UK 60s Folk Club Boom?

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Tunesmith
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 01:12 PM

How old are you? Lots of folk clubs back in the heyday had attendances of 100, and even then, they were turning people away.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 01:01 PM

"If 3000 clubs is about right, that means that there could have been around a quarter of millions visits to folk music clubs per week back then.
    Now, I bet, no other genre of music could boast those figures!"

3000 clubs, each with an average attendance of over 80 ?
Some people will believe anything.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Vic Smith
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 12:20 PM

I believe the earliest performances of folk were those arranged by Lomax at The Theatre Royal in Stratford East when he was on the run from McCarthy

What would been the date of the first of these Stratford events?
Many people have written that the earliest manifestation of the folk revival in the UK were the original Edinburgh People's Festival in the summers of 1951–54. There was a wide range of people from trade unionists, enthusiasts, academics and local politicians acknowledge in the founding of these with the cultural contribution made by Hamish Henderson, Ewan MacColl, Joan Littlewood, Norman Buchan, Alan Lomax, Joe Corrie and Councillor Jack Kane being mentioned as the main movers.
Lomax had the good sense to record a number of the concerts.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 12:06 PM

"At what date do you put "the startup of the revival" and when do you believe the music industry latched on?"
I believe the earliest performances of folk were those arranged by Lomax at The Theatre Royal in Stratford East when he was on the run from McCarthy
The folk boom I'm not too sure about, but I know I had Kingston Trio and Clancy Brothers albums in the early sixties
The problem with the boom was they rather dominated the airwaves with erzatz folk (all the best stuff was on The Third Programme, which nobody listened to)
The other problem was newbies recognised the erzatz stuff as real folk and developed a taste for that rather than the Harry Cox's and Sam Larners
I can still remember the culture shock when somebody gave me a copy of MacColl's Folkways Vol 1 album of The Child Ballads = nearly ended us as a plant-pot stand
Luckily I had mates in Manchester where I could listen to Terry Whelan, Dave Hillary, terry Griffiths, Tom Gillfellon and Harry Boardman - that wasn't on offer to me in Liverpool then
There is a wealth of material for future generations to enjot - as long as somebody remembers where the key is
That's our job and there's no time like the present
I only hope I'm going to be around long enough to enjoy their enjoying it
It's giving me a greatt buzz here in Ireland - still coming down from last Sundays singing club in Dublin run by youngsters - magic!
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 11:40 AM

Jim,

At what date do you put "the startup of the revival" and when do you believe the music industry latched on?

I am no defender of the music industry, far from it, but by enabling people to hear second and third rate copyists that became popular a good number of people turned to earlier roots or what we might call the real thing.

Like all things that become fashionable with the masses the size of the audience eventually gets back to something like it used to be before "the revival". Folk and jazz always were a minority sport.

The demise of "folk" and revivalist jazz is most probably because the people, singers/musicians and audience are coming or have come to the end of their days.

Fortunately there is an untold wealth of material available for future generations to enjoy.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Tunesmith
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 11:12 AM

If 3000 clubs is about right, that means that there could have been around a quarter of millions visits to folk music clubs per week back then.
    Now, I bet, no other genre of music could boast those figures!

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 11:01 AM

3,000?
Batman mentioned Singing From The Floor

Telegraph review of Singing From The Floor :
" ... There were around 3,000 clubs, though many were short-lived and run by those Dick Gaughan calls “fanatical amateurs”...."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/10653986/What-was-the-folk-music-scene-really-like-in-the-Sixties.html 
~~~~~~~
Singing From The Floor - J P Bean
thread
thread.cfm?threadid=153720 

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 09:54 AM

I agree entirely with what's been said here though it's worth remembering that not long after the startup of the revival the music industry latched on to the idea that there might be a few bob in it fpr them and some of these clubs were outcomes of that
For me, when the money boys lost interest the scene found its own level and began to call the shots for itself
For me, that led to the real Golden Age of folk song, with singers deciding for themselves what was worth singing
My first experience of live music was in The Cavern in Liverpool where you could hear some of the finest jazz in Britain

The same as I described on the folk scene happened to Jazz - a discovery, a brief period of comercialisation and a leveling out
By the time I got to London at the end of the sixties I could sit in 'New Merlin's Cave' in Mount Pleasant and listen to Bruce Turner and Humph in comfort until my hair stood on end with pleasure
Good days
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 09:40 AM

In the late 60s and early 70s what I never came across was participatory events such as instrumental sessions or singarounds. Even our local singers club operated fairly formally as an open stage event. It may be that they were just absent in my area or, in pre internet days, you just had to know the right people. These days there still seems to be as much opportunity to participate but it is less inviting to the outsider as fewer events are designed for performing to an audience.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Hagman
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 06:39 AM

"Once, back in the heady days of the sixties and seventies, folk clubs abounded all over the country. Now, while they have not disappeared altogether, they are thin on the ground. At the peak of the folk revival, there were hundreds of clubs in and around London, seventy-two on Merseyside, a club seven nights a week in most of the big cities. Every town and many a village had a folk club. In the universities and colleges they flourished. In Edinburgh there was even one in the police social club."

P. xiii, Introduction. J.P. Bean. Singing From The Floor: A History of British Folk Clubs. Faber & Faber : London, 2014.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST,Sean O'Shea
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 06:37 AM

I wouldn't know.What I do know is that at the end of the sixties, you could go to a different club in Exeter every single night of the week.Spend a pound and you could buy entry, a packet of cigs and a good swallow for your pleasure.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 06:03 AM

Yes indeedy
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 05:25 AM

"Folk Clubs Sir, thousands of them"

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 05:21 AM

Heinz made it 57 I think
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Tunesmith
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 05:08 AM

42? No, surely! There must have been at least 50!

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 04:35 AM

42

Subject: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Tunesmith
Date: 10 Feb 19 - 04:31 AM

Does anybody out there have an idea of how many folk music clubs existed in the UK at the height of the 60s folk music boom?