UK 60s Folk Club Boom?

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 05:13 AM

Best post on this thread by far is the following from Jim Carroll:

"The most unique and important aspect of traditional song is that it is word based - the songs carry the stories, ideas, emotions, appropriations, experiences..... of 'the folk' - the people who made and carried them they are narratives with tunes
The song makers you listed, "MacColl, Garbutt and Tawney", make songs make songs using a similar form - you might have added Eric Bogle, Loon Rossleson, Jack Warshaw, Enoch Kent, Miles Wooton, Pete Smith, John Pole.... and the many, many others who used the same composition techniques
To my untrained ear, those you listed are indistinguishable from pop songs, if I wanted to listen to them, I would be listening to music that happened to have words
What words tere are are either drowned out by what should be the accompaniment but, rather, dominates the performance
Joust listened to Thompson.... the narrative - if there is one, in unfollowable, the words are turned to gibberish by having not making grammatical sense... broken up to make room for long gutar
breaks... if you removed the guitar the piece would he less than half the length
One of the great problems of much accompaniment of traditional songs is that, as skilful as it may be played, it swamps the narrative - you could go for a piss between lines
Our folk songs are statements in verse - your music is as far away as you can get from that
I've said this over and over again - your examples bear no resmblence to our folk song repertoire - if that is what you are selling as folk you're conning the punters and, while you're at it, you are destroying a people's art form
Sory Dave - we are not sppeaking the same language - you are arguing for the hostile takeover that hast taken place"

Dave the Gnome was correct the first time when he typed - "Go to 23 Feb 19 - 05:22 AM for an unanswered question. Repeated since. Very simply, why do you consider some contemporary songs suitable for folk clubs but not others?"

Nobody writes contemporary FOLK songs they write contemporary songs that they hope will be commercially successful - certainly applies to Sheeran, McTell and Dylan. I think Brian McNeil is the only person I know who would not fit into that mold. Whether they become FOLK songs is not down to the writer of the song it is down to those who hear it and the process it then goes through. And in this Jim is again perfectly correct:

"The most unique and important aspect of traditional[Folk] song is that it is word based - the songs carry the stories, ideas, emotions, appropriations, experiences..... of 'the folk' - the people who made and carried them they are narratives with tunes

Traditional folk instruments in relation to UK folk music - Guitars? Don't think so they only really became massively popular in the UK AFTER the Second World War with the arrival of skiffle.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 06:01 AM

quote:- "Loon Rossleson"

Rather unkind, wouldn't you say?

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 06:04 AM

"Nobody writes contemporary FOLK songs they write contemporary songs that they hope will be commercially successful -"
Thank you guest - those words need to be carved into stone
When we have researchers who produce unresearched percentages of non-involved people to make their case, folk music really is in trouble
The appalling thing is that people in general almost certainly know less as to what constitutes folk song than they did a century ago
Sharps generation at least had the anodyne adaptations that were edited to be served up to children - Miss Pringle bashing out 'Cherry Ripe' on the school piano was closer to folk song than what goes on in many folk clubs today
The Folk Boom, for all its shortcomings, was relying on the researches carried by the Lomaxs in the States and the BBC team working in the first half of the Fifties
Now even the researches have abandoned that pioneering work and have decided that the pioneers were "starry-eyed romantics", Child was an incompetent researcher who couldn't distinguish between his various subjects and singers like Walter Pardon, Mary Delaney, Tom Lenihan.... and all the other source singers who expressed views on their songs down the decades, didn't have a clue what they were talking about - Ivory-towerism gone ballistic.
If you are seriously researchinga a subjct, you dont stand at the bus stop waiting for the next fad to come along like a cultural commuter - you should know the subjct you are researching
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 06:15 AM

Traditional music is not just word and story based through. To say so ignores a massive culture of music that has no words whatsoever! And I think anyone would be hard pushed to say something like "Music for a found harmonium" is not traditional unless they knew the background of it.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 06:19 AM

Sorry, intended putting a link to the Patrick Street version.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 06:39 AM

Traditional music is not just word and story based ....."

Talking about songs here, so what part of the following did you fail to grasp?

"The most unique and important aspect of TRADITIONAL SONG is that it is word based"

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 06:54 AM

I disagree people write songs for anumber of reasons not just to be commercially succesful, examples MacColl rosselson,
these words need to be carved in stone with the words Carroll Codswallop, are you going to tell me thatMacColl wrote first time ever [ to be commercially successful, didhe writedirty old town thirty foot trailer my old man to be commercially successful, did leon rosselson write world turned upside down anf aberfan to be commercially succesful. Jim you have inadvertenly insulted your old friend, you are losing the plot

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 07:04 AM

, to paraphrase the great fred trueman quote which sums up this thread.
Unless something happens that we can't predict, I don't think a lot will happen”

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 07:28 AM

"Traditional music is not just word and story based through"
Yes it is Dave - whatever bands like Patrick Street do it it - it is a set of peoetic words set to a tune - not a tune, as any band may do to ti
This really is inane
I think you're better off on the other thread talking to a New Age Researcher - you'll get no more form me I'm afraid
You have established quite clearly where you stand, sadly
"Carroll Codswallop,"
If you have only abuse to offer the same goes for you Dick
Who suggested any of those for money - certainly not me ?
Stop making things up
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 08:21 AM

Incidentally Dave
What has a piece of CLASSICAL MUSIC got to do with this discussion
Is that what we can expect from your club ?
If so - I much prefer the real thing rather than Patrick Street's agonisingly bad rendition (hope I don't meet Jackie Daly in the local bar when I go out for a pint tonight
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 10:08 AM

>>>>>>Nobody writes contemporary FOLK songs they write contemporary songs that they hope will be commercially successful -"<<<<<<<

That is absolute piffle! I know hundreds of contemporary folksong writers who write for a great variety of reasons, love of the music, trying to get a message across, political beliefs, to enhance local and national heritage etc. etc. If their songs are taken up by others or put out on a CD the commercial aspect is simply an add-on. Some of these are brilliant writers and their songs will stand the test of time.
For most of them the greatest accolade is having their songs sung by others.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 10:45 AM

"I know hundreds of contemporary folksong writers who write for a great variety of reasons,"
Only if you abandon any semblance of the term "folk" Steve, as you obviously have
Once again, you forgot to add "in my opinion"
This gets crazier and crazier
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 10:54 AM

jim, you agreed that "they write contemporary songs that they hope will be commercially successful -" that is absolute rubbish , that comment made by guest anon is   intellectual masturbation

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 11:07 AM

I was responding to his statement that nobody writes folk songs - I'n not interested why they write anything
Unless you want to kick down over a century' scholarship, some done while the tradition was still alive (as some desk-jockeys apparently do) - nobody can write a folk song - it has to go through a process to become one
The term 'folk;' is totally meaningless if that's not accepted
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Iains
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 11:47 AM

There was also plentiful scholarship in Nazi Germany. Many find flaws in some of its findings. Some research for perpetual motion.
The quest does not bring the certainty of accurate conclusions,no matter what its nature.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 01:16 PM

Sorry, Jim. Where have I abused you? If you provide the date, time and what you felt to be abusive, I will unreservedly apologise.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 01:20 PM

And guest 24 Feb 19 - 06:39 AM, which bit of "traditional music is not etc" did you fail to understand?

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 01:54 PM

"Where have I abused you?"
You- haven't - unless it was you who wrote "Carroll Codswallop" - which was what I was responding to
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 02:02 PM

BTW, Jim.

Classical music

serious music following long-established principles rather than a folk, jazz, or popular tradition.
(more specifically) music written in the European tradition during a period lasting approximately from 1750 to 1830, when forms such as the symphony, concerto, and sonata were standardized.

Music for a found harmonium was written in 1984 by Simon Jeffes. My point was that it you did not know that it would sit happily in any traditional music (not song) session and is indeed included in the BBC's virtual session.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 02:12 PM

...And thanks for the clarification. I obviously mis-read something so apologise for that anyway :-)

It gives me chance to come back with a bit of light relief that I had not spotted on the BBC session comments page before.

Re: Origins of Music for a found harmonium?
It sounded good when Mr P. Street once did it but it sounds awful in sessions. That key-change is a bit on the esoteric side, and I can’t play the bloody thing on a diatonic harmonica.

# Posted by Steve Shaw 8 years ago.

A Steve Shaw who plays harmonica in sessions. Who do we know like that? :-)

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 02:24 PM

"Music for a found harmonium was written in 1984 by Simon Jeffes. My point was that it you did not know that it would sit happily in any traditional music (not song) session and is indeed included in the BBC's virtual session".
It feckin would not.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 02:25 PM

Sez you! :-)

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 02:37 PM

I'd be very happy to hear it played well in a session but I don't think there would be many joining in.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 02:48 PM

"Music for a found harmonium was written in 1984 by Simon Jeffes"
My mistake - but if you compare both - he seems to leaned heavily on Bach for his composition - some would call it plagiarism if Bach hadn't been dead for so long
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 04:00 PM

Bach from the dead?

:D

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 04:14 PM

Tell you what though, Jim (checking in during commercial breaks in Endeavour). It must be a clever bit of music to be many things to many people :-)

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 04:42 PM

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 04:47 PM

When i use the phrase Carroll Codswallop, i am not abusing you ,iam refrrin to a silly statement that you made, if i called you a nincom poop , that is personal abuse, but i have not called you a nincompoop, codswallop and its possible origin
The story goes that a man by the name of Hiram Codd patented a bottle for fizzy drinks with a marble in the neck, which kept the bottle shut by pressure of the gas until it was pressed inwards. Wallop was a slang term for beer, and Codd's wallop came to be used by beer drinkers as a derogatory term for weak or gassy beer, or for soft drinks

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 19 - 05:00 PM

Eeeee. He's a clever bloke that young Endeavour Morse. Good taste too. Shaun Evans who play him is a Scouser though so my Manc heritage stops me from praising him too highly :-)

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: r.padgett
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 04:27 AM

There is no such thing as Contemporary Folk Music

So there is ONLY Traditional folk song

Righto

Ray

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 05:05 AM

Ok... ???

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 05:41 AM

"When i use the phrase Carroll Codswallop, i am not abusing "
Then you need to invest in a dictionary Dick
Forget it
"It must be a clever bit of music to be many things to many people :-)"
As is The Flight of the Bumblebee - doesn't make it a candidate for a folk night
"So there is ONLY Traditional folk song"
Folk refers to the people who made it, made it their own within communities until the original maker is forgotten or has become insignificant and freely passed it on without restrictions for others to do the same
If that still happens, there is contemporary folk music
If it doesn't, there is no contemporary folk music as we have become passive recipients of our culture
If we're lucky, there will be plenty of songs made using the unique structure of folk song, but a glance above suggests that that's not going to happen very soon
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 05:46 AM

I just had an idea! Maybe after brexit when England gets back to her former glory we will see a return to the heady days of the 1960's. After all, folk clubs were far better out of Europe :-)

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Iains
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 06:10 AM

After all, folk clubs were far better out of Europe :-)

That might isolate you from Celtic cousins! Otherwise you might forget your celtic p's and q's

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Iains
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 06:11 AM

Whoops keyed too soon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6DzGKNYaqM

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 06:47 AM

Just poted this to a friend off-line
I thought I'd share it

I think that, while the folk scene continues to be a dumping ground for songs that people can't be arsed to find another name for, and while we are plagued with arrogant megalomaniac academics who seem hell bent on burning over a century's worth of research, a vital working people's art form has little chance of continuing to be enjoyed and appreciated - may it RIP
It really was great while it lasted
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:02 AM

If we were to take the 1954 defintion seriously Tradtional folk song has become a museum piece,and only now exists in the form of football chants

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Iains
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:15 AM

Sandman that has been my argument all along. Ancient methods of creation, transmission and alteration have been rendered obsolescent by the modern world. A rigid definition encapsulating only traditional folk has the implicit acceptance the genre is pickled in aspic or fossilised in amber. you aint going to create a sea shanty when the modern world relies on pushing a button or keystrokes, the same with folk music.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 07:31 AM

"If we were to take the 1954 defintion seriously"
Iwonder why it is only those who oppose the '54 definition are the only ones ever to raise it !!
Folk song is far simpler define than that
Tradition - a process that absorbs, changes and distributes a song until it becomes ownerless
Folk - the people who put it through that process
Take that as your starting point and you have little need to go further
The making of new songs using 'folk' forms and presenting them together not only them as museum pieces, but it allows both to survive and continue by building a foundation
Everything lse is opportunistic and destructive bullshit - by using pop forms to create so-called 'modern folk songs' will win no new enthusiasts (it hasn't so far) and is quite likely to take on the 'self-destruct to make room for the next one' ethos of the genre
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 08:13 AM

It strikes me that a scene that I have just described above is far more 'up-to-date' with the constant creation of new songs than the poor performances of decades old pop songs that are only significant to those who weer around when they were being well sung
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: r.padgett
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 12:24 PM

Folk ~ are people ~ people who make and craft songs & poems~ play music to entertain and inform the result is Folk songs ~ songs of the people by the people for the people!!

Traditional folk songs ~

Tradition - a process that absorbs, changes and distributes a song until it becomes ownerless
Folk - the people who put it through that process ~ traditional folk songs

Ray

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 12:32 PM

"Folk ~ are people ~ people who make and craft songs & poems"
Meaningless Ray
The term was applied to the largely rural working people in order to identify, first their unique superstitions and customs and later their stories, songs and music - Child used the term 'popular "of the people
Your re-invention of the term makes Bach a folk Composer, Maria Callas a folk singer, Jeffrey Archer a writer of folk stories and Rudolph Nureyev a folk dancer - and 'The Birdie Song a folk song
Please don't be silly
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 01:16 PM

Folk ~ are people ~ people who make and craft songs & poems~ play music to entertain and inform the result is Folk songs ~ songs of the people by the people for the people!!

Trite meaningless twaddle Ray

The only factual bit there is - Folk ~ are people ~ Full stop. Among those folk there will be a few who make and craft songs and poems. The reasons and motivations for them doing this will vary enormously.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 01:30 PM

"Folk ~ are people"
In which case, we have no way of distinguishing the folk arts from any other art form
Funny - vever had any trouble up to know
The term was created to do just that and it seems an act of cultural vandalism to misuse it - we really were here first - why not get your own term (difficult, I suppose, as the incomers seem totally unable to identify what they are now selling as folk)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 02:05 PM

How about "open mic night" for those that do not do folk music?

Oh, hang on, someone has! :-)

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 02:29 PM

It seems that, as what is being now claimed as 'folk music' has in particular identity, open mike is as good as any
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 03:08 PM

Remind us then, who exactly are 'the folk' and when was the term first applied to their artefacts, song in particular?

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: r.padgett
Date: 26 Feb 19 - 03:18 AM

Your re-invention of the term makes Bach a folk Composer, Maria Callas a folk singer, Jeffrey Archer a writer of folk stories and Rudolph Nureyev a folk dancer - and 'The Birdie Song a folk song

Maria Callas is/was am opera singer ~ Rudolph Nureyev was a ballet dancer Bach was a composer of orchestral music ~ they fall into a different class
~ Jeffrey Archer is a novelist!

Folk music is music of the people, basic compositions as is folk song, carrying on the tradition without actually being traditional!

Folk song is a living entity whether it is deemed traditional or Contemporary folk song

We are all people ~ I hope!

Ray

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Feb 19 - 03:33 AM

we are all people,but some of us are also pillocks

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 19 - 04:29 AM

"Folk song is a living entity whether it is deemed traditional or Contemporary folk song"
No it isn't
It died when 'the people' ceased to be active participants in their culture and became passive recipients of what somebody manufactured and owned
Folk song has been carefully documented and reproduced for over a century - it's that 'folk song' that we took up a lifetime ago and it's that which continues to hold rights to the title
If this were a trial I would be ably to provide many thousands of example of examples of what real folk song is - can you produce a single validated argument other than the opinions of a disappearing group of people who want what they do to be fol song?
Where is the evidence for your claim ?
Simple question (again)
The most commonly song sung today is researched to be Abba's 'Waterloo' and 'The Birdie Song'
Are they folk songs - if not, why not?
Jim Carroll
By the way - if Bach, Callas and Archer are not 'The Folk' who exactly do you mean by The Folk?