UK Folk Revival 2018

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 07:06 AM

Familiar to me too - my first performance in front of a tolerant folk club audience... fingers shaking... sweating with nerves... and the elation at my first experience of applause. This was the 1960s and the clubs, at that time, were (mainly) where you went when you wanted to be a solo, acoustic performer.

All too soon I joined up with others, got an amp, and spent much of the next 50 years in pubs and clubs - Trades & Labour, British Legions, Con Clubs, Working Men's CLubs, works staff clubs. I still did the folk clubs occasionally, but I have to say that the club and pub circuit hardened me up no end as a performer - because they were certainly not as forgiving as the folk clubs.

When I started doing the odd spots at folk clubs again, and then eventually guesting, the hard sweat of the commercial club and pub circuit paid off in terms of presentation, getting to grips with audiences, etc.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 04:41 AM

I couldn't agree more, Al. It was the openness and inclusiveness of the club's i first attended that encouraged me. They had a good mix of styles, they were non-judgmental of my dithery efforts, and they made anyone and everyone feel welcome to 'have a go'.

And I read all my lyrics from a loose leaf binder for many years, until I suddenly realised I was actually not reading most of the time - I just had it in front of me as a 'comfort-blanket'. So I started singing and playing (mostly) without it - still have my iPad as a prop when I do a new song the first couple of times, and I feel no shame.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 04:19 AM

Well I get welcomed in most folk clubs that know the standards that I work to. Out of respect for their club policy, because I've been round about a million years, I can generally play something that won't cause too much outrage.

However I didn't come out of the box like that. There was a time when I worked hard at a day job, and my week revolved about the ten minutes they'd put up with my 10 minute floorspot at The Beggars Bush, Sutton Coldfield, under the benign stewardship of Bob Lines.

For me it was an exciting experiment every week. The audience was always kind and forgiving, Bless them for that. but my God sometimes it must have been rank.

I'm sorry if you don't get that function of a folk club, because you're an unelected curator of your vision of folk music. But please take my word for it - its an important function.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 11:34 PM

And I think he moved the Rainsong along. The guitars I see him playing nowadays are all made of tree-wood! ;-)

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 11:04 PM

He's the one you used to get on with! In the real world we get along very well - he says what he means, no bullshit. I like that.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 05:22 PM

Which musket is that..??? carbon fibre guitar...???

he's the one I used to get on with...

I hope he's not the bloke / lady bloke using new names recently, who I dont seem to get get on with...

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 04:51 PM

I'm sure my memory is wonderful. I just can't remember why...

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 03:52 PM

At the 'Folk & Acoustic Music Club' I go to, the youngsters all read from sheets of paper or their phones. They seem bemused by people like me who (mostly) sing from memory. One regular who never uses a crib-sheet of any kind, and who knows his extensive repertoire by heart, is Musket - formerly of this parish. Hats off to him, his memory is amazing!

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 12:52 PM

practise is a verb and practice is a noun

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 11:47 AM

"But am happy to make allowances for individuals with memory impairing health conditions, using tablets and phones with lyric reminders.."
Me too, but that is very unlikely to apply to someone aged around 20, who seem to use them even more than the relatively few elderly performers I have seen using them, and that's not just in Folk Clubs.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 10:40 AM

I agree, Dick. It is common courtesy to respect your audience. I have no issue with crib sheets but people not knowing what they going to do before they take the floor or fluffing words and tune even with a crib sheet shows a distinct lack of respect.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 10:36 AM

Sandman - personally I don't agree with any excuses for poor preparation and insufficient practise...

[ I hold my hand up to occasionally not learning new songs until the last minute before a gig,
and then being too stressed out to remember them...
In a band I could just turn my instrument volume down and mime ]

But am happy to make allowances for individuals with memory impairing health conditions,
using tablets and phones with lyric reminders..
providing they can still sing and play instruments to an acceptable level of proficiency...

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 10:11 AM

how about respect for the audience and material this includes practising material including practising if you use words.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 08:04 AM

What put me off Folk clubs when I was 19
was happy clappy singalongafolkies, trite unfunny comedy songs,
and raffle and bingo old fogey atmosphere...


Now then, as for pop and rock shite being performed in folk venues...

Try to remember the 1990s fad for MTV UNPLUGGED TV shows and CDs...
Established bands and solo artists realised there was a lucrative new market for them
performing old back catalogue songs in intimate acoustic style.

In the UK this new emerging fashion perculated down to young teens
studying school and FE college performance arts courses.
So a generation of competant young singers jumped on the bandwagon
and swamped any opportunities where they could find an audience
for wannabe stars showing off their talents...

Local folk clubs were tailor made for their 'showcase' acoustic performances.
and in addition, more newer acoustic nights in pubs and clubs...

That first wave of unplugged kids are now knocking on 40,
but many thousands more churned out by performance courses
continue to be following after them...

Like it or not, this is now a very popular acoustic 'folkie' sub culture;
acoustic renditions of big pop and rock hits...

Then, the mumford 'softie folkie' phenomena inclined these positive enthusiastic yoofs
to put Hobgoblin trad folk instruments on their xmas lists...

That's enough for now - what I describe mostly predates the TV X Factor route to fame....

...don't get me started on the acoustic youth scene being dominated by public school kids...


One bonus however, cheap unwanted reasonable quality acoustic guitars in near mint condition in cash converters..

I got a 15 year old Yamaha for 50 quid... but it still reeks of perfume...

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 08:01 AM

I'm in agreement there, Al (although I don't play every day, and it shows, and I seldom actually do any formal practice, I noodle about, sing a couple of songs, that's it!).

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 05:44 AM

I suppose in the end its to do with your own personality.

I like to think, I'm pretty easy going. I practice my guitar every day, but I understand that other people have other priorities - but they're folk. they have music. they read from books and ipads, they play badly, forget the words.

but its their music - not mine to dictate to them what's what.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 03:35 AM

The vast majority of music I see in folk clubs is still well performed folk music as per any definition. The runner up but well behind is well performed music that may or may not be folk depending on definitions. A small amount is well performed music that will never be considered folk. There is a tiny amount of shite including poorly performed folk music. Sadly, it is the shite that people remember and talk about.


There is also performed poetry. Some good, some bad. Not sure where to fit that in.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: r.padgett
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 02:57 AM

The current folk revival seems to me to be led by the younger generation with many coming from the product of the folk degree programmes at Newcastle/Gateshead, Sheffield and Leeds in particular ~ the whole attitude by graduates and indeed the current crop of folkies and established professionals is much more "professional" in its attitude

The folk clubs tend to be taken very much for granted or just ignored and the new "young thruster" quite rightly do their own thing and alternative venues and concert clubs seem to be coming to the fore

Venues and a professional attitude are the major revival changes in my view

Ray

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 01:09 AM

No Big Al, I said at a folk club I only expect to hear folk shite - I said nothing at all about being happy having to listen to it. But I think you know what I meant and mean.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 06:10 PM

"You're happy with one load of shite but the other bothers you.

Now where did you get that from? Certainly not from me"

and in the same post:-

"at a folk club I only expect to hear folk shite - up with any other form of shite I am not prepared to put."

man speak with forked tongue!

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 06:03 PM

one man's shite is another man's fetish...

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:59 PM

You're happy with one load of shite but the other bothers you.

Now where did you get that from? Certainly not from me.

But let us go back to the first part of your post:

shite is shite. whether its traditional English shite or pop shite.

Now as long as we are on the same wavelength as to what you refer to as traditional English shite would you agree that the following is true:

1. Traditional English shite as far as songs go are generally unaccompanied.

2. That pop shite as far as songs go are generally accompanied and more importantly they are/were performed by bands.

3. So if someone wants to perform traditional English shite all they need to do is have it somewhere in their mind the belief that they can sing.

4. Alternatively if someone as a solo performer wishes to perform pop shite, they not only have to be able to sing, they must also be able to play and be competent enough to play make up for the deficiency of their not being a band. So the potential is manifestly there for making a far greater horlicks and produce pop shite than there would be for a simple would be singer of singing traditional English shite.

If you run a folk club you get to be tolerant of most kinds of musical shite. No Big Al if you run a folk club you only have to get tolerant of folk shite, they do after all run a folk club.

not too many virtuosi turn up on singers nights. - They do not have to be virtuosi Big Al for them to perform and put over what they do, and I for one have picked up many, many songs from such performers at what they call singers nights in many folk clubs over the last five decades.

the underscript to your posting is that you are tolerant of lazy, unmusical bores as long as they like the same music as you do. - Nothing is further from the truth.

Shite stinks, whoever shits it. - Very true Big Al but at a folk club I only expect to hear folk shite - up with any other form of shite I am not prepared to put.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:04 PM

shite is shite.
whether its traditional English shite or pop shite.

You're happy with one load of shite but the other bothers you.
If you run a folk club you get to be tolerant of most kinds of musical shite. not too many virtuosi turn up on singers nights.

however you do get very grateful to the musicians who make genuine efforts, whatever their inclinations. you get to understand their preoccupations and concerns. you're happy for them when they defeat their demons, improve their technical skills, gain the respect of the audience and join the company of musicians.

the underscript to your posting is that you are tolerant of lazy, unmusical bores as long as they like the same music as you do.

Shite stinks, whoever shits it.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 04:42 PM

When I go to a folk club and pay a fiver to go in or, sometimes, get in free, I expect to take the rough with the smooth. I have always found that the smooth always exceeds the rough and I always enjoy it. If you do not, that is not my problem. Sorry.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 04:19 PM

Irrespective of what you pay to get in you should always expect to get "what it says on the tin" - applies even if you get in for nowt.

Anyone wishing to perform shite covers of pop songs should form their own clubs and then they would at least only torture one another.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 03:54 PM

If I go to a concert and pay £30 for a ticket I expect it to do what it says on the tin. I have never been to one that failed to do that. When I go to a folk club and pay a fiver to go in or, sometimes, get in free, I expect to take the rough with the smooth. Set your expectations low and more often than not you will be pleasently surprised.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 03:44 PM

No of course not. But who knows, when they've learnt their chops on the Beatles and Mark K - perhaps they will produce something of value.

Perhaps that's as far as they'll ever get. We don't know. People surprise you sometimes.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 03:37 PM

Very good Big Al, but I still know that when sat in what purports to be a folk club listening to absolutely dire acoustic, solo effort Dire Straights covers or equally poor renditions of "Blackbird" or "Norwegian Wood" I KNOW I am NOT listening to folk music.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 03:21 PM

Last year, I used to go to Bournemouth Jazz Club a lot. I was the youngest person there. All these octogenarians jiving away to the trad jazz revival of sixty years ago. Most of the band members not much younger.

"That's not what i call trad," said this old chap who had given me a lift there.

Two oldish guys used to to do the Country Hour on Radio Nottingham - Fred Lynch and Reg Cooper.

Not what I call country! opined Fred about Bluegrass. And he said the same about Dick Something , a songwriter who'd written the music for Smokey and the Bandit, he'd been booked that year for Nottingham Country Music festival - Smokey and the Bandit was the highest selling film album of the year after Star Wars. Listen to the film soundtrack - see if you can spot the non country music as Burt goes Eastbound and Down.

So the answer is yes. Its a very popular misconception that you know everything about everything. With getting old, its a bit like hardening of the arteries - you can feel it coming on!

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 09:06 AM

Thanks Al. I thought as much.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 08:43 AM

yes they do...in jazz forums, in country music forums, blues forums.

there are no end of the people who want to pooh pooh original creative effort.

god knows why...the more people they exclude, the less chance people will have in hearing their own style of music, either alluded to as a source, or performed.

when folk, blues, jazz etc., as we know it,   is safely stuffed into ghetto like classrooms , museums and college courses. i suppose ordinary folk will have to beat on dustbins or yell in canyons. but at least it will be folk music.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 08:23 AM

Heard the Ward Thomas Twins on Radio on the way home last night. 24 year old twins from Hampshire with a great talent. Point being, it is Country music as I understand it but is it Country music as the Country 'purists' would have it? They did say they always say it is Country music, just a different Country :-)

Set me thinking. Do they have the same discussions as this on Country music forums? Is Country music American folk music? Just interested!

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 08:01 AM

Dunno what happened there- maybe I've nothing to say?

No, but the commercial scene does seem unable to accept the solo singer or musician.
It seems within weeks of hearing a grand young singer (predominantly female, I think?) called Aggie Sprotworthy we see the same lass promoted as the Aggie Sprotworthy Band, with a few hangers-on as the compulsory BAND..

Likewise with many CDs- it takes a non-commercial and brave person to stand up to them & not have a full band backing- some do resist & good luck to them....

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 06:02 AM

Sorry Al, I cross posted. I was referring to the stuff which is being produced by the "folk orchestras" and enjoyed by the pretentious middle class elite who control the direction of this new genre......which is related to folk music in only the loosest of ways.
I agree with most of what you have written ...5:37 am.....Ake

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:49 AM

Not really sure what you're talking about Ake. Modern folk music....what be that?

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:46 AM

"Modern" folk music, as portrayed on the media and influenced by the academies is not an inclusive genre. It bears no relation to the stuff being produced by the "pop folkies" of the sixties, at least their output could be related to traditional music and did steer listeners towards it.
The cacophony produced by the folk/orchestral ensembles speaks only to the producers themselves and a tiny group of mindless followers.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:37 AM

No maybe what Jim regards as folk music will continue to be minority stuff, but ordinary folk will strive for self expression through informal modes of music as long as there is breath in their bodies.

Folk music will not be contained in definitions, restrictions, and middle class cerebration.

Folk music will, like John Barleycorn, prove the strongest man of all.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 05:20 AM

Has anyone given any thought to the possibility that the Folk Revival or Folk Scare may have been brought about by the commercialisation of the music, A sort of dumbing down or tarting up process which made folk derived material appeal to a wider audience?

Think back to The Weavers, The Kingston Trio, Lonnie Donegan for instance.

Some of that wider audience were interested enough to find out more about the origins of the material, liked what they found and stayed with it.
The interest in blues in the UK and probably elsewhere was boosted in a similar way by pop groups like Rolling Stones.

Even Jim Carrol I believe came in via an English folk group popular enough to have their own radio or tv (I can't remember which) series

I don't believe folk music will die but just continue to be a minority sport just like it was before pop charts came along.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 03:04 AM

I agree, Jim, and i have pointed out earlier how commercialism has contributed to its difficulties , undoubtedly despondent of slough , is despondently sucking mars bars. rather like jack horner in a corner

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 02:36 AM

"Ever wish you hadn't bothered to open a thread?."
I'm really sorry you feel like this John
The state of British folk music really needs to be discussed critically and as things stand at present with all the self-imposed confusion surrounding the term 'folk', I think this is as good as you're going to get
Jim

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 07:43 PM

Strange story in a strange book.
The biography of Mike Heron.
Anyone read it?

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 01:53 PM

Yes it can be 'translated' but I'm no judge of the accuracy of the result- haven't heard Luke Kelly's version of it, although sounds like he did it the right way, in his own accent & without changing any words, I presume?
Hamish wrote it in about 1960 and then went on a song collecting your of Scotland soon afterwards. He was amazed to meet a young lady near Newton Stewart who sang it back to him as an 'auld Scots ballad'.
That lady was Mona Stewart, whose ceilidh band we (the Marsden Rattlers) met in Blairgowrie in 1967.
When I moved to Glentrool near Newton Stewart in 2003, I was playing at the Riverside day centre and asked if Mona still lived in the town. I was told yes & she'd be singing with her own piano accompaniment the following week!
It was great to meet her again & hear her stories of the old days in Galloway & you'll find my article about this lovely lady in an old issue of Living Tradition.
I hope she's still around as we plan to move back to Galloway in the next few weeks.....

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 12:37 PM

Ever wish you hadn't bothered to open a thread?.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 07:09 AM

Ake - you're not missing much..
I've gone days without even bothering to read any of it..
Even BS thread titles that usually catch my interest and spur me on to get involved...

Too few folks writing too many posts within too short a time,
that render a thread unreadable for anyone trying to catch up from the start
and join in...

...and you must remember what it was like, the pointless distracting arguments,
when folks jump in half cocked and clueless
without having read and understood previous posts...

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Guessed
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 07:07 AM

Following the early 18th century Act of Union, Scottish merchants got access to British colonies and some of them got wealthy from the tobacco trade, with its links to slavery. Some Scots were also involved with the slave trade. I'm guessing this might be where the reference to black and white co-operation in the song comes from. Jamaica, for example, has many Scottish names for people and places.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,Ake
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 06:40 AM

Yes, that's the one Ray, I also have it on a "Topic Sampler" Harry makes quite a good job of it.

Sorry for the aside here but I rarely get to converse with Big Al these days.....just to say thanks for your kind words at the time of my removal from BS.....noted and to be remembered :0).

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 06:15 AM

Interesting info about The Freedom Come All Ye


http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/songs/texts/freecaye.html

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 06:11 AM

https://uk.video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=The+Freedom+Come+All+Ye+youtube#id=4&vid=2d05ecbd150d0a5bb95baa8075a9

attempted translation:



Freedom Come All Ye
Original Scots Lyrics by Hamish Henderson, this version by Gordon Hudson


Rough's the wind in the clear day's dawning
Blows the clouds head-oer-heel across the bay
But there's more than a rough wind blowing
Through the Great Glen of the world today
It's a thought that would make our vermin
All those rogues who strut and swagger without care
Take the road and seek other lodgings
With their vile schemes to sport and play

No more will our fine lads be commanded
to march to war at a braggarts call
Nor wee weans from pitheads and clachans
Mourn the ships sailing down the Broomielaw
Broken families in lands we've vanquished
Will curse "Scotland the Brave", nae mair, nae mair
Black and white to one another married
Will make the slums of their masters bare

So come all ye at home with freedom
Never heed those prophets of doom
In your house all the bairns of Adam
Will find bread, drink and painted rooms
When Maclean meets with friends in Springburn
All the rose and cherry trees will turn to bloom
And the black lad from Nyanga
Will break the powers of his masters doon.




Roch the wind in the clear day's dawin
Blaws the cloods heilster-gowdie owre the bay
But there's mair nor a roch wind blawin
Thro the Great Glen o the warld the day
It's a thocht that wad gar oor rottans
Aa thae rogues that gang gallus fresh an gay
Tak the road an seek ither loanins
Wi thair ill-ploys tae sport an play

Nae mair will our bonnie callants
Merch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw
Nor wee weans frae pitheid an clachan
Mourn the ships sailin doun the Broomielaw
Broken faimlies in lands we've hairriet
Will curse 'Scotlan the Brave' nae mair, nae mair
Black an white ane-til-ither mairriet
Mak the vile barracks o thair maisters bare

Sae come aa ye at hame wi freedom
Never heed whit the houdies croak for Doom
In yer hoos aa the bairns o Adam
Will find breid, barley-bree an paintit rooms
When Maclean meets wi's friens in Springburn
Aa thae roses an geans will turn tae blume
An the black lad frae yont Nyanga
Dings the fell gallows o the burghers doun.

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 10:55 AM

"there is no way it could be sung by anyone other than a Scot."
I think many Scots have problems with it too Jim, but they're far more likely to make a better job of it than a Sassenach
Jim

Subject: RE: UK Folk Revival 2018
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 10:48 AM

I think the 'Freedom Come-All-Ye' is one of the finest songs in existence today.

I love the sentiments expressed & would love to sing it BUT there is no way it could be sung by anyone other than a Scot.