What is Happening to our Folk Clubs

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 07:05 PM

I just wonder how many hours some of these posters spend on here? Get a life: go and listen to some CURRENT live music and stop pontificating!

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 07:07 PM

P.S. if this were Facebook, I'd be "liking" Nick Dow's and Johnny Jay's posts.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 07:17 PM

Thanks Nick, I couldn't have phrased it better if I'd tried.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: RTim
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 07:26 PM

Well done Nick - this thread has got totally out of hand.............

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 08:14 PM

I and thousands like me
Yikes!

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 08:16 PM

Yep. I'm with Nick Dow.
Go away Jim and leave us alone.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 02:45 AM

Great post, Nick. Nail, head.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 03:25 AM

"You decry the world wide web Jim "
No I don't - I use it regulary - depend on it for some things
It has nothing whatever to do with the definition of folk songs, nor does it claim to - it is simply a source for passing on information
If you care to look up The Carroll Mackenzie Collection at Clare County Library, you'll find a part of our collection there, but that took the dedication and hard work of two librarians who slogged at it for two years because they thought it important
You Might try reading THIS to see what we have in the British Library or
HERE
OR HERE
What kind of argument is that ?
We take this music seriously because we love it and we think it worth disseminating - we have held that opinion for half a century
When we're pushing up the daisies people will be listening to Walter Pardon, Mikeen McCarthy, Tom Lenihan and the rest because somebody bothered to put them up of the WWW - Limerick University are now planning to put some more of our recordings - with a bit of luck that will include Walter Pardon - the singer who can't find a home in his native country because nobody is interested any more - too busy putting bums on seats
You lot can't even describe what you do, let alone pass it on
You've hi-jacked the clubs simply to put bums on seats - we did that as well - we ran clubs, but those who came did so because they shared our love of the songs
These songs were made by working people down the centuries to describe their lives and experiences - some date back centuries, in the case of the Travellers, they were still being made up to the 1970s
Why do I post on Mudcat Nick - because this litle crowd of nomarks on this particular thread don't own the forum and are not the only ones here
The subject interests me and I have something to say about it - are you suggesting I should not be allowed to?
I respect you work - it interests me and I'm grateful for your input into my understandings of Travellers
I would have thought that anybody with similar interests would be happy to share views
At one toime the clubs were part of this passing on of songs and information and I was part of that scene - that's why I bother
Now, apparently, it's been taken over by a bunch who neither understand or particularly like the music that put them together in the first place
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 03:26 AM

I should have added - that's my answer to the OPs question
In my opinion, that' what's happening to our folk clubs
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 03:30 AM

Excellent post Nick.

Good idea Tattie but do you seriously expect some on here to listen to anything less than 50 years old? :-)

because this litle crowd of nomarks on this particular thread don't own the forum

From someone who says he never uses insults. No so blind as those that will not see.

You really have lost it, Jim. Sorry. I have tried and tried to be reasonable but when it is met with hostility, invective and sheer bloody mindedness I will eventually react. You have become Teribus.

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 03:51 AM

"You have become Teribus".

Never a truer word.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 04:03 AM

No, Dave he has not become Terribus.Terribus present facts and logical argument. Jim just blusters , insults and bullies. He hears no voice but his own and denigrates those who disagree with him. He has contempt for the rest of the music lovers here because they don't turn on the same narrow pivot on which he turns .

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 04:11 AM

I have never disputed any facts, Guest, but the aforesaid poster also "blusters , insults and bullies. He hears no voice but his own and denigrates those who disagree with him."

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 04:15 AM

What a sad, sorry bunch you really are - no definition, no objective for your clubs - reduced to name calling - no wonder the club scene is a mess
I've shown you mine lads - where's yours?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 04:18 AM

I have not accused you of disputing facts Dave, I have suggested that your comparison of Jim to Terribus was inaccurate and gave the reason I thought it was inaccurate. So I am not sure what your post means .

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 04:33 AM

My post means that they both bluster, insult, bully, hear no voice but their own and denigrate those who disagree with them, Guest. Whether one gives facts or not does not detract from that. The two traits are not mutually exclusive.

Jim

What a sad, sorry bunch you really are - no definition, no objective for your clubs - reduced to name calling

Can you not even see the irony in that? As said, I have tried and tried to be reasonable. If you want examples of name calling and insults I suggest you look a little closer to home.

As to "I've shown you mine lads - where's yours?" Just what is it that you have shown us? I ran a club and festival for over 30 years until I moved out of the area. My club was Swinton Folk Club. You will see that the web site has not been updated for 7 years. There is a good reason for that but it is not one we need go in to here. You will also see that there are very clear definitions on format and what to expect. Most clubs I know of have something similar.

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 06:08 AM

UK FOLK CLUBS to some extent mirror changes in uk society.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 06:10 AM

You have missed my point totally Dave. My point is that one of the people you mention gives hard facts and presents a reasoned argument , the other gives his rather singular opinion and denigrates those who disagree. Yes , they both can be very rude at times.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 06:12 AM

The bullying blustering and insulting has come from you people - you don't wish to define folk song so instead you stamp your feet and call names
I have given you my arguments, I have outlined what I believe to be folksong and why - not a single one of ou has hasd the good grace to respond with a half decent answer
My approach is not "narrow" - it is a world wide view of what folk song is and what it represents - it is as solidly researched and documented as any other musical form
It is, in my opinion, more important than any other musical form as it is the voice of working people, not the educated elite or the overpaid under-talented pop icons - ordinary working man and women
A challenge to all of you - if you have the bottle.
I've just posted two series of radio programmes which for me, present a picture of what folk song is.
The first is a ten part series on the folk songs of these islands - in my opinion, the finest analysis to date
The second is an international view, giving examples from all over the world
I haven't taken them out of Dropbox yet, so if any of you care to take up my challenge I'll leave them in and link them to anybody interested - those who are can PM me with an e-mail address
I'll even throw in a programme on the very finest and most skilful examples of folk singing.
Let's see who has the balls to listen to the real thing
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 06:28 AM

How do you know it is a world wide view   . That is a pretty bold statement, I would like some evidence that the "wide world " shares your views!
why do you equate being educated with being elite ?
You may not believe it Jim, but there are many very talented people in all genres of music, including pop!
You speak disparagingly of "you people" and you refuse to accept that many who post here are every bit as passionate, knowledgable and respectful of music as you are.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 06:32 AM

"My approach is not "narrow" - it is a world wide view of what folk song is and what it represents"

Utter nonsense Jim, what evidence do you have it is a "world wide view"

The posting on here show you it is not a "world wide view at" The posters on here clearly demonstrate that. Those same posters who have been involved with folk music for just as long as you in some cases.

But then you seem to consider all other posters idiots as you have made abundantly clear on numerous occasions.

You definition was drawn up 63 years ago, many people, myself included, think it is not fit for purpose. I have explained why I think that and all you can do it blabber "give me a better definition" again and again.

One more time I don't need a definition I have got ears.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 07:02 AM

Jim, the discussion is about folk clubs and what is happening to them. As an argument you challenge people to sit through a radio series on folk music of the British Isles and the world beyond. Sorry but no matter how enjoyable (or otherwise) that experience would be it is an irrelevance. I can guarantee that your next step will be to say that no-one has taken you up on it so you have won. Keith has taught you well.

Can you not see that the main caller of names in this thread is you? A few people may have insulted you but only after you managed to alienate everyone on this thread (this litle crowd of nomarks) and the whole UK folk scene in general (It might be nowadays in an English club scene that couldn't find it's folk arse with both hands) and yet you still insist it is you that is hard done by.

Out of interest I have downloaded some stuff from you in the past. I have 'had the bottle' to listen to it and I enjoyed most of it. I really do not want to lose you as, if not a friend, a good mentor on all things folk related. But your hypocritical approach to insult and invective coupled with your inability to see any viewpoint but your own is becoming tedious.

I have defined folk song as being anything that sounds like folk to me. Subjective maybe but honest. I have never stamped my feet and before you go on about calling names look at yourself first.

Yes, you have given your arguments and have outlined what you believe to be folksong and why. Many people have given you their ideas of what they think it should be. The fact that you say "not a single one of ou has hasd the good grace to respond with a half decent answer" is very telling. By half decent answer you mean one that you agree with.

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 07:30 AM

"Can you not see that the main caller of names in this thread is you?"
No - I most certainly can't
Throughout this argument I have given my own experiences in the club and what I belive has happened to them
You people have now reduced this to childish name calling
You refuse to provide a definition for your 'product' whih is folk song, and when you are given one - the one that is accepted internationally and has been documented as such, you run around like headless chickens and hurl abuse
If you call yourselves folk clubs, you need to be able to state what you are presenting in clear terms otherwise you are conning the public
A fol song iss something specific - ifit has another meaning than that documented, then you are committed to saying what it now means
The '54 definition was accepted internationally as a guide to what folksong means
That remains the case
Steve Roud has just produced a massive tome on English Folksong - in an early chapter entitled 'Is there Such a Thing as a Folksong Anyway' he writes of the congress that devised the definition, agreed on by International researchers;
"apart from a quibble with "oral" in the first sentence, if I had been at the conference I would have happily voted in favour of the resolution"
This is an internationally accredited and widely accepted definition, and until it is replaced by another, it will remain a reasonable description of what a folk song is.
I can pull you about a hundred collections of folksongs from all over the world from our shelves, all conforming to that definition, - Britain, America, Canada, Norway, France Italy.....
Likewise, I can pull far more examples of examples of Folktales from all over the world - the title of the genre makes the link between the songs and tales
Folklore, folk dance, folk music..... all designating these as creations of the working people of Britain - all inked
You have offered nothing other than - there is no such identifiable thing as a folk song
Yes there is - I've give you what they are
I've made my offer - a ten part radio series on British folk song ans a thirteen part series of international folksongs
"I would like some evidence that the "wide world " shares your views! "
You are included in this offer - the proof is there for the taking - nothing so far
"I have defined folk song as being anything that sounds like folk to me."
How can you define fok by comparing it to something you can't define Dave?
That is a nonsensical statement
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 07:32 AM

Since this thread is now useless for anything it is trying to discuss, I might as well use it for a bit of advertising.
This Saturday we have The Dovetail Trio at the Lewes Saturday Folk Club.
Matt has recently produced a solo CD of traditional songs collected in Sussex called The Brighton Line.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 07:35 AM

Playing the victim - the last resort of a scoundrel.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 07:35 AM

Big Al provided my answer around a couple of hundred posts further back "to be honest Dave - your club is Very traddy. That's not a bad thing. Its how some people like to view folk music. You book source and traddy revival singers and you do well with it."
Is that not what the Singer's Club used to do?

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 07:35 AM

No point in continuing, Jim. You have proven everything that I have said over and over again. Everyone but you can see it. It is impossible to have a sensible conversation with you any more so I will no longer attempt it. Sad to see you go down this route but it is your own choice.

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:06 AM

Now I have got that out of the way I can progress with something more sensible. The last line of the 1954 definition seems to have been overlooked for too long.

The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the re-fashioning the re-creation of the music by the community that gives it its folk-character.

So, yes, by that definition 'Blackbird' by the Beatles is not a folk song. However, a chap at our club plays an acoustic version that he learned by ear and that has now become a Swinton standard in its now mutated form. By the 1954 definition, that version is now a folk song. No Man's land, as recorded by Eric Bogle, would not be a folk song but your version, Raggy, and many others would be as it has been re-created and re-fashioned many times. The same can be done to many songs and, while 'I don't like Mondays' is not as likely to be re-fashioned in the folk style it does not mean it cannot become a folk song.

Now, going back to the opening post. Those who sing from crib sheets to ensure that they sing it in just the same way as it always has been are indeed restricting the folk process. Those who use crib sheets as an aide-memoir are doing no such thing. So, maybe those who insist on re-creating folk songs exactly as they always have been done are indeed contributing to the demise of folk music and putting people off attending folk clubs.

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:08 AM

Curious to know what you believe you have achieved with your posts on this thread Jim. Did you have anything in mind when you contributed to it?

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:15 AM

My earliest memory is sitting on my Grandmothers knee and her singing to me "he comes to our window and whistles me out, his hands in his pockets his shirt hanging out" I was probably under three years of age. Thus I have been involved all my life.

I have already posted that had I met Jim when I first went to a folk club in 1969 I would probably never ventured into one ever again.

That more than anything is the most telling part.

I know he has done much work in collating songs and stories over many years but I wonder how many people he has deterred from visiting folk clubs and singing folk song.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:23 AM

No replies, no definition, just abuse, not even an attempt to take up my offer - all from a tiny and diminishing number of clubs run largely by people who are failing to draw in a new generation when we move on
I don't think I heve ever encountered such evasion and dishonesty
Blackbirds can never become a folk song because it is owned and was created by the Beatles
You can play it in your clubs and open the door to PRS charges, if that's what you want, but if you attempt to use it outside those walls, you will pay heavily for thr privilege
One of the best features is that is in the public domain and is yours by right - that is what you people have destroyed
As you say Dave nothing more to be said
I've made my offer - like the true heroes you all are, you've all scrambled to take advantage of it
It is nice to talk to people with open minds - not
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:29 AM

On the subject of no replies.....re above post?

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:41 AM

Hi Nick - As I know you are following this thread (with a bucket and shovel?) I thought I would ask her. A song that you used to do was mentioned the other day, "The Ballad Of Lumley Kettlewell", a pop song if i ever heard it ;-) I had the album it was on for years but have no idea where it went. Is it available on CD or MP3 download?

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: TheSnail
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:43 AM

I know it's futile but I'll ask again, what, Jim, is your workable definition of what is acceptable in folk clubs? As you've agreed "loosely conforms" isn't good enough.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:44 AM

Can't help laughing! While reading all this gloom and doom from Jim I had an Email from a folk club in the midlands about ten minutes ago offering me a double header concert with Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne. I am 65 he is in his twenties. We will both be singing traditional songs in traditional style. Looking forward to it! (That's a thought...Looking forward, must try it more often)

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:49 AM

I'll send you the Album Dave. Contact me on [e-mail]

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:55 AM

" while 'I don't like Mondays' is not as likely to be re-fashioned in the folk style it does not mean it cannot become a folk song."

Too late, Dave, it already has been - by Dave Burland on his album 'Rollin', and by a number of others I've heard who sing a folk-style version in folk clubs. But, as Jim never goes to folk clubs, he's unlikely to have heard it.

"It is nice to talk to people with open minds - not"

The most delicious piece of irony yet, from the man with the most closed mind on this thread.

You've let yourself down badly with your behaviour here, Jim, and I'd bet you've lost some fans. Now - stop bloody digging!

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 08:59 AM

Cool - Thanks Nick. Sent you a mail. Anything I can do for you just ask by return email.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 09:12 AM

Ah, that's good too see. The conservation between Nick & Dave tells me all is well with the folk world.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 09:21 AM

Sorry Nick, missed it
We were asked to comment on the state of the clubs - I did just that, what more could I do?
I was in the club scene from the early sixties in those days they regarded their job as to promote a specific type of music in an entertaining way
That happened for about twenty years - we played and sang, we had our magazines and record labels, Neil Wayne and others had shops specifically selling "folk"
Gradually we lost all that, in my opinion, because the role of the clubs changed to include other musics and the scene in general became dominated by professionals
In all this, the music that inspired the revival got lost
I have encountered indifference to, ignorance of and even open hostility to the music I regard as 'folk'
The accusation that I am a lone voice is nonsnse, maybe I am in this small insignificant thread, but I have libraries of books, archives, articles, definitions, even fellow disciplines like 'folk dance', 'folk lore', 'folk tales', 'folk music'..... to back up the fact that the term 'folk' still has a distinct identification, nationally and internationally.
I suggest that those who doubt the existence of a definition seek out the massive 8 volume 'Greig Duncan Folk Song Collection' - thousands of songs from one Scottish parish - and see what is generally regarded as folk song outside the protective and rapidly diminishing bubble that is the club scene
Or try Steve Roud's newly published 'Folk Song in England', a 700 plus page examining the phenomenon
There are literally hundreds of works of this type - Child, Bronson, Sharp, Thomson, Shields, Sam Henry,
In the States you have Lomax, Cazden, Cox.... dozens more
In Canada you have Fowke and Creighton
Go further afield and you have a massive library of collections - from Bartok onwards - all adhering to a fairly common description of folk song,
At one time the folk scen I belonged to was a part of all this, thanks to indifference, ignorance and hostility that is lo longer the case
The folk scene in England has gone AWOL and reached a situation that it can no longer define what it is about
Dave's description sums it up perfectly
"I have defined folk song as being anything that sounds like folk to me."
How can you define something you can't define?
If you don't know what folk is - you can't say that what you are doing sounds like folk - that is utter nonsense.
You people don't want a "sensible argument" - if you dis you'd offer facts of your own that contradict and disprove mine - nothing like that here - just evasion and abuse
Whatever you think of what I've said, you can't claim I haven't backed it up with facts and examples
I've just made an offer of two monumental series of programmes describing my view of folksong
No response whatever
That, for me, proves you have no case because you are simply not interested in real argument or real examples
I love this music and will go on arguing for its importance as long as I have the puff to do so
As a member of a forum that claims to be about folk song, this seems as good a place as any
My arguments are there to be shot down - my offer of examples remains, though I doubt if any of you people have the balls to take up either
As the man in the film said "you can't handle the truth"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 09:22 AM

Now, going back to the opening post. Those who sing from crib sheets to ensure that they sing it in just the same way as it always has been are indeed restricting the folk process. Those who use crib sheets as an aide-memoir are doing no such thing. So, maybe those who insist on re-creating folk songs exactly as they always have been done are indeed contributing to the demise of folk music and putting people off attending folk clubs.

That connects with my problem with floor singers (and for that matter headline acts as well). I don't have a problem with fumbling and mistakes so long as the performer is communicating something new. An exact clone of a performance from 25 years ago - whether by that performer or somebody else - is something I'd run a mile from, and it doesn't matter in the least whether the material is traditional or recently composed. Slickness is death. The sort of perfectionism Jim and the OP are advocating is exactly what keeps me away.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 09:43 AM

That, for me, proves you have no case

Sorry but the devil in me sees that as 'You lose' :-)

Glad to see it does qualify the statement with 'for me' though.

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 09:52 AM

You just cannot, even remotely, consider that it is people like yourself with the narrow, turgid, bombastic approach to what is or isn't folk music that may have been a cause of the limited appeal of the genre can you.

I have used the word pontificating before and I will use it again, you merely pontificate about a world you don't even know exists.

Folk music as it is known to thousands of people the length and breadth of the country is doing very well.

Your version has a very limited appeal, and more to the point you know it.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 09:57 AM

Jim you don't think you are being overly harsh then when you say that professionals have been partly responsible for the demise of interest in that which you consider to be Folk.
I have yet to meet a traditional singer who does not have a wide interest in all forms of music. Old Bill House played Cornet in a brass band, Bob Copper loved the Blues etc. etc. and above all I have yet to meet a singer who does not know how to enjoy himself.
The collector who decries a singer because he or she sings a country and western song alongside a 19th century song and values both accordingly is frowned upon. It's a poor Folklorist who is not part sociologist. The old songs that fall into that definition of Folk that leaves me a bit baffled, were never sung in glorious isolation. They may have been collected that way. I have not had the benefit of very much formal education. I was on the road at 17, so anything I know about songs and the Folk Arts I have had to teach myself, and my spelling is still atrocious and turn of phrase is strongly influenced by my book reading especially Bert Lloyd. So where are we with a rear-guard action, or even re-action when we consider Bert's wonderful view of a universal classless global music, that may become nobler than its antecedents? (Thank God for the spell checker!)
You see things are not as bad as you think-honestly!

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 10:08 AM

Wasn't it Bert Lloyd himself who stated, words to that effect, that it was as easy to define what is a folk song as it is to pinpoint the exact moment that dawn breaks and night turns into day?

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 10:10 AM

You have mentioned many collectors in your thread just above Jim, many of whom have been dead for a very long time..are you claiming that these people share your narrow definition of folk ? surely not ?

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 10:13 AM

The very same! So I return to my usual answer to this 'Dragon' of a question as Bert called it. I don't know what Folk song is, but I know what it isn't. That does not mean that it cannot exist happily alongside other forms of music. It all comes from the same 'creative need', to quote Sam Richards.

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 10:24 AM

Nick
I don't decry anything - I know what Travellers sing - I tried to get Mary Delaney, or best Traveller singer toi sing her Country and Western songs for us and she refused point blank - she said they weren't the old ones and she'd only learned them because that's what the lads wanted down the pub
We were not musicologists or social historiands (we were nly doing what we did in our spare time) - we were Folk Song collectors, though we did collect much more in terms of information - in some cases we filled more tapes with talk that we did with songs.
Folk clubs, by defining themselves as such take on a responsibility of presenting a certain type of song - it was once our showcase for the songs we loved and felt important - it no longer is
I have wide musical tastes, jazz, blues, classics mainly, but my main interest lies in the songs of the people - that's what Topic called their magnificent series and that's what they are
"narrow, turgid, bombastic approach"
How ***** dare you
I have told you what folk music is as defined worldwide and I've offered you examples
If you believe the music I am attempting to promote is "turgid" you have no right to a claim of having to do anything with folk
MacColl one told us that the scene would crash when it fell into the hands of people whoi didn't like folk music - he must have had people like you in mind.
I don't give a shit of my music has a limited appeal - I'm not in it for fame and fortune
Shakespeare has a limited appeal, compared to the rest of popular culture, so does Dickens and Hardy and classical music ..............
Your "limited appeal" is laughable coming from a tiny number of diminishing folk clubs that are generally run by people of our age who have failed miserably to attract supporters who will take over.
If you are can't stump up a description of your music and value it by the number of bums you manage to put on seats...... how shallow can you get
This music is important because o what it is as well as how it entertains
You want to fill your clubs - go and book the flavour of the month on the pop scene (whoever that is - it will be somebody else in a few months time
Turgid my arse
Where is your definition if you people think I am wrong
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 10:24 AM

I am more than happy with the phrase "it is the re-fashioning the re-creation of the music by the community that gives it its folk-character."

"Those were the days" by Mary Hopkin while being 'folky' would not fit that definition but crowds singing "Home and away my friend, we are the Stretford end" does :-) Tickles me anyway.

DtG

Subject: RE: What is Happening to our Folk Clubs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 10:36 AM

So, are you claiming that all of the collectors you mentioned abide by your "definition". I would surely like an answer to that Jim.