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Folk epiphany?
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Subject: Folk epiphany? From: GUEST,Anne Neilson Date: 23 Apr 19 - 05:11 PM How many of us can look back and identify a 'key moment' -- that particular time when you heard the music that drew you in to a real involvement? I know what mine is, and what drew in a few others, but I'd be keen to hear from people of different vintages (I'm about to be 75) and from different locations (Scotland, for me). |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Jeri Date: 23 Apr 19 - 07:41 PM High school. Folk Culture and Oral Tradition class. Vaughn Ward played John Roberts & Tony Barrand singing Spencer the Rover. I'd never heard the English open 5th harmony before, and I was hooked. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: GUEST,Anne Neilson Date: 23 Apr 19 - 07:58 PM Just listened to that, Jeri -- when was it that you heard it, and what would you say what drew you in? |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Phil Cooper Date: 23 Apr 19 - 10:16 PM There was/is a radio show in Chicago called the midnight special which y parents would let us listen to as kids in the mid/late sixties through the seventies. My dad also took my older brother and me to a Pete Seeger concert when I was five. What really seemed to get me hooked was hearing songs by Phil Ochs. I later developed an interest in traditional music. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Neil D Date: 23 Apr 19 - 11:52 PM I owe my love of folk music to my late brother, who was my elder by 2+ years. He took me to see "Bound For Glory" (Woody Guthrie biopic) when it first came out when I was 15. Over the next couple years he took me to see Pete, Arlo, Holly Near, Ronnie Gilbert, Utah Phillips. He also had some Phil Ochs albums I plaid the grooves off of. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Mr Red Date: 24 Apr 19 - 03:35 AM and ex GF took me to a Folk Club. But what really kicked in was divorce. What I call mindspace. It left a hole in my mind that was filled with "my" preferences and I met a few lasses who had the same idea. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Richard Mellish Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:08 AM Mine was Peter Kennedy's "Ballads of Britain" series of radio programmes some time in the early 1960s. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: DMcG Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:44 AM Mine was in stages. I loved the "Singing Together" series at school, and then I went to folk clubs in the late sixties and early 70's. Then I had two "breakthrough" moments. I borrowed a copy of "The Young Tradition" LP from the Uni library and was blown away by the unaccompanied close harmony - almost all the folk I had heard in clubs was solo and to a guitar accompaniment. The sleeve notes referred to the Copper Family and within a day or two I had got hold of recordings of Bob and Ron, which even surpassed the Young Tradition. After my first degree my flatmate went off to study in Oxford and we went down to visit. On arrival, Him: "You know there is a big May day procession of dance through the town centre? You are in it." I hadn't done any folk dance since primary school, so it was, as they say, a challenge. But afterwards we went back to the college with the dance group and really enjoyed it, so afterwards joined up with a group when I got home. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: GUEST,SteveT Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:52 AM Although I’d listened to and enjoyed the likes of the Dubliners, Spinners and Clancy Brothers on the wireless, it was a singer from a local Manchester club who came as a guest to our school folk club that provided my epiphany moment. The moment in question was when he simply sat on a chair and sang an unaccompanied version of ‘She moved through the fair’. Up until that point, although I always sang to myself, I’d always associated being able to do anything ‘in public’ meant you had to be able to play an instrument. Discovering unaccompanied traditional song was a turning point for me. (It’s also led to more than half a century of possible torture for folk club, session and singaround attendees as I try to recreate that moment myself (though hardly ever singing ‘She moved through the fair.’) |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: GUEST,Psssst Date: 24 Apr 19 - 05:12 AM Without any doubt my "Folk epiphany" came about as a result of hearing those Folk legends the Everly Brothers, or was it The Beatles? |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: GUEST,Akenaton Date: 24 Apr 19 - 07:06 AM Scottish West Coast community 1950's manly Gaelic song and a lot of "country dancing".....not the normal stuff. the whole community were held together by the music, even the non-Gaelic speakers were involved very emotionally....they could sing the words though they did not understand them all.....it was a sort of emotional glue. Then on to the revival and its been downhill ever since. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Vic Smith Date: 24 Apr 19 - 07:49 AM My uncle Davy played fiddle, banjo or drums in a band that played in the village halls around Edinburgh and my granny sang songs from her nineteenth century Aberdeenshire youth. Jimmy Shand was one of the two heroes (alongside Paul Robeson) of the large extended family in Edinburgh, but I just thought of this as family music and song rather than part of anything more widespread. When dad left the Royal Navy the family eventually settled in Portsmouth. One day my history teacher at grammar school said to the 16-year old Vic, "I often see you at local jazz clubs, but never at the folk clubs, I think you'd like the music just as much. Why don't you come to the 'Railway' on Wednesday?" I asked if I could bring my girlfriend along. (This was the lovely 15-year-old who has now been my wife for over 50 years and is outstandingly the best thing that has happened to me.) The guest singer was a banjo-player and singer. She sang mostly American songs and I assumed that she was American but the more I research the singers who were in folk clubs in the late 1950s, I think that it must have been Lisa Turner. One of the songs she sung really caught me:- "Single girl, single girl, "Wait a minute," I thought, "That's just like one of Granny's songs":- " Fin Ah wis single Ah used tae powder puff. I knew nothing of versions or varaints but that was the road to Damascus moment. I wanted to find out more about it. I was hooked and I still am today, still trying to find out more about it. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Raggytash Date: 24 Apr 19 - 01:04 PM One of my earliest memories is my Grandmother singing to me 'He comes to our window and whistles me out his hands in his pocket his shirt hanging out ......' |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Big Al Whittle Date: 24 Apr 19 - 01:37 PM i suppose the Americans - The Kingston Trio on the radio. I wasn't very keen on the folksingers like Hall and Macregor who came on the Tonight Show. Singing together on the radio didn't really do it for me either. Oak publications folksong collections. When your knowledge increased. you re-evaluated all the folksong that you had absorbed |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Andy7 Date: 24 Apr 19 - 02:28 PM The thing that most hooked me and reeled me in was experiencing for the first time the rousing harmonies of the Middle Bar Singers in the Anchor at Sidmouth. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Bill D Date: 24 Apr 19 - 03:11 PM About 1960... Pete Seeger was invited to sing at Wichita State Univ. by the 'folk' group in the Classical Guitar Society. Then a while later, the New Lost City Ramblers came to town.. then Bob & Eveyln Beers. Soon there was a local folk group doing hootenenannies and I found Jean Redpath records in the city library. Life has never been the same... |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Steve Gardham Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:55 PM I'd like to say it was my grandparents singing their repertoire, but actually it was hearing the Watersons wall of sound in harmony that sent me back to my grandparents' songs in the 60s. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Raggytash Date: 24 Apr 19 - 05:07 PM I should have added I was about 3 years old at the time! I was also very fortunate that my Father always encouraged me to sing. Most weekends we would visit one or other Grandparents. I would be sitting 'diddle for middle' in the back of our Ford Anglia and singing all the way there ......... and back! I owe a lot to both my beloved maternal Grandmother and my Father. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Donuel Date: 24 Apr 19 - 05:13 PM Early Pete Seeger records form my parents |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Steve Gardham Date: 24 Apr 19 - 05:18 PM HI Rt Funnily enough my grandparents never sang 'Still I Love him' but my mother who is still alive at 95 sang a very full version which is going on our next album sung by the great Sam Martyn. Her version starts He stands on the doorstep and whistles me out His hands in his pockets, his shot (shirt) hanging out. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: Joe_F Date: 24 Apr 19 - 05:47 PM When I was a kid (1940s) we had Burl Ives on the radio & on records. My highschool (Putney, VT, 1950-'54) had a vigorous informal folk tradition. The students taught each other songs & instruments. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: GUEST,Anne Neilson Date: 25 Apr 19 - 03:59 AM It's lovely reading all your choices! I was lucky to have an inspirational teacher at secondary school (1956 - 62) who started a folk club, cashing in on the popularity and accessibility of skiffle. There was no 'audition' process, everyone was equally encouraged and valued, there was a huge range of material which was generously shared (books, LPs and reel-to-reel tapes) and a equally huge range of influences. By the time I had left school and university in Glasgow, Scotland (1965) I had seen live performances by The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Cisco Houston as well as superb Scottish performers like Jeannie Robertson, Flora McNeill, Jimmy McBeath and upcoming 'youngsters' like Ray and Archie Fisher, Enoch Kent and Andy Hunter. I can't say it was any one particular performance that was my Road to Damascus moment, but I have a very vivid memory of the energy that was part of all these experiences and -- probably more importantly -- that these songs spoke with an honesty and directness that I found nowhere else. |
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Subject: RE: Folk epiphany? From: John P Date: 25 Apr 19 - 10:48 AM When I was in high school a friend played Steeleye Span's Now We Are Six album. The Two Magicians is what stuck in my mind. I didn't actually start playing folk music for another twelve years, though. |
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