did have a reputation for being overbearing with his opinions, and sometimes 'difficult' as a performer. I never met him, so I have no opinion other than that. Out of respect, I deliberately refrained from referring to the usual insults and brickbats aimed at him - back-to-front chairs, finger-in-ear, conscription-dodger, fake name, yadda yadda - all completely irrelevant and beneath contempt. That should tell you something.

I didn't, and still don't, enjoy his singing - too 'light-operatic' for my taste - but I love his songs performed by others.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 02:06 PM

And, with regard to the two songs under discussion, you have presented nothing of substance, just your own opinions which, of course, are nothing more than that - opinions, personal value judgments.

Why is your value judgment worth any more than anyone else's?

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 02:08 PM

Must be Dave - you tell me what folk song it resembles in performance

Don't go changing the rules now, Jim. You have never mentioned 'in performance' before. I think you must be getting bad habits off someone on this forum ;-) But I will try to answer to the best of my ability. The song itself is, as Jack says, in the traditional Irish idiom and the lyrics tell a story, that of his grandparents I believe. Just like a folk song does. The performance as it stands may not be achievable in a folk club because of the studio production but stripped of the studio tweaks and using just voice, guitar, whistle and bodhran it could grace any room I was in. And I am not even that fond of Irish music!

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 02:14 PM

"You don't know what my opinion is of MacColl, Jim."
Arbiter of good taste in the folk world was a good enough clue for me Baccy
"You don't know what my opinion is of MacColl, Jim."
In the twenty years I knew him he was neither in my presence
"back-to-front chairs, finger-in-ear, "
Both techniques for relaxation and singing in tune unaccompanied - the latter is as old as history and is still used worldwide from muezzins to street singers
Fake name - like Dylan (whoops Zimmmerman), you mean
His attitude to WW2 is as complicated as that of the left of the time, especially in a Britain that had attempted to appease fascism until they were left with no choice
My old man came home from beign wounded and imprisoned in Spain to find he had been granted a "|Premature Anti-fascist' medal by MI5
Your personal choice is your own
jIm Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 02:47 PM

"What is Happening to our Folk Clubs ?"
Would anyone care to answer the question ? [ ignoring the last 100 plus posts from the "usual suspects" ]

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 03:11 PM

"You have never mentioned 'in performance' before. "
I thought it was what I have ben saying throughout Dave - it has always been my point
When Britten rewrote The Lyke Wake Dirge for Peter Pears, it lost its 'folk' form and became something else
When George butterworth took the Ballad 'Bonny Annie' and recreated it as the exquisite 'Banks of Green Willow' it became something else
The clear, clear voice of folk singing is, in my opinion, what distinguishes folk from any other vocal form (you'll find the opera buffs hate it and describe its "natural voice' as "ugly")
You have to couple this with a set of words that has come through a process, of course
Your singer doesn't "tell a story", he adopts a pop technique to achieve a musical sound
Neither does he attempt interpretation - his phony mid-Atlantic accent makes that obvious
It struck me while I was listening to it that, giving it the olk treatment might make it a passable song (not folk - but so what) - but your man doesn't even attempt that
Tell you what - try something I do while I'm messing about with my voice - take a wrod-based pop song with some degree of narrative and give it the folk treatement and see what works and what doesn't - some do, some don't
"ignoring the last 100 plus posts from the "usual suspects"
Perhaps if you took the trouble to read what was being written you might find a few answers
None so blind... as they say
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 03:52 PM

I did - more fool me. No answers, just same old. Yawn.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 06:02 PM

Neither does he attempt interpretation

I could be wrong but I think he wrote it. Why would he try to interpret it any other way? Still, as I said, we are polar opposites here with no common ground so no point in flogging this particular deceased equine.

What we can continue with though is your post take a word-based pop song with some degree of narrative and give it the folk treatment and see what works and what doesn't - some do, some don't Are you now saying that some pop songs are acceptable? I have heard many a modern song given the 'folk treatment'. My personal favourite is Lennon and McCartney's 'Blackbird' but that is just personal taste. Surely what you have been saying all along is that if such a song was performed at a folk club you would feel cheated somehow.

Let us know what is and is not acceptable in your book. And please answer my previous question - Who decides?

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 07:41 PM

Dave Burland gave 'I Dont Like Mondays' the 'folk treatment'. It worked.

So, summarising all that you've written since I asked the question, Jim, it's apparently all down to whether you consider a song worthy, and everyone who disagrees is wrong. Your master would be proud of you.

Well I know what I like. And I've spent a great deal of my life being 'wrong' in someone-or-other's eyes, so another 'someone' telling me I'm wrong is of absolutely no consequence to me. Let's call a halt.

Apologies for taking so long to respond, been out all evening having a good time banging a few songs out at my local folk club. Remember those?

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 08:06 PM

When Britten rewrote The Lyke Wake Dirge for Peter Pears, it lost its 'folk' form and became something else

He didn't rewrite it. His setting is from 1943. This documents the Young Tradition version, which is probably the one you're thinking of: seems to have been created by Hans Fried in the early 1960s.

https://mainlynorfolk.info/peter.bellamy/songs/lykewakedirge.html

More here on Ian Pittaway's site:

https://earlymusicmuse.com/lyke-wake-dirge/

which also includes an unrelated tune written down in 1929. That makes three other tunes that don't sound anything like Britten's. I'd say Britten's sounds as folky as any of them; I could easily imagine it from a group of pub singers with the refrain lines done in chorus.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 08:18 PM

I do not wish to exclude non-traditional songs from the clubs - show me wheer I hav ever made such a claim

"Why on earth should anyone want to define it!?"
Because some of us wish to discuss it as well as perform it, and others of us want to turn up at a venue to find that what is on offer is what it says on the tin.
(A bit of an aside, but if I picked up a tin in the supermarket and it said "The contents loosely conform to soup" I think I'd put it back.)
You've been saying very much the same for years. Go back and read your own posts.

What I Hate Mondays, The Birdy Song, Freeborn Man and Willie McBride have in common is that none of them are folk songs according to the definition you cling to. All that separates them is personal taste. I chose The Birdy Song for its obvious absurdity. (You seem to be far more familiar with the words than I am.) By your logic it is just as acceptable in a folk club as Freeborn Man. Your taste, my taste, Dave the Gnome's taste, Raggytash's taste and Big Al's taste are equally legitimate. Nobody ever pauses to think, before singing a song or booking a guest, "Will this meet with Jim Carroll's approval?". As you said, "Can I just add to this is that what runs through these arguments like 'Blackpool runs through rick' is that our definition of "folk" should be based on personal tastes rather than what it is.
This is nonsensical ..."

THis is the type of behaviour that turns these discussions into slanging matches... I suggest you go to the dry cleaners and get your cloth ears sorted out
I'll leave you to set the standard of behaviour shall I Jim?

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 08:37 PM

Barbara Allen based on no hard information whatever
Pepys described [Barbara Allen] as "an old Scotch song'

No he didn't.
From this website - Barbara Allen

A diary entry by Samuel Pepys on January 2, 1666 contains the earliest extant reference to the song.[3] In it, he recalls the fun and games at a New Years party:[7]

    ...but above all, my dear Mrs Knipp whom I sang; and in perfect pleasure I was to hear her sing, and especially her little Scotch song of Barbary Allen.

From this, Roud & Bishop have inferred the song was popular at that time. They suggested that it may have been written for stage performance, as Elizabeth Knepp was a professional actress, singer, and dancer.[4]

"her little Scotch song" suggest either something she wrote or something that was written for her.

Excuse me if I place more confidence in Steve Roud's judgement than yours. I might ask him about it next time I see him.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 08:42 PM

OK Smith, we'll settle it this evening.
It is contested by another club but we reckon we gave Hazel & Emily Askew their first folk club booking. Almost sold out this time.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 10:00 PM

i think our differences are probably irreconcilable.
perhaps the best thing is that we work on our interpersonal skills and try to respect each other and our differences.

sad really....seeing as we all seem to believe in something called folk music.
i suppose its a bit like christianity or any belief system. if you're lucky, you don't live in a place where they kill each other over their differences.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 04:04 AM

"No he didn't."
Little - old Scotch song - a bit pedantic Bryan
The point I was making is that nobody knew then or still does know the origin of the song and was is kite-flying to suggest that it was written for the stage, jus as it was kite flying to suggest that Trees the Grow so High was related to the marriage of Lord Craigston
The circumstances outlined in all of these songs is international and universal and could have originated anywhere at any point in history
Pepys entry suggests nothing of the sort
The Birdy Song, Freeborn Man and Willie McBride are not folk songs by a definition anybody clings to - the author of one of them stated quite clearly that his composition was not - who here has the right to contradict him?
In order to make them folk songs you need to re-define the genre and get that re-definition widely accepted - any blind man can call an elephant a rope.
The aim of all these arguments is to abandon all attempts at defining folk song so that the folk clubs can continue to be used as cultural dustbins
I confess I was somewhat disappointed when your club rejected my offer of our collection - I've come to the conclusion that we had a lucky escape.
"I'd say Britten's sounds as folky as any of them;"
I BEG TO DIFFER
"Jim, it's apparently all down to whether you consider a song worthy,
It doesn't quack, it doesn't waddle, it ain't a duck, and introducing it onto the folk scene lays all clubs open to PRS and IMRO charges
It bears no resemblance to any folk song not to any song written in the folk idiom
"No answers, just same old. Yawn."
None that suit you guest so why not go back to bed - you obviously have a problem staying awake
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 04:38 AM

Just who decided Willie McBride was not a folk song, no one consulted me or any of the people I know from the folk music world and to a man (or woman) we agree it is a folk song.

Who has the right to tell us it is not a folk song. The "folk police" have already been mentioned, I would think they've been at work here.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Johnny J
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 04:44 AM

"Who has the right to tell us it is not a folk song?"

Interestingly, in the early days of the revival, the source singers didn't think of their repertoire as folk music. In fact, the collectors would ask them to sing an "old song" as they wouldn't have known what was meant by a folk song.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 05:02 AM

"the source singers didn't think of their repertoire as folk music."
Walter Pardon used that term specifically and every source singer we questioned Traveller and Irish rural singers, carefully set aside their tradiional song and designated them their own title
I've gone into this at some length in the past.
Jean Richie's statement again
"She said, "if you asked for the old songs you got Danny Boy and something about colleens or something sentimental about Ireland, but if you asked them did they know Barbara Allen, that's when the beautiful old folk songs came pouring out."
This is one of the great mistakes people make - nobody ever bothered to ask them their opinions in any depth, or if they did, they never made the answers public
"Just who decided Willie McBride was not a folk song, "
The only existing definition did Raggy - if you disagree, you'll have to come up with one of your own
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 05:13 AM

Well let's get something straight first. The title of the song is not Willie McBride, the title given by the writer is No Man's Land.

If it doesn't "qualify" as a folk music to the "Folk Music Police" and their definition of what folk music is I can only conclude their definition is absolute bollocks and not worthy of further discussion.

I would go further and say it is supremely detrimental to the continuing health of the folk music world and that the people who cling to it are also doing a massive disservice to the folk music world.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 05:24 AM

Also, how could anyone deny that the songs written by Stan Rogers are folk songs. all this nonsense about definitions is absurd and, if I may say so, I am sick to death of Ewan Macoll .. Let's just move on and enjoy the music.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:01 AM

I think Jim is saying that No man's land is a folk song, Raggy, while 'I don't like Mondays' (even given the 'folk treatment) and Ed Sheeran's 'Nancy Mulligan' are not. This is what I don't get. Who decides? To date I have had no answer.

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:01 AM

""Folk Music Police"
Not you Raggy, for ****'* sake - the fok police are those who impose their own view on others against all will or reason - nobody is doing that here (apart from the troll eejit following you who doesn't waqnt to take pert in this discussion and is demanding that those who do desist immediately as it is spoiling his breakfast
A definition is a point people have in order to communicate with one another on
If you don't accept the existing one, come up with another and get a general consensus on it
Otherwise, it is you who is a folk bobby
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:05 AM

I think you're mistaken Dave, Jim posted "Just who decided Willie McBride was not a folk song, The only existing definition did Raggy - if you disagree, you'll have to come up with one of your own"

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,Mudcat Moaner
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:07 AM

It's reasonably obvious to me, that as long as many of the above self appointed guardians of Folk Music continue to argue amongst themselves, nothing in the Club world will change, other than its eventual demise.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:10 AM

Personally Jim I don't NEED a definition to tell me what is folk music. I have ears and I use them.

In this instance a definition is counterproductive and instead of being a solution it has become part of the problem.

"Those who impose their own view on others against all will or reason" are people like yourself who claim, erroneously in my mind, that songs like No Man's Land are not folk song.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:29 AM

Maybe you are right Raggy. I was just going off this comment

If you can't tell the difference between I Hate Mondays or The Birdy Song and Freeborn man or Willie McBride, I suggest you go to the dry cleaners and get your cloth ears sorted out

And assuming it meant the first and second were not folk songs while the third and fourth were. Can you clarify that please Jim?

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:41 AM

"Personally Jim I don't NEED a definition to tell me what is folk music."
Presumably you don't run a folk club or need to seek one our when you want to listen to folk songs
Those who do need to know what they are going to get when they turn up on a night with the rain pissing down after a twenty miles drive
When that stopped happening I stopped going to "folk" clubs and so did a lot of other peeople
I need it as a researcher and collector so I can pass on whet we found - without a defeinition it would all ahve been a waste of time
Can I get something straight
The 'Arthur McBrides" (recorded and sung regularly under that name) are not the problem here
They fit in perfectly well with an evening of folk song, the language and the tune does not jar with the standard reperoire
The problem is with opening the floodgates to include anything anybody cares to bring along - that is trying to please all the people all the time
I don't want to sit through shittily sung versions of indifferent pop songs any more than a pop fan wants to sit through an excellently executed rendition of a Sean N?s song
If I talk or write about folk song I will specify as accurately as necessary what I mean
If I turn up to a half decent club that offers a night of folk song and ones written within the traditional forms I shall enjoy myself and go home happy
The definition is not counterproductive - it is the abandoning of any definition that has turned the folk scene into the mess it has become
I spent thirty odd years in folk clubs without ever hearing '54 mentioned in any of them - it was taken for granted what we meant by folk song in those days
It's those who dislike folk song who have fucked up the scene
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:48 AM

if new songs are copyrighted and always sung as written, can they become folk songs according to 1954 definition?. which suggests or says that part of the definition is that they have to be changed and sung by members of a community,
this aspect of the definition means some poor quality football chants are the new folk songs, well thank god the WHEELBARROW SONG is not sung in folk clubs, that would surely mean the complete demise of folk clubs particularly as it is not only not wort listening to but notts county have so few supporters.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:55 AM

"The problem is with opening the floodgates to include anything anybody cares to bring along - that is trying to please all the people all the time"
So we must not let poor quality football chants be sung in folk clubs, the irony is that under the 1954 definition they are folk songs.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 07:04 AM

"It's those who dislike folk song who have fucked up the scene"
an over simplification and only partly true, it has been fucked up by unrehearsed performance,lack of available venues,clubs excluding american folk songs,folk agents, and people who cannot get on with each other.
in the late 1960s, a group which included ewan maccoll, alex campbell bob davenport and a l lloyd were worried about the state of the uk folk club scene, this meeting ended up in a fracas, partly due to alcohol and partly due to peoples egos, nearly 50 years later there is still a uk folk club scene despite the efforts of many people to fuck it up

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Johnny J
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 07:34 AM

Tomorrow I'm going to hear and see the great Ralph McTell.

I've enjoyed his music immensely for almost fifty years and I don't give a shit whether it's considered to be folk music or not.
Arguably, many of his songs have passed into the folk repertoire though..

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 07:59 AM

I agree he has written some fine songs and is a good performer

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 08:08 AM

For reference's sake, here's an account of "the 1954 definition" from a 2011 discussion, where it appeared to be accepted as accurate. I noticed that the key defining terms--"musical tradition," "oral transmission," "variation," "community"--themselves submit to widely varying and fundamentally contested interpretations.

Frankly, it reads like an attempt to succinctly articulate a rough consensus already shared by its audience rather than argue a position.

As Sandman pointed out, many songs that could be paradigm cases would probably never be performed at a folk club, while some paradigms of folk club songs--fiddle tunes?--don't fit the definition nearly as comfortably.

One position I don't understand in this discussion is simultaneously insisting on this definition while embracing (certain) folk-like original, contemporary compositions that clearly do not meet the first or third criterion. I would think such ersatz impostors would be anathema to the keepers of the flame.

I found the thread fascinating; you can find it here: What is the 1954 definition?

==============================================

Subject: RE: Folklore: Folk, 1954 definition?
From: MGM?Lion - PM
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 11:44 AM

Folk Song Definition

In 1954 the International Folk Music Council defined folk music as "the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. The factors that shape the tradition are: (1) continuity which links the present with the past; (2) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (3) selection by the community which determines the form or forms in which the music survives."
The International Council also stressed the fact that the term folk music, which includes folk songs, can be "applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and subsequently has been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community." Present-day collectors use the term as all-inclusive, covering many varieties of music of the common people.

{Copied from article by Isabelle Mills found by googling}

~Michael~

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 08:09 AM

Agree on some of those Dick, but not all
"if new songs are copyrighted and always sung as written, can they become folk songs according to 1954 definition?."
They became folk songs by passing through a process that no longer excists
Copyright has nothing to do with their definition one way or another - it's just a malignant force used to pick your pockets as far as folk clubs are concerned
"nearly 50 years later there is still a uk folk club scene despite the efforts of many people to fuck it up"
Sort of - and very much under threat, as can be seen here
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 08:28 AM

THe trouble with this is you are abusing each other, and that's what is at the root of our problems. the lack of mutual respect.

Okay JIm you went to folk clubs expecting trad folk songs. But for every one of you there were a dozen people interested enough tpo go to folk clubs because of what they'd seen on the telly.

For ages they could go two or three folk clubs in most English towns. There they would find Seekers, and Spinners style folk groups, guitarist folksingers like Tony Capstick, Derek Brimstone, Jansch, Gerry Lockran...

Then along comes Karl Dallas and in the influential Melody Maker folk pages. He announces we have an English Bob Dylan called Martin Carthy - in the words of the late Derek Brimstone (he would never have been so damaging in public to a folk club movement that he loved and gave his life to, but he said this in private). I used to go round folk clubs that had been running for six or seven years, and the week Martin had been round the place was empty - people were bored shitless by an evening of purely traditional folksong.

Karl Dallas probably meant his adulatory review of Martin kindly, but set against the backdrop of MacColl spitting vitriol against Donovan et al, and really encouraging people like yourself to get on the high horse - it bloody well did for the mass folk club phenomena which was such a terrific thing about being a teenager in the 1960's.

There are alternative histories to the one you keep saying. I saw awful things in the 1960's. I saw an audience yelling at Fred Jordan to get off stage - he was on a sort of folk package show (modelled I guess on the Rock and Roll package show) with Jansch at the top of the bill. Things that weren't right. I saw the Journeymen , the residents at The Jolly Porter being horribly rude talking volubly through the set of a fabulous young American folksinger called Marc Roberts.

It was then all this disrespect of each other started. And its bloody well time it finished.

I mean in real life do you go round yahboo-ing ang and telling other people they're talking bollocks. Most of us don't. Its not the sort of world any of us want to live in.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 08:48 AM

"Okay JIm you went to folk clubs expecting trad folk songs"
Stop doing this Al - I never went expecting eny such thing
How many times do I have to say I believe we would be wasting our time if we didn't produce new songs?
Have a bit of "respect" for what I am saying
I expect the songs I here to be of a comparable type relating to or actual folk songs - not a mish mash of elvis imitators, Cliff copiers, or whatever one leave feeeling they would like to do
I must have at least 60 non-folk songs in my repertoire that I would be happpy to sing at any folk club knowing I would not offend any but the most 'purist' of clubs.
For me, the music is what took me to the clubs and a realisation of the importance of that music has kept me at it for as long as it has.
As far as the media is concerned, they can no longer find their folk arse with both hands, though there was a time when you heard the best of it on the BBC (a couple of examples on the way to you)
The 'anything goes' attitude that now pervades the club scene put a stop to that and now 'anything goes for the media
Here in Ireland, I can turn tele or the radio on virtually any night of the week and can find music that interests me and some that doesn't all falling under the general heading of folk, because a few people here took the trouble to establish a foundation that guaranteed its survival - they took it seriously so the media now does
Traditional music schools and weekends have now become part of the tourist economy - a couple of moths ago this town was full of visitors for a week all there to listen to and learn to play traditional music
WCSS
This little one-street town has survived the downturn of the economy because we have visitors all through the year coming to listen to well played traditional music
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 09:18 AM

Oh bollocks

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 09:32 AM

i apologise if you think i've been disrespectful. i DO respect you immensely. Ewan and Peggy were kindness personified to me. I envy your close relationship with them. No disrespect was intended.

One day I will teach you to can can. You can borrow one of my old dresses.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 10:10 AM

No problem Al - I just wish people (not just you) would address what I am saying rather than shuffling around it
"One day I will teach you to can can."
Can you wait till my new hip settles in?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 10:41 AM

I think 'Somebloke sums it up- what a lot of bollocks.

Reading Mr Carroll, you'd think Ireland was still a 'lost world' of traditional music. It isn't....
There is a lot of music- I live in a musical area, but the curse of Country & Irish' still rules & actually a lot of it is no worse than the trad supergroups which proliferate on RTE- commercial local stations are worse except for occasional weekend programmes by serious people like Vincent Hearns.

Some great singers and musicians here, but like everywhere else there's an awful a lot of pretentious and tuneless/rhythmless 'traditional' music. The 'Irish traditional music' scene is jealously guarded and financed, and rightly so but if the result is Beoga and Gatehouse, was it really worth it?

Can't say I'm struck by modern performances of the people's music from other cultures- think I'll stick with my 1960s LPs and occasional gigs in UK folk clubs- still the best place to perform- ask any Irish performer of any kind of subtlety.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 10:43 AM

just managed to access the first mp3. the second one keeps sticking.

i think the first that grabs me about the hunter's mp3. is the similarities that bind us together as musicians.

you see that facility at firing off songs, and holding the audience. that's what the best of us all aim for.

the travellers on your tape were surrounded by traditional ballads. and that's what they absorbed like a sponge. we felt the same kind of passion for our music, which we were pleased to call folk. we wished to see that same light in our listeners' eyes. we sought that same sort of power over our audiences.

i think maybe we'd get on pretty well with those old travellers. i don't see the reason for hostility or animosity. we're very similar people.

the indifferent floorsingers and learner who seek approbation - they are a pain in the arse - but its our duty, as the eminence gris, to be as kind as we can.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 11:06 AM

Just for your information Jim, I ran several clubs in various parts of the country. My good lady and I started and ran possibly the most successful club in a big city before I relocated.

In that club I endeavoured to appeal to a wide audience so a guest every week on a three week "rota" we tried to have a trad singer one week, a contemporary singer another, and a bit of a mix on the third. When we passed it on we passed it on with a very healthy bank balance.

In order to select guests we probably visited 3 to 4 other clubs every week.

Finally it is difficult to discuss what is folk however with some who confuses "Willie McBride" (No Man's Land) with Arthur McBride.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 11:40 AM

"I think 'Somebloke sums it up- what a lot of bollocks."
Reciprocated, I'm sure Jim
"Beoga and Gatehouse"
Who ?
I prefer the thousands of young kids who are taking it up independently and the Clancy Summer school and the Irish Traditional Music archive as my examples
You only have to turn TV or radio on any night of the week to see the results of the present influx of youngsters - maybe the media hasn't made it up as far as you!
Nowt much wrong with this for
PRIME TIME TV
"Willie McBride" (No Man's Land) with Arthur McBride
Sorry Raggy - a slip
I know what song you are talking about - I used to sing it until it got sung to death
Personally, I prefer Bogles 'Waltzing Matilda'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 11:49 AM

https://youtu.be/S6QRcAUt6ic

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 11:50 AM

https://youtu.be/QjVr2m0Hw7w

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 01:22 PM

uk folk clubs are the best places to perform, along with irish singers clubs, because people listen, the trouble with irish singers clubs is they are few and far between