Pop songs done in the 'folk style'

Subject: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 12:50 PM

I'm hoping that this can be an interesting and good natured thread :-)

There are some pop songs that lend themselves to being performed acoustically and in what I tend to term as the "folk style". I am not really sure I can describe what that style is exactly. Acoustic is part of it. More often than not quite laid back. Unobtrusive backing. A certain quality that I am sure most people can recognise. Anyhow, I have been to many different folk clubs and they all seem to have their own pop standards done in this style.

At Swinton, for instance, my mate Mike does a lovely version of the Beatles' "Blackbird". A number of our residents get together to sing "Meet me on the corner" A capella. "Blue Moon", played on tin whistle and mandolin, is tagged onto "Nancy Whisky". The vast majority of stuff at the clubs I visit is, of course, traditional and contemporary folk and so it should be. But I find it quite pleasant that some pop is given the folk treatment. It's almost like getting something from the music industry for free :-)

What do they do at your club? What do you do yourself? What have you heard and thought "that works!"? Not talking contemporary folk or folk that has made it to the mainstream here. Just out and out pop given a folk makeover.

DtG

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 01:03 PM

Ade Edmundson And The Bad Shepherds had their brief moment of media atttention
folkifying punk and new wave songs...

Old punks and their mates had been doing that for a laugh for years,
but Edmundson had the fame and showbiz/music biz contacts to act as though he'd invented the idea...

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 01:05 PM

Colours, played on guitar or concertina can sound folk style, universal soldier both are pop songs, but sound bit folk style

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 01:51 PM

Steeleye Span recorded Buddy Holly's song ' Rave On ' unacompannied, it was excellent.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 01:51 PM

Steeleye's a-capella 'Rave on'.

I seem to recall that somebody (Carthy? Burland?) came up with 'Pinball Wizard' to the tune of Claudy Banks.

What about June and the Oyster's treatment of 'Love will tear us apart'
(Joy Division)?

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 02:06 PM

Performing copyrighted pop songs in a folk club ?

Just hope the PRS find out.

Just a thought.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 02:21 PM

There's also that recent Folk Disco CD..

Again, another fairly obvious idea many ordinary amateur folks have had a laugh doing over the years..

Some tracks work well, others don't...

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Neil D
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 03:23 PM

Richard Thompson covered the Brittany Spears song "Oops I Did It Again" on his album 1000 Years of Popular Music (2006), and in addition included a medieval-style version titled "Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt"

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 03:34 PM

Just hope the PRS find out.

At the club I was most involved with the landlord paid the PRS live music fee. I know PRS representatives watch for any live music being advertised and insist that the appropriate arrangements are made.

Dick - Yes, I'd forgotten the Donovan stuff. Don't you think that could have been reasonably called contemporary folk though?

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 04:10 PM

I was a teenage Donovan fan..

Back then he was definitely considered a 'folk' singer...

[it's basically his fault I'm a mudcatter...]

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 04:27 PM

Whoops,

My apologies, I should have checked that before hitting send. It should have read
"Just hope the PRS does NOT find out".

Even if the landlord does have a PRS licence do you not have to complete a form showing the copyright material that has been performed to enable the correct writer to get paid. That's how it used to be.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 04:53 PM

No,it's a blanket fee for a small acoustic music club. We toyed with the idea of only performing traditional music and filling in a form to that effect but the landlord was happy to pay the small fee as it was more than covered in extra beer sales. :-)

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 04:53 PM

'Some Other Guy', by Lieber/Stoller/Barrett and recorded by the Big Three and the Beatles, is a an out-and-out rocker, but works rather well played gently, all in 7ths, finger-style.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Marje
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 06:11 PM

Loads of pop songs from the 60s and early 70s lend themselves to the folk style, simply because for some years folk and pop overlapped: folk became almost mainstream, and was not regarded as a niche, minority taste. As the 70s progressed, the genres diverged and pop became more synthetic, with studio-produced sounds that couldn't easily be reproduced in performance without a lot of electronic razzamatazz. I could give examples but there are hundreds. When my daughters, in the 1980s, first heard the Beatles, they thought they sounded more like folk than pop.

In recent years there's been a bit of a swing back to a folky, acoustic sound, with songs that can be picked up and sung by a single guitarist or ukulele player. I am not well up in modern pop, but try songs by Ed Sheeran, Passenger, George Ezra, Jamie Lawson, Fleet Foxes, etc.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 08:44 PM

Dave, prformers who get paid should be filling in PRS AND NOTIFYING PRS OF THE POPSONGS AND THE COMPOSER

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 09:43 PM

The AC/DC hit, You Shook Me All Night Long, has been given the laid back, acoustic treatment by Australian folkies Dev'lish Mary, https://www.discogs.com/Devlish-Mary-Devlish-Mary/release/9777961

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: gillymor
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 10:35 PM

Top of my head, John Hartford did a fun version of Piece of My Heart which Janis Joplin had a hit with and I've heard the Door's People are Strange performed by more than one Bluegrass band and at least one Klezmer band.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 01:43 AM

Here's the Sensitive New Age Cowpersons take on the U2 song, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 01:49 AM

Actually, the Sensitive New Age Cowpersons did quite a few of these bluegrass versions of pop hits. Wander around Youtube, you'll find It's a Long Way to the Top, Let the Sunshine In, and Viva Las Vegas.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 02:40 AM

prformers who get paid should be filling in PRS AND NOTIFYING PRS

I didn't know that, Dick. I do know that there is a set fee paid by the owner of manager of the venue and this covered all live music at our club. Sounds like the PRS are getting paid twice for some songs! There was a thread about this type of thing some time back. I'll see if I can resurrect it.

Some good examples of folk artists and bands covering pop music above but I was thinking more along the lines of singers at folk clubs rather than recordings by professionals.

Any of you or your local singers perform folky covers of surprising songs?

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 02:48 AM

PS to my comment about a PRS thread. I am not refreshing one because there are dozens! Put PRS in the filter box and select "All" to see what I mean. Maybe we shouldn't turn this into another one.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Fyldeplayer
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 04:20 AM

Our trio Reunion Lane have done Shout, by Tears for Fears. Great chorus, many folkies love it ( acoustic bass, guitar, duet concertina + 3 harmony vocals ). Wish You Where Here as duo with melodeon / guitar works nice.
It's coming back to that " what is ..." again. Judging by the recent visits to folk clubs outside my usual patch seems anything goes!

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 04:32 AM

There are lots of examples of folk versions of pop songs by bluegrass bands, from the Dillards doing Beatles covers in the sixties to Thunder and Rain doing Sweet Child of Mine only recently. But as someone has already suggested it’s nothing unusual given the blurring of the boundaries between the different genres of popular music, which is never a bad thing if it winds us purists up a bit.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Howard Jones
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 05:12 AM

PRS have a "pubs and clubs" process for small venues which aren't picked up by their other sampling methods. Members who play at these venues can submit a set list and royalties get paid. It does work, although I'm cautious about reporting some venues in case they don't have an appropriate PRS licence.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Howard Jones
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 05:15 AM

Swan Arcade often included a capella versions of pop songs, of which my favourite is 'Lola'.

In my view the Oysterband/June Tabor version of 'Love will tear us apart' is better than the original, which I find a bit emotionless in its deliver, but I know some will regard that as sacrilege.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 07:50 AM

Peter Bellamy, I think it was, used to finish The White Cockade with Since my love has left me I've found a new place to dwell/It's down the end of Lonely Street, it's called Heartbreak Hotel... (etc).

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 08:11 AM

Isn't there a bluegrass Dark Side of the Moon?

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 08:22 AM

I think someone else did "The White Cockup" with verses from a number of pop songs. Possibly Fred Wedlock. Not quite what I had in mind but good fun all the same.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 09:46 AM

Mary McCaslin did some wonderful versions of pop songs in a "folk" style. I especially liked her version of the Beatles "Things We Said Today".

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Daniel Kelly
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 09:51 AM

The Spooky Men do some great acapella version of pop songs, like Dancing Queen.

I played an acoustic set at a Folk Heavy Metal concert this year, then did a folkish cover of one song from each of the eight bands that played. Surprising the great lyrics behind all the screaming, Questfest.

Daniel,

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: gillymor
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 09:52 AM

I used to perform "Red Rubber Ball", "He'll Have to Go", "Walking After Midnight" and "Big Iron" in the midst of a set of traditional tunes and songs and more contemporary "folk songs" with various partners.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Hootennanny
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 10:35 AM

Don't forget as one old pops song said:

"It ain't watcha do, its the way that you do it"

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 11:08 AM

I agree

...and that's what gets results

:D

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Stringsinger
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 11:34 AM

Most of the songs that we think of as traditional songs are usually attributable to an author/composer. One definition of a folk song is that it is a variant of an originally composed song. Dan Emmett, for example, wrote Old Dan Tucker and Dixie.
Stephen C. Foster write Angelina Baker which became Angline the Baker fiddle tune.
Maud Irving and Joseph Fillbrick Webster wrote Wildwood Flower before AP Carter changed it a bit. Woody Guthrie never wrote an original tune, nor did Dylan. They took supposedly traditional tunes for their texts. The tunes probably had composers too.

The "folk style" just means that the songs were played without amplification on acoustic instruments or were written on acoustic guitar. Remember that Old Dan Tucker, Hoosen Johnny, and even Barbara Allen (which resurfaced in print) were the pop songs of their day. Dixie certainly was. And I used to think Wildwood Fla-er was the national anthem of the South in the Fifties.

We Shall Overcome could fit the category of a folk song and to say it was popular is an understatement.

What we call folk songs of the future will probably be the Beatles' songs or maybe Elvis's. Or Dylan's.

There are so many songs written in the folk style such as by Paxton, Phillips, Ochs, Woody, Pete and the list goes on without being so-called "traditional". Elizabeth Cotton wrote Freight Train and Gussie L. Davis wrote Goodnight Irene.

The deal with folk and pop is that it's sometimes hard to separate them. What they have in common is that they are both accessible.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 11:46 AM

'Some Other Guy', by Lieber/Stoller/Barrett and recorded by the Big Three and the Beatles, is a an out-and-out rocker, but works rather well played gently, all in 7ths, finger-style - there's a wonderful guitar solo in the Big Three's version, likewise their version of Zip Up Yer Doo Dah!!

Some Other Guy!

Zip Up!

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 12:07 PM

There is a guy who calls himself "The Little Unsaid" and he does a grand acoustical version of Kate Bushs' "Waking The Witch"
Also does anyone recall a sitar player called, I think, Ashwan Batish who played country music. His version of white Lightning is fabulous. I have the album,but I don't think it has ever been released on cd.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 12:45 PM

As mentioned above, just about anything tune wise can shoehorn Pinball Wizard lyrics in it, ditto Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.

Of course, other than music to accompany a raffle, the term 'folk' can be loosely applied and indeed is. A ballad about an event in history? Anything from "I don't like Mondays' to "Smoke on the Water" or songs that sum of prevailing social conditions and how people felt about them such as "The Killing of Georgie parts I and II" or "Rocket Man / Golden Brown / Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds / etc"

Not a pair of trousers anywhere near their tits there....

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 01:28 PM

The trouble about doing 'pop' songs in a 'folk' style is that it upsets the purists (especially in UK) & you wouldn't want to do that, would you?

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 01:37 PM

Forget about the folk purists for a minute...

Anyone stopped to consider the feelings of pop and rock stars
having their songs abused by a bunch of amateurish folkie pillocks
with ukuleles and other barely learned xmas present folk instruments...!!!???

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 01:51 PM

I do know some Metallica purists who were highly offended:

Iron Horse - Enter Sandman

Oh well.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 05:45 PM

Smokey Robinson’s ‘Tracks of my Tears’ works very well, done gently with acoustic guitar, as does Deacon Blue’s ‘Dignity’.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 06:33 PM

Re Stringsinger's post above I think that just about describes how most if not all folk songs originate. If a song wasn't popular it would never be remembered by enough people to enable it to last. Unfortunately this simple straightforward logic upsets some people.

Regarding the feelings of pop and rock stars "tough titty", once you have made your efforts public you lose control of who and how your material is used by the people. Unless of course they try to claim it as their own and try earning from it.

Not trying to start an argument Frank but did Dan Emmett really write Dixie? Howard and Judith Sacks wrote a book "Way Up NORTH in DIXIE" where authorship is claimed by the Snowden family of musicians from Emmett's home town.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 06:53 PM

I used to do a few from the Rolling Stones repertoire: "Goodbye Ruby Tuesday", "Play with Fire".
Also some Proclaimers' songs: "500 miles" and "Sunshine on Leith"
Runrig: on the borders between folk, folk/rock and pop: "Precious Years", "The Old Boys", and if I could cope with the Gaelic "An Ubhal Ard" and "Cearcal a Chuain".
I'm only a session singer or rare "floor spotter" so not into big public performance stuff.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 02:29 AM

Phil Hare makes a good job of many pop songs including Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" and medleying Planxty Irwin with Lola!

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 03:28 AM

Dave Burland used to do a great version of "Love of the Common People" in DADGAD, if my memory serves. I think he said his children had been playing the Paul Young version...

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 03:35 AM

Dick Gaughan used to do a mean version of 'Ruby Tuesday' if my memory isn't letting me down.

As someone else has already pointed out, what we now consider to be 'folk song' were the only the pop hits of their day 200 years or so ago.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 04:03 AM

RE: From: Neil D - PM Date: 01 Jun 19 - 03:23 PM

Richard Thompson covered the Brittany Spears song "Oops I Did It Again" on his album 1000 Years of Popular Music (2006), and in addition included a medieval-style version titled "Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WGsMplGxU

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 04:13 AM

Richard Grainger did a good folk sounding version of a Harry Chapin song The Shortest Story

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 04:18 AM

My friend, Simon Johnson from Grimsby, used to do a great folky-sounding version of Harry Chapin’s ‘Corey’s Comin’.

Subject: RE: Pop songs done in the 'folk style'
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 04:58 AM

All these posts sound very healthy to me- good to hear that many singers are not making daft distinctions- it reinforces my view that a good song is a good song & that folk/traditional song is a style (or many different ones) rather than a repertoire.

mind you, I don't think singing a slavish copy of a pop song is a great idea, even with a 'folk style' whatever that is, there has to be a bit of individuality involved here.
There has to be some doubt about famous 'folk' singers who slot a pop song into their performances of 'traditional' songs- maybe it's a gimmick rather than anything else?