UK 60s Folk Club Boom?

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 03:08 PM

I agree i didn't phrase that very well.

i was thinking of my own moderate abilities.
Some of the stuff that Ewan did. I'm not denying its status as folksong. Like Tam Linn. But I've heard Ewan say - if you don't think ballads are your thing, and you can't listen for nearly fifteen minutes - perhaps it would be best if you left the room, before I start.

I wouldn't know how to do that.

But these songs I could make an audience listen. I could present it with something interesting to introduce them. An ordinary English speaking audience with a normal degree of intelligence. be it in a pub, a family gathering - whatever...
Frankly I don't know if its folk song. But they are songs that are within the apprehension of an English speaking audience. the commonality of them. Not a specialist audience. And therefore songs that can make them feel something. And that's what works for me.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 03:33 PM

"But these songs I could make an audience listen."
They also managed to drive thousands of long term folkies who came to look for folk songs away
"But I've heard Ewan say - if you don't think ballads are your thing, and you can't listen for nearly fifteen minutes - perhaps it would be best if you left the room, before I start.
"
Don't think you heard it very often Al - Ewan made about thirty odd albums of ballads - people came to The Singers Club from as far afield as the U.S. (in parties sometimes) to hear him sing them
He used to tell of how, wen he first started to sing ballads in public, he used to break one particularly long one (Gil Morrice) in two halves, one half before the interval, one at the beginning of the second half
He stopped when an audience member said to hem, "For ****'* sake will you stop doing that, it's like waiting for the other ***** shoe to drop"
Audiences will take what you give them if you do it well enough - it shows contempt for them if you believe they can't
The Singers Club was set up i the early sixties and continued to pull in audiences for traditional ballads, among other things, till Ewan fell into his last illness and couldn't perform any more
You don't abandon something because it's not widely popular otherwise you may as well pack it in and put in a juke Box
You go with what you love and hope you can take enough people with you - if people hadn't done that we wouldn't have Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy... or any of the 'difficult playwrights and writes
Bet you never got a full house of strangers for you Wesker Trilogy - we never did
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 05:21 PM

well, Dickens famously had people queuing up for the next instalment. And Shakespeare is a fairly safe 'bums on seats ' proposition for most theatres.

wesker -I've never seen in a theatre, but he must have been successful. He captured a mood of a certain point in history. Frustration with a long period of Tory government. post-war idealism and optimism. I read Wesker because my Mum was a Quaker, leftist, CND, etc. Stuck in a small rural community (Boston in Lincs), a cultural desert. I can see how she might have identified with Beattie Bryant.

contempt for the audience. that's an interesting subject Do you know Albert Goldman's very incisive Lenny Bruce biography.

It was my bible in the years when I was getting to grips with the tough club audiences in WMC's and the like. Lenny was an artist who believed there was a more aware and intelligent audience that he could reach out to. I always felt this. Ewan and Peggy represented something of this to me. but it has to be said, there were others. And it was this questing for a less bland reaction that inspired me - rather than any sort of particular brand of folk music.

Performance wise - I think. I didn't come to my audience with an agenda of what I believed. It was a voyage of discovery. discovery of what my strengths were. And weaknesses. And their strengths and weaknesses. Contempt - maybe comes into the equation. But respect as well.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 05:34 PM

Can anyone here put their hand up and honestly say they have conceded a single point here

Yes. I have. I no longer refer to contemporary folk songs. At your request they are now "contemporary songs using folk forms and functions". Now, what have you conceded and what do you think of my last two links?

Captain Marvel was marvellous and the curry was the same BTW:-)

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 06:10 PM

What you don't seem to get Dave is that those beliefs have been the motor that has driven his creative life.

Just like your and my beliefs motivate us.

Why are you seeking Jim's approval?

Don't concede anything. there's no need. He's not after getting elected (I don't think).

I'm sure he's happy for you to have your beliefs.

Who knows he might be right. there is no final reckoning, as far as anyone knows.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 06:17 PM

I have already conceded it, Al. And I am not so precious as to think my beliefs make any difference to anyone or anything. I am quite flattered to hear Jim say that my actions have destroyed folk music :-)

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 07:57 PM

well to be honest, his actions have destroyed it for me. Who knows who's right.

Derek Brimstone said the trad singers were like a plague. Clubs that had been going for years , booked one after the glowing account of then Melody Maker, and the next time he heard the place had perished and closed down. Derek had no reason to say otherwise - he played nearly everywhere in his time.

Jim doesn't get what I'm on about. And I don't really understand what he's proposing.

That if we booked unaccompanied trad singers everywhere the folk clubs would have been full. Can't see it myself. There was only really Tommy dempsey, Ian Campbell and Roy Harris in our neck of the woods that could do a whole evening unaccompanied. The rest kind of accepted their limitations and hung out at The Crown in Digbeth or The Prince of Wales.   That was Brum in the hay day.

I stuck my neck out a few times booking unaccompanied singers . But the results weren't encouraging.

Dave, we're old men, Jim and I. We saw what saw. we know what we know.   you're asking a lot for us to change our opinions at this stage in the game.

And I feel quite sure you played no part in the end of the Folk club Boom. set your mind at rest.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Stewie
Date: 09 Mar 19 - 10:50 PM

Well said, Al. I too am reasonably old [76] and am not about to change my opinions. I too love unaccompanied singing - Eddie Butcher singing his lengthy version of Coleraine Regatta is an all-time favourite of mine, as are Margaret Barry's Galway Shawl or Jeannie Robertson's My Son John. It is a pity that this style has disappeared from clubs and festivals. However, as a record collector, I also enjoy exploring the wealth of traditional folk and folk idiom that is available from talented musicians and writers all around the English-speaking world. And with Spotify, Youtube etc we have not previously had access to such a vast reservoir of music.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 03:09 AM

"well, Dickens famously had people queuing up for the next instalment. "
Yes he di Al, but he no longer has a captive audience, go find me a dozen people in your local whu have read him today (unless they went to schools where hiss works were taught)
I have read steadily since I was old enough to appreciate books, but I had never read Hardy or Dickens until I met Walter Pardon - he intoduced both Pat and I to their works - and Mrs Gaskell)
Shakespeare is still regarded as being for 'them' - now that they've started filming The RSC plays, we sit in cinemas with no more than a dozen people in them (about two dozen for Cumberbatch's Hamlet last week - but the Irish have a thing about 'good' literature !)
The point i was making was if something is important it's worth arguing for - folk song was important enough not to have to when I came to it, thanks top what's happened to the clubs it no longer is to enough people
You, with your political leanings, should have some feeling of the importance of songs which reflect your forefather lives - field labourers, mill workers, people fighting top make a living from the land, working men who were ripped from their homes to fight in wars, couples whe were torn apart because one of them wasn't 'good enough' to marry the other....
That's what our songs are - lumps of our history set in verse and music.... tragedy and comedy and everything in between all set into song
My grandfather was a merchant seaman - he sang shanties (not enough and not complete enough to make him a traditional singer, but enough to make him a carrier of his history)
His immediate forebears fled the Great Famine - there are many hundreds of songs that recorded those events
May dad went to Spain and came back singing songs his fellow volunteers made - in English and in Spanish
He became a navvy - not many songs, (but plenty of stories, which I still tell) - the bundle of songs about navvies that MacColl made are now part of my repertoire because I can link them with my own upbringing
Whether you like them or not, these songs and the form they were made in are important enough to have lasted for many centuries and have become part of our social history - they are every bit as enjoyable as Shakespeare and Dickens, and far less hard work to understand
In some ways, because of the burden they carry, they are more important - they are our unwritten history

"Derek Brimstone said the trad singers were like a plague"
I knew there must have been something about Brimstone that made me think him superficial - don't care what he thought abouut something he obviously didn't understand
Don't you find it disturbing that artists can make such snidey remarks about large groups of their fellow performers - I do
I worked with MacColl for over twenty years and never heard his say that about other singers yet it is MacColl who has the reputation for nastiness and the likes of Brimstone who are admired
Funny old work eh ?

I'm not asking you to change your opinions Al - as you say, we're old men (I'm a damn sight older than you); I don't care what you think, but I do care that the songs and music I love survives to give those coming after us have teh same opportunity to enjoy it that I had
Twenty years ago I would have said that Irish traditional music had no future, now thousands of youngsters are playing it as well as I've ever heard it played - it now has at least a tweo generation future and what was saved of the old traditions in the form of recordings and manuscripts stand a fair chance of lasting forever

Song has some way to go but the leaves are beginning to appear
Three years ago you hardly heard a traditional ballad sung here; a couple of friends, Aileen Lambert and Mick Fortune, started a project called Man, Woman and Child, got the backking of the National Library of Ireland and took mini concerts of some of Ireland's best singers of traditional songs to various places around Ireland
People began to sing the Child Ballads
It takes a little work and a little thought and a lot of dedication
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 03:52 AM

Believe it or not, Jim, I would love to see more traditional unaccompanied singers at folk clubs. I was not lucky enough to see the heyday of the singers but one of my favourite artists was Ian Woods who had a vast repertoire of songs he could sing unaccompanied, including some he had written that were indistiguishable from the "real thing". Mind you, I also saw Fred Jordan at a couple of concerts and can't honestly say I enjoyed a lot of his stuff. I think that may have been the venues though and am sure he would have come across better in more intimate surroundings. Sadly, both of those have passed away, as have the ones you have mentioned.

Wind the clock back 70 years and there was not the availability of instruments there is now, nor was there the mass communication media. Entertainment was at home or in the pub. Lots of people learned and performed unaccompanied songs. There is neither the need or inclination to do that now. Sad but the introduction of affordable instruments and instant global communications have done more to reduce the number of folk singers than a couple of Beatles songs ever did.

In my opinion.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 03:58 AM

Stewie, my son davy is a fine song and Jeannies version was inspiring.
I had a conversation with Derek Brimstone which was similar only he said that he would never book a certain revival singer who sang tradtionl material, because his fans would only come to see that singer but would not come back to see other guests he had booked.
That was possibly because they wanted trad songs not folk comedians or singer songwriters, they would presumably be people like Jim and me, that is why[in my opinion] the strongest CLUBS had good residents and did not have to rely upon guests.
in my opinion that tells me more about the audiences at Dereks club they wanted either singer song writers or folk entertainers, A REFLECTION OF DEREK HIMSELF.
But a similr argument could be made about derek brimstone, if he was to be booked at a predominantly tradtional song club. a lot of his fans would not turn up the next week to see fred jordan, it was a facile and shallow comment.
Derek was a very clever entertainer and skilled peformer but he had an agenda

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 04:10 AM

to be fair ,tradtional singers clubs had an agenda too, when i first walked in to a club in 1966 most club had a much more inclusive policy. i was quite happy to see joanne kelly sing blues or willie scott sing trad material, and still am,but i am not keen on singer songwriters who sing song after song about their failed personal relationships, taste is subjective

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 04:16 AM

"Derek was a very clever entertainer and skilled peformer but he had an agenda"
Annybody who stands up on stage and says that traditional singers are "a plague" has an agenda Dick - nobody with principle attacks fellow performers publicly in that manner in my book, no matter how entertaining they are
"I would love to see more traditional unaccompanied singers at folk clubs."
Unless you are prepared to do something about it that's little more than lip service for anybody involved in the 'folk scene'
No idea what winding the clock back 70 years means unless you are suggesting that traditional songs and singing no longer have a place in the present folk scene - it worked for audiences fine into the eighties, until the locusts moved in - it's happening here in Ireland today with singers Like Frank Harte, Joe Heaney and Geordie Hanna being annually celebrated with annual weekend singing events named after them - that's long been happening with Musicians like Willie Clancy, Joe Cooley, et al
If you don't traditional songno longer has a place oyu need to say - all I can reply is 'I'm sorry for your loss'
JIm

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 04:27 AM

To be fair, Dick, there are the type of singer songwriters you describe but there are some brilliant ones too. The ones you mention are generally limited to floor spots at their "home" clubs while the best go on to achieve national or global fame. Jim has mentioned Eric Bogle and Leon Rosselson who can fill venues wherever they go. My own favourite is Anthony John Clarke and I have never seen empty seats at any of his gigs. When one of the ones you mention sings of his (yes, they are usually blokes) latest lost love, most people to go the bar :-)

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 04:39 AM

No, I'm not prepared to do anything about it, Jim. I have had my share of head, heart and ear ache. I will leave the running of folk clubs to others. I would like to see more traditional singers but I am not passionate enough about that to do anything about it. I am not lamenting the passing, just saying it would be nice.

My point about 70 years ago, or maybe 60, is that the need and inclination for traditional singing was far higher. There is still some enthusiasm for it, as you so ably demonstrate, but it is not what it was before the advent of cheap Japanese guitars and mass media. I know there was more in the 80's too. I was there then. It does take a generation of two for the effects of major developments to be seen sometimes.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 04:59 AM

Dave , i was being very specific , i was not condemning singer songwriters in general, only certain particular kinds and at the same time explaining that is my subjective taste.
I run a festival, I have found when i booked Martin Carthy[ who sings trad material] and Andy Irvine i had full houseS.
I am not interested in your tastes or your opinions THERE ARE MANY PERFORMERS WHO ARE GOOD BUT WOULD NOT DRAW AUDENCES IN MY LOCATION. INCLUDING YOUR FAVOURITE SONG WRITER

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 05:17 AM

For those who might still be dropping in to this thread and do not read the Observer can I point out that there is an article in today's review section on what the majority of the general public appear to understand as Folk Song and singers.
Seemingly folk is on the rise again.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: r.padgett
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 06:01 AM

It is important to bear in mind (in my view) that folk concert guests are there to entertain the audience doing what they do best to fit the "sort" of entertainment they have become used to

I get regular invites to go to clubs ~ but my time is limited so I go where I can get a good sing ~ I am lucky to get 4 songs in a 3 hrs session ~ but I do get to join in tunes and choruses! normally

Rarely do I spend time and money paying to see "guests" ~ although I do go to see some guest I like!

I spent years MCeeing and always gave time to others who dropped in for a floor spot (btw)

No more invites unless I can do my bit please (sorry off topic)

Ray

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 06:42 AM

"Seemingly folk is on the rise again."
Given who the press puts forward as exmples, it most certainly is not
Since when has the media been a reliable guide to folk ?

" I have had my share of head, heart and ear ache. I"
None of this has ever been about you or me Dave - it's about the music and its importance
Your input here shows you that you are prepared to do something about it, unfortunately your choice is to add to the confusion
My favourite saying from the sixties has always been "If you're not part of the solution then you're a part of the problem
I found your earlier comments about instruments somewhat confusing
" Sad but the introduction of affordable instruments and instant global communications have done more to reduce the number of folk singers than a couple of Beatles songs ever did. "
Affordable instruments came with the revival and added to it greatly - they gave those who had no platform a chnce to learn and play in fromt of audiences and added greatly to what was a basically unaccompanied tradition - the guitar was the nearest I ever got to playing an instrument in public - I abandoned it when I found it difficult to sing and play competently
Not that all songs need or even, can benefit from instrumental accompaniment - they most certainly don't
My problem with instrumentation is when it is treated as an end in itself rather than aaccompaniment
I was very impressed with Martin Carthy's singing (and playing for a time) until it came to dominate everything he sang
He's a fine musician, but I found myself listening to what he was playing rather than what he was singing, so I stopped trying
He was the first this happened to for me, but the clubs became wannabe Martins (and I don't mean the superb guitars) - then came The Wannabe Wataerson wailers....
Peggy once said the wisest thing I have ever hreard about accompaniment - "it know it's working when the listener doesn't hear it, but misses it when it stops or goes wrong.
THere is nothing wrong with innovation as long as it doesn't get in the way f the main objective- to put over the objective of the song
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 06:54 AM

I am not interested in your tastes or your opinions

Nor I yours, Dick, nor I yours. As you say, all a matter of personal preference.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 07:02 AM

Sorry for the confusion,Jim. I should have said I believe the introduction of affordable instruments had an impact on unaccompanied folk song.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 07:07 AM

Guide Jim?

I mentioned it here purely in case somebody that might want to read it didn't know of it's existence.

I am assuming that you haven't.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 07:29 AM

I only ever saw Derek Brimstone once and that was during a week visiting folk clubs in Sussex in 1974. That was, my diary tells me, the Thursday. Most of the other nights were in Lewes and Brighton.
I saw Derek at the Coppersongs Club in Peacehaven. My diary entry for that evening, -
'D. Brimstone at the Coppersongs Club. Not impressed. Too much unfunny patter between forgettable singing. The Copper Family on the other hand were wonderful. Strangely enough, it was the Coppers that seemed to enjoy DB's performmance most and they were all over him when he finished.'

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 07:55 AM

Sorry - no Hoot, I haven't - can't get it here in the Wild west
My point remains that the Media have never been a reliable guide to what is and what isn't good folk (with the very occasional exception) and your last statement appears to contradct much of what people (not me) are saying here

" had an impact on unaccompanied folk song"
And I am agreeing with you Dave and saying that was an asset when they were used to accompany
i could have added that the music and amplification for the 'electric Folk' boom made the words of songs totally superfluous
On fact that has always fascinated me is that, while early twentieth century Ireland has a ready supply of fine instrumentalists, its singing traditions remained largely accompanied

Incidentally, the excellent Goilín Club in Dublin has just celebrated its fortieth year - totally unaccompanied singing to a high standard and a pleasure to visit
We've met Christie Moore there several times and on the occasions he has been booked for events, despite the residents inviting him to do so, he has refused to perform accompanied.
The other club worthy of mention is 'The Night Before Larry Was Stretched' in Smithfield's Cobblestones, Dublin- another largely unaccompanied excellent club, faily newly set up by young singers singing well
Very encouraging      
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Stewie
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 07:55 AM

Sandman, thanks for the correction. I don't know why I typed 'John' instead of 'David'. I possibly had the title of that other grisly tale at the back of my mind.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 10:26 AM

Well I Do care about what you think Jim. You're someone I have a great respect for.

Derek Brimstone was my mentor in the same way that Macoll was yours. i recorded two of his albums. Occcasionally did the PA for him, booked him, etc.

there was nothing superficial about him. He just didn't share your opinions about folk music.

He inspired dozens of musicians, and he was the proud inheritor of a thread of performers in English folk clubs - singers/sophisticated raconteurs.

he may not have said plague. But that was what he described. Folk Clubs which had booked him , Noel Murphy, Bernard Wrigley, Jeremy Taylor, traddies who talked to the audience like Swan Arcade, etc. - following articles in Melody Maker booked Carthy, or Bellamy. no explanations, a style totally out of the comprehension of a MOR audience. And by the second half the folk club was no more. Like a trapeze artist with diarrhoea was what he actually said.

You probably thought those folk clubs weren't worth keeping ... some of us did.

Like I say, i don't think we all need to think the same about folk music.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 10:31 AM

Saw the Observer article, Hoot. Excellent, promoting young folk singers all with a great respect for tradition. Large 4-pager. There you go again, Jim, dismissing something you haven't even seen. The media rarely have contact with folk music but this one is certainly to be encouraged. I am pretty certain even you would approve. I might post some of it later. It's too long to post all of it.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 11:05 AM

"There you go again, Jim, dismissing something you haven't even seen"
I' dismissing something I know to be inaccurate because of what has been argued for here Steve
Some time ago Dave put up a Wiki page which swore that the folk scene was undergoing a boom with 186 clubs - here we have 'inappropriate" ballads being "tolerated and Ed Sheeran and The Kinks bing argued for as appropriate
Personally, I'd rather trust you guys than the Observer - you tell me exactly what I want to know every time

I saw Derek Brimstone on several occasions - as somebody above intimated, someone who had opted for the comedic side of performance
I didn't really want to make an issue of what I thought of him but I don't react well to the traddies as..... however you said whet he said
I never resnted the existence of any club when the revival was doing better than it is - if I didn't like what they did I didn't go a second time - end of story
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 12:27 PM

""There you go again, Jim, dismissing something you haven't even seen""
When have I dismissed something I haven't seen Steve - remind me
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 12:36 PM

yawn

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 12:45 PM

When have I dismissed something I haven't seen Steve - remind me.

>>>>>the Media have never been a reliable guide to what is and what isn't good folk<<<<<<

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 12:56 PM

"the Media have never been a reliable guide to what is and what isn't good fol"
Best you can come up with Steve
You are just repeating what you said last time when you suggeted I made a habit of it
"There you go again, Jim,"
Uncorroborated innuendo again tsk-tsk
You are not suggesting that the media is a source of information on reliable on things folk, are you ?
It would go a way to explaining some things if you were
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 12:58 PM

"yawn"
Long past your bed-time by the sound of things
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 12:59 PM

Jude Rogers--opening paragraph.

In 2019, British and Irish folk music is more exciting and urgent than it's been for years. Much of it sounds powerfully raw and immediate, with many groups recognising the politics of our times in their songs, and incorporating contemporary stories within more ancient musical motifs. here are bands confronting the legacies of abortion rights; the oppression of women, homosexuals and other minority communities; the loss of minority language; the refugee crisis; and stories of people who have stood up to hate. they're not doing so in browbeating, bluntly obvious ways either. Some are uncovering small but powerful stories of overlooked people, whose achievements we can learn from. Others are creating more oblique and moving work, highlighting the injustices that linger in our society.


Here are the featured artistes in brief

Grace Petrie: Leicester-based singer-songwriter and activist who found her calling after the 2010 general election.

Lankum: The Dublin four-piece who write about abortion rights and poverty, are known for their full-throttle live shows.

Lisa O'Neill: Irish musician tackling difficult subjects with other-worldly vocals.

The Young'uns: Teesside trio inspired by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger whose singalong music celebrates real heroes.

Sorry 5 pages, not 4 as I stated before.

Lankum and Young'uns are well-known on the British folk circuit, singing plenty of traditional material also.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 02:02 PM

I've got to admit, I've never been to one of those cinema RSC productions.

We used to go to Stratford so often that the parking attendant outside the theatre who kept our disabled parking slot knew us really well. He used to tell us if we were in for a good show. (He'd never actually been inside the theatre to see a play, but he'd heard what everyone said coming out,)

Nowadays, Denise too ill with rheumatoid to sit through a performance.

Yesterday I was in Bridport and going past a market stall. There was a dvd of Richard III , I'd never seen before. Ron Cook as crookback. The bloke who played Jarvis in Porridge as Hastings. three quid - a bargain!

I loved it but they hadn't cut a single line - as far as I could see.   Finished watching dvd 1 at 3am last night.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 03:23 PM

Steve
Are you serious ?
They are totally unrepresentative of what's happening in Ireland - as far as "raw and immediate - I would say at least are poor repetitiveness of what was happening three decades ago - dreadful
If that's what you think godd, - you can keep it, I'm afraid
As far from narrative folk song as you can possibly get
Thank you for making my point about the media being no guide far better than I ever could
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 05:04 PM

well its like I was saying before. if your belief in these acts helps you to take a proactive enjoyment of folk music. Go for it.

You don't need Jim or my approbation.

If it produces some really good experience for you. We will be pleased for you.

I'm not saying we'll understand it. But bon chance! as they say in Peckham!

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 06:07 PM

>>>>>>You are not suggesting that the media is a source of information on reliable on things folk, are you ?<<<<<<

Not for one moment.
BUT this particular article is well-written and researched and if you don't like what they've got to say that's your problem. Perhaps you can tell us the difference between the songs they're writing and those written by MacColl for instance. At least one group there, an English group well established on the scene, give their biggest influence as MacColl & Seeger.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Stewie
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 06:35 PM

It's a tad curmudgeonly to depict Lankum and O'Neil's music as 'dreadful' even if it is not to your liking. I suppose Daoiri Farrell, Landless, Terence O'Flaherty and others would be similarly dismissed. Would Phil Callery get a guernsey - he's older and sings
unaccompanied?

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 07:35 PM

"It's a tad curmudgeonly to depict Lankum and O'Neil's music as 'dreadful' "
I didn't specify them specifically - I've seen them perform live
I think there are better groups - not my favourite form of singing anyway
"At least one group there, an English group well established on the scene, give their biggest influence as MacColl & Seeger."
Doesn't show it - whatever theitr claimed influences MacColl and Seeger write word-based songs - none of those are
Well written - not enough of it to judge, but it shows no knowledge of nor feel for folk music - just a bunch of names
"Would Phil Callery get a guernsey"
I've heard Phil song on his own and enjoyed what he did
I have no desire to discuss my or anybody's personal tastes otherwise mid career Sinatra would be up here
This is (or should be) about how these people fit in with folk song proper - none of them do - or maybe I've missed something
As the ban said in 'Round Midnight', - you have the tunes but where's your story ?"
All this only serves to convincing me that the folk scene has really gone down the pan if this is what passes for folk
Quite honestly, it leaves me with the feeling that the research side of folk has gone over to 'The Dark Side'
This really is an amorphous mess
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 19 - 08:36 PM

Its meant to be amorphous.

Its not a linear thing like the grades in the civil service.

All kinds of people in different places doing different things.

And its not obligatory for anyone to like them all.

Thank god!

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 03:35 AM

"Its meant to be amorphous."
No it most certainly isn't Al - if you give your music a general title, in this case, folk, that is what it is about, otherwise you may as well jut call in 'music'
I think the names cited on this Observer article lifts the lid (for me at least) on what's gone wrong with the folk scene
As youngsters, we came looking for an alternative to the pap we were being fed, a chance from being passive recipients of our entertainment and instead, something we could at least get near to and participate in ourselves
Folk song was that 'something - smallish rooms in venues were we could talk about the songs we heard and become singers ourselves if we wished
Once you became part of that, you could take it as far as you wanted.
We could research (I did, almost immediately, we could meet the source singers - incredible trips in time machines; Pat and I spent over thirty years taling to singers who represented several generations of the music I had become hooked on   
You could learn the techniques of singing, not by reading books but simply by experimenting with your own voice - along with like mined others if you were lucky - we were, Iwas asked to join one of the leading experimenters in the techniques of singing, my first contact with them inspired me to set up a singing workshop - last we set up one in London that lasted about fifteen years.
Some singers became writers on the subject - half a singing duet - George Deabcon and Marion Ross, wrote a magnificent book on poet, George Crabbes folk connection, I remember David Atkinson when he was singer Dave Atkinson...
My mate, Bob Thomson, who sang with his mate, Mike Herring, became a leading researcher on broadsides and was sadly poached by Gainesville University and became Professor Robert Thomson....

The folk scene in those days was extremely democratic in that anybody who wished to could be part of it on par with the best - it was ours
Now we seem to have returned to bums on seats being sung at by media chosen superstars - back to what we escaped from
Sure - we have the sing-around clubs, what's left of them, but all the examples of 'success' that have been put up here are those who have 'made it' in something that bears little resemblance to the songs sung by Jeannie Robertson, Walter Pardon, Brigid Tunney... and all those who passed on the real thing
The most disturbing thing is on the research front which seems to be made up of a bunch of ivory towerists who belive they can re-define our music as the mood takes them, throw over a centuries resarch in the bin and who seem to believe they know more than Child, Sharp, Lord, Lomax... and the rest of them put together
We're back to being bums in seats - passive recipients - all over again
May be success to you - not me, I'm afraid
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 03:36 AM

Well put, Al.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 03:42 AM

Jim, just for absolute clarity there are 3 issues here. If I get this right you are criticising
1 The Journalism here
2 The songs written by the performers
3 The performers themselves?

And we are obviously referring to 'contemporary folk songs using folk forms and functions' (your phrase). I prefer 'in the folk idiom' but that's just my personal choice.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 05:05 AM

THat was lovely description Jim of how the folk revival started. But ....when the genie out of the bottle. we lose control.

I bet Ewan would have understood. After all...what people did to his songs was nobody's business.

My one successful commercially successful song was buggered up by the record company and the publisher. The Bayern Munich fans turned it into a chant on the terraces!

We lose control, once these things are in the public domain. That goes for ideas. Its like Einstein and Hiroshima. We just don't know where creativity will lead.

By the standards of Einstein, the folk revival has been a howling success.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 07:20 AM

Not critcising Steve - they are beyond my knowledge or experience for me to be able to do that
They have no claim to be fork songs nor based on folk styles or objectives
Haven'tr been given enough of the article to criticise it as a piece of journalism but certainly enough to know that it's been written by somedody who knows as much about folk song as I do about The Ring Cycle

"We lose control, once these things are in the public domain. "
Great reason not to let the music industry get its grubby hands on it

That is exactly what has happened - the musical movement that was set up to escape the music industry has been sold into its hands again
No music can claim success of any sort if it doesn't have its own identity - we had one of thoose once, now nobody can agree what it is
sory Steve - nodding dog responses don't mean very much if they ignore the crux of this discussion
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 08:36 AM

I think to be fair to the music industry (though why I should be, I REALLY can't think)

I think I can safely state, they would have no designs on any of the folk clubs I've been in recently.

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 08:47 AM

"I think I can safely state, they would have no designs on any of the folk clubs I've been in recently."
No - but those booked judge success by how far the music industry's greasy pole they manage to claw their way up by way of media driven glittering prizes
Unfortunately, far too many folk enthusiast or potential ones wouldn't be seen dead in many of today's clubs
Jim

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 09:00 AM

I had a great night as guest at cork singers club, every song was unaccompanied and plenty of variety of songs, songs in irish, songs in english, thoroughly enjoyable

Subject: RE: UK 60s Folk Club Boom?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Mar 19 - 09:01 AM

There weren't any guests in the clubs I frequent regularly. Everyone virtually I knew is dead who was a club pro. It was another era. like I say - they've done something different, and its their world.

I go and see Wizz Jones now (he's getting on). I'd go and see Brian peters -if he came any where near me, Sunjay - cos I taught his dad guitar, Steve Hicks and Lynn Goldbourn (cos I've known Steve Forty odd years).

None of them are doing it cos they can't get on the X factor.