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Folk music is definitely on the way back
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Subject: Folk music is definately on the way back From: annamill Date: 27 Jan 00 - 08:24 PM I just heard Odetta on a sunscreen commercial!! Singing her wonderful Click Song!! Right next to Rap on fast food commercials!! Isn't this wonderful?? What's the web sign for sarcasm? Love, annap |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Amos Date: 27 Jan 00 - 08:54 PM Try < |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: annamill Date: 27 Jan 00 - 09:07 PM Ummm.... actually it was Mariam Makeba... how do you do oops in web talk? Same thought though! Love, annap |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 27 Jan 00 - 09:18 PM How about :-o |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: GUEST,_gargoyle Date: 27 Jan 00 - 09:36 PM Thankfully, ................... have never developed the TV addiction
Therefore
Have you considered other ways to occupy your time? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Lonesome EJ Date: 27 Jan 00 - 10:39 PM On Steve Earle's recent album, El Corazon, he opens with a song named Christmas in Washington.
There's foxes in the henhouse
So come back Emma Goldman We could do worse than a resurrection of Folk, it's sense of honor, fairness and decency. Damn good tunes, too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Date: 28 Jan 00 - 06:41 AM Well, some of you purists may not consider it folk but the Van & Lonnie CD was my local MVC store's "CD of the week" when it was issued. (About the only thing they had that was on my "wants" list). RtS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Date: 28 Jan 00 - 08:14 AM Never knew it had left mates? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: GUEST,T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird) Date: 28 Jan 00 - 09:12 AM I agree with Dave. I wasn't aware that any musical genre or tonal dialect was missing. How can something that never left be "back" ? T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Rosebrook Date: 28 Jan 00 - 09:37 AM The kids and I dashed into a fast-food place to grab a taco before dashing off to school for conferences last night. They piped in radio music which my kids (early teens) were real familiar with - it was a contemporary rock station. To me, for the most part it was loud and annoying. Then all of the sudden, one of the songs featured single male vocals backed up on acoustic guitar with a fiddle playing an instrumental break. Sounded like a folk song to me. (I'm not trying to start any debates "what is a folk song"!!!)I even 'talked' about it with my daughter, who was singing along and knew all the words. I noticed the quality of the music and said to her, "HEY!! This sounds like a FOLK SONG! There's a folk song on your station! Listen, there's a fiddle!" Her non-impressed response was, "whatever." Folk may never have left, but it was nice to hear this piece mixed in with "commercial" rock. Rose
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: annamill Date: 28 Jan 00 - 09:45 AM You all missed the meaning of this thread. Of course we know folk is here, but it's not exactly in the mainstream is it. I haven't heard too many folk songs being given air time or being touted in music store ads. This thread was, obviously, a poor attempt at sarcastic humor. If they use a folk song in a commercial, then it must be popular <> :-0 **BG** JOKE!! GG, I'm not closed minded about any medium, even the boob tube. Love, annap |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: northfolk/al cholger Date: 28 Jan 00 - 10:34 AM of course it had left mates, I'm one of 'em. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: paddymac Date: 28 Jan 00 - 11:08 AM I agree with annap - it's a matter of relative prominence in the mass culture. My son has a heavy-metal band which has gotten quite good and developed a local following. Their tune which always gets the biggest response and the most local airplay is an original called "Preacher Man, a.k.a. Sinister Minister", which opens with the "A" part of Dunmore Lasses, done first in a fairly straight-forward guitar picking, then repeated with a mandolin & hammered dulcimer over-dub, then repeated in a rock format. His group is gradually comming to "sense" that there might be a market for "that old Irish stuff" repackaged in a more metallic format. It isn't exactly what I would call my kind of music, but whatever it is about the Irish trad that draws so many acoustic players & listeners seems to also work in a pretty "different" microcosm as well. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Bert Date: 28 Jan 00 - 11:34 AM Usually when you hear a folk tune being used in a commercial it's because it's in public domain. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: InOBU Date: 28 Jan 00 - 11:36 AM I was just about to answer Annap with, If folk is on its way back why are all of us who play it so effing poor? Then, I saw paddymacs heavy metal Dunmore lasses, and I look at our tiny two hundred watt PA, sitting next to the owld Uillann pipes, and I know why we are so effing poor, audiences are so effing deaf these days! If it is on a come back, I hope quiet pubs and audiences who can hear are also on the come back! My gripe for the week. {:-[>
Larry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Art Thieme Date: 28 Jan 00 - 11:36 AM Let's face it folks, this music we care so much about is simply a flea on a dinosaur's ass when we look at the immensity of the music business. We can B.S. each other all we want and that's all it will ever be---B.S. The glitzy side of "folk" is just singers with big ideas using the/our scene as a springboard to possible pop or country stardom-----and then the word "folk" is quickly left far behind like the Enterprise going into warp speed. What is necessary for real folk music to have a resurgence is for people, on a HUGE scale, to look at the past (and the artifacts of those other times like traditional folksongs) for inspiration, values, ethics, philosophies, stories, music and intellectual stimulation. Is that gonna happen? Well, I didn't hear anything about a new folk revival in the prioritizing sections of Bill Clinton's last State Of The Union message. For most folks it just isn't on the front burner---to say the least. Hell, it's nowhere near the stove. For those of us for whom it is up in front of our consciousnesses, we'll just keep keepin' on keepin' on and loving what we love. As Cole Porter said to Irving Berlin once, "You and I are all that's left. And to hell with everybody else." Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: InOBU Date: 28 Jan 00 - 11:39 AM Hey Art: I was wondering, though, listening to Bill last night, are we start up buisnesses? Remember the CEDA grants of the ol Johnston days? Nostaglic for the bread Larry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Art Thieme Date: 28 Jan 00 - 11:41 AM I do wish Leadbelly had said the above words to Woody ! Art |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Art Thieme Date: 28 Jan 00 - 11:43 AM I think I'll call Sandy & Frank right now & say 'em to them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Amos Date: 28 Jan 00 - 12:29 PM I never did it for the money Altho' that's sumpn I could use I sing because it feels too funny Not to when I've got the blues Or when I see the world a reeling Into some place it has gone before Sometimes the very cure it's needing Is a song from 1864 And think of bringing up your children Without songs that show the trails How their ancestors earned survival Killin' bar and trimming sail Losing, winning, fighters, lovers, Singing souls who went before, What if children, in the future Could not hear their stories more? No, I don't do it for the money I just do it for the grace Keeping open one small pathway To celebrate my favorite race :>) Well, it's corny, but sometimes I'm corny. A.
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Fortunato Date: 28 Jan 00 - 12:58 PM Thanks to the manure that passes for Rock and Roll music on the airwaves and the death of "goldien oldies" from over exposure, Folk Music may experience a resurrection. Retiring postwar babies have time to return to their 'record' collections and the instruments of their youth. As Art has written, 'Folk" may not make much of an impression on the 'Music Business', but not even the wise can see all ends. Our task is to provide venues where we can and spread the word and keep the faith. Oh, and welcome back, 'lost folkies'. We missed you. Some of us kept it warm while you were busy elsewhere. Regards, Fortunato |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 Jan 00 - 02:47 PM The logic of all the changes we're having - hundreds of TV channels, the Internet exploding all over the place and all the multimedia technology yiou would wish there for the grabbing - is that the mass media just vanishes up its own rear-end within a few years. We're never going to have a "folk revival" in the sense that every wireless and TV is going to be blasting out the kind of stuff "we" like, and that is not a bad thing. But I think we are going to have a world in which, not so far down the line, large numbers of people are going to be making their own music together. It might not be music we especially like at times, but that's how it goes.
The kind of thing that makes me feel people are going to be doing it for themselves are developments like the popularity of Line Dancing, and Karaoke. I don't like either of these much, but the point is they are an indication that people who are cut off from any tradition of organised dancing or of individual live singing have an appetite for them, and find ways of getting them back.
And the kind of musics we like will survive and develop and flourish in that environment. Doesn't mean that many people are going to make much money out of it, but that isn't what our kind of music heas ever been about. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Amos Date: 28 Jan 00 - 03:01 PM Mayhap there's a Darwinian principle at work, which has kept all the good songs alive to the degree it is sensed they do something for people's survival potential. A good "meme" has a life of its own, and a good folk song is as lively a meme as ever infected a mind -- witness the way they creep into your head and won't let go. Memes have a way of surviving that is independent of financial factors, for the most part, but not independent of people's considerations about what they want in the future, which is Darwin's point about surviving organisms -- they're better equipped for moving forward in time. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Date: 28 Jan 00 - 03:13 PM Two good examples of why good music will never die...Steeleye Span - All Round My Hat made it to the top 5 of the rock charts in the 70's and more recently Andrew Lloyd Webbers - Pie Jesu in the 90's My daughter and I regularly sing Over The Hills and Far Away when driving in the car. She and her brother love the Barra McNeils CoalTown Road and others. Folk music will never die.. Crown my desire fulfill my bliss a Melanie comeback and more of this....Yours, Aye. Dave |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Fortunato Date: 28 Jan 00 - 03:25 PM Dave is that the Billy Ed Wheeler song "Coaltown Road", thanks for reminding me anyway, I give it go after my @#$%^&* commute home. Regards, Fortunato |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Mbo Date: 28 Jan 00 - 03:26 PM Dave, you like Andrew Lloyd Webber, too? I marvel at you more everyday! "Pie Jesu" is beautiful. Did you ever hear the "Hosanna" section from "Requiem"? --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Troll Date: 28 Jan 00 - 03:34 PM All of the above is true. BUT,the problem that I see today is that everyone is so enamored of the songs that THEY are writing, that they have forgotten to sing the songs that came before.It's fine to do your own stuff but audiences like things that they have heard before. It makes them feel that they are a part of the performance.We have a big problem with that here in Florida with "Florida Song Writers". Everybody seems to think that they have to do only "Florida" songs that they have written and to have a new batch for each festival. There are fewer and fewer of us doing waht I would call covers or traditional folk. Writing your own stuff is good (I write) but lets not forget the old songs.After all, they got to be old because they were good and not vice versa. troll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: InOBU Date: 28 Jan 00 - 04:02 PM Hi Art: Actually, I think Woody got the CEDA of his day, in the form of WPA... Now Leadbelly, sure could have used the grant money, and should have gotten it, or at least some of what others eventualy made off him! Larry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Date: 28 Jan 00 - 08:25 PM Mbo you said it all on another thread...Its all good man! Actually I profess a preference for Baroque classical as my all time favourite music. But I love Tracy Chapmans style and many other modern performers. You would see me at BB kings one night and Chumbawamba the next.... Yours, Aye. Dave |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: katlaughing Date: 28 Jan 00 - 08:49 PM Oh, McGrath! What images thou hast wrought upon my brain! Folk Karoake Nights! The New Wave! **BG**
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: GUEST,Okiemockbird Date: 08 Feb 00 - 09:49 AM Life imitates annap's joke! Here is a London Times article about how folks like us keep the tradition alive for the music industry to "discover" now and again. T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Peter T. Date: 08 Feb 00 - 10:32 AM The important thing is that it can't be killed off. I used to worry that live theatre was dying, and then I realized that it would die when the human race died off (which of course may be in the cards). We are just wired somewhere for the magic of theatre. So I relaxed. We are also wired for listening to, and making, live music. The rest is just parasitical on that experience. The comfort is that it is like the sunrise: the oldest thing there is, new every morning. There may be no money in it: but it is tapping into the original strength of things, so it reinvigorates. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Dharmabum Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:13 PM No phone no lights no motorcar, But I'll still have my old guitar. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: Blackcat2 Date: 08 Feb 00 - 02:37 PM Greetings Who cares if Folk Music is on its way back? The point is that it never had died out. And because of the Internet it is more available to those who are interested than ever before. I personally find any music that is used for advertisment that wasn't written specifically for the ad to be objectionable. But it does show what Madison Ave thinks will sell things. Last year a car commercial used an Ozzy Osbourne song as its theme - imagine that back when the song was released! Here's an idea for a thread: match the song (folk & other) with the product it could sell. There's tons of obvious ones but what about the obscure? Certainly Mudcat is the place for the obscure . . . pax yall |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: wysiwyg Date: 08 Feb 00 - 03:09 PM I don't think I'm being overly Pollyanna-ish or simplistic or anything lkse but realistic when I choose to see it this way--- Art, do you remember sitting on the curved bench/pew seat at the old No Exit in Chicago playing your saw? I do. I was a mere listener at one or two of your gigs. I'm sorry the world hasn't paid adequately for the time and care and talent you've put out into it. But it has gone into lives you never knew you touched, it goes into the lives of people living in communities you'll never see, it goes into the hearts of people in my town every Saturday night. It goes into the kids who caress my autoharp and coax out sound. It made other kids play pot and pan lids beautifully in church, and this actually made the "musicians" present among the adults very happy. Our genre is one that reaches deeper, touches more of the soul, and lasts longer than any other. It's big and long-term like the work a stoneworker does. They're restoring our church's stone now and they'll be dead when it needs it again, it will last so long. It will hold so many souls' prayers... I think we have to take the long view to see the power entrusted to us, and to be responsible stewards of the gift we are given to be able to experience it and share it. I don't really think I would want to relate to music as the thing I am paid to do and have to do to be paid. If it paid well it would be full of a lot of assholes. Let as many of them as possible gravitate to the other genres. And let them make enough money to stay there. We will still be here, right alongside them, doing what we do and making real differences in people's lives. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: GUEST,Petr Date: 08 Feb 00 - 04:15 PM McGrath's earlier comment on line dancing and Karaoke is spot on - the increased popularity for organized dancing and individual singing along with a general resurgence of roots music (fiddle camps springing up everywhere) indicates a return to the homespun or homemade entertainment that was always there until it began to be killed off by radio and gramophone in the early part of the 20th century. When musicologists went around collecting tunes in the 20's they found that even 20 years later many songs were forgotten. Here in Vancouver BC there has been in resurgence in contra and ceili dancing in the last ten years brought about by a handful of people. I recently saw an old video from Don Messers last tour across Canada The show had been on for something like 20 years and was cancelled in the mid 70's (by the CBCs Knowton Nash) at the height of its popularity because it was too square. All the episodes but 9 were thrown in the garbage. The 9 that were saved, were picked up by a janitor whose wife was one of the dancers. A real shame as the show featured some of the best folk performers at the time. Now that a lot of old tv series are being rehashed I would much rather watch Don Messer than the Brady Bunch or some other tripe. Anyway, thats my gripe for the day. Perhaps one day we can recapture the broadcast as we go into space. Cheers Petr |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: GUEST,Rich Date: 08 Feb 00 - 06:30 PM I'm not sure I want folk music to come back. Think of what'll happen if Mtv Gets a hold of it! Right now, People who play folk music play it because they like it. I've made a little money here and there, but I know at least 11 months out of the year I'm in the wrong genre to play for a living. Normally when I do play a paying gig, before the night is over, I find myself at some point wishing I was playing a ceili for a free dinner and a nominal share of the tip basket, or a session or house party just for the fun of it. I think it's great that there are people out there that can make a living out of various genres of folk music, but if it becomes too much of a big thing in the public's eyes, it will soon be diluted with people using folk as a marketing ploy. If folk reaches a point where record companies make the rules and market outlook becomes the primary factor in content, it will go from the cream to the scum rising to the top. We've already seen the contemporary singer-songwriter category start to fill up with would be rock and rollers who've traded in their Stratocasters for Martins. The more boy-and-his-guitar acts there are out there, the less likely it is that a new conniseur of folk will ever lay his hands on a John McCutcheon or Emmylou Harris or Art Thieme CD. (By the way, I really enjoy the *The Older I Get* CD). Look what happened when the world found out about the Grateful Dead's shows. Pretty soon, the parking lots were over-run with people looking for a no-holds-barred all-out bash, fueled by stories of cheap or free drugs, scantily-clad teenage runaway girls, and lure of not being held responsible for one's own actions...ever! Similarly, when a certain number of musical acts started playing a type of music that was "alternative" to what was being played on the radio, and it caught on, it became a new niche. In order to play "alternative music", one had to play the same alternative music that was already being played, and the danger of free thought by the young target audience was narrowly averted. I hate to be the devil's advocate but there is something to be said for keeping folk in the hands of the people.[] With as much ill-will as there has been amongst some of the recent threads, I'm gonna apologize in advance to anybody annoyed by this. [] Rich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: GUEST,Petr Date: 08 Feb 00 - 07:10 PM The same thing applies to traditional music in general. IE. Traditional Irish Music. This was brought forward by non-professionals. People who made a living doing something else and played trad. music on the side. It was more than just a hobby, they took it very seriously. It's those people that are responsible for the music being around today. The rise in "celtic" music has to some extent taken the tradition and battered it beyond all recognition. Its not really important that it become popularized on the radio and with the music industry but rather that it continue in the hands of the people. In small house concerts, ceilis, sessions etc. Cheers Petr |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: GUEST,Rich(stupidbodhranplayer....) Date: 08 Feb 00 - 07:39 PM I agree whole-heartedly with Petr. I play Irish music because I love it. I listen to it for the same reason. I really enjoy the more traditional stuff, like Moving Cloud, Mike and Mary Rafferty. I owe a great debt to people like the Bothy Band and Altan for bringing Irish music out of the kitchens for me to hear it BUT, the early people who first brought this music out on a larger scale were aware of the importance of keeping traditional music traditional. It is a sad sight to go to a festival and see essentially rock bands with Irish instruments playing vaguely tune-like instrumentals. Especially but not limited to, the former fiddler from KISS, with bombs going off and lightning shooting out of the end of her electric-blue fiddle. Downright scary! I heard a rumor that she can play Irish music but I think it's just a rumor.[ ] Slan , Rich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: John in Brisbane Date: 08 Feb 00 - 08:20 PM From past threads on this subject it appears that our views as to the state of folk music depends a lot on which continent you live in. I suspect that indigenous music never died in parts of Asia, Africa and South America. In Australia there is a strong resurgence in indigenous culture and there is an increasingly stronger cross over into popular/rock music. In the second most ethically diverse nation in the world (after Israel) the song and dance of many cultures are very popular. And as for 'real' Western folk if I were to use as a yard stick the number of kids learning and playing acoustic/folk instruments and the diversity of people at the larger feativals, I would surmise that folk is fairly healthy here. Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Folk music is definately on the way back From: reggie miles Date: 09 Feb 00 - 03:24 AM Well the intent of this thread has crept a bit so I don't feel so bad about commenting off the mark. With respect to what was said by Petr and Rich, I'm aware that there will always be those who like yourselves have a deep love for the traditional, call it the preservationist tendancy. There will as well be those that, for reasons of their own, will see fit to experiment, changing what which has come before into something new. The funny thing about it is that these so called desecrators may some day be considered to be among the revered innovators by some future generation. I don't believe that many of the folks that began some of these forms of music that we hold so high and dear today ever thought the ideas they were fooling with would ever have survived as long as they have. Those forms have survived because of those like youselves, your commitment and dedication to those past forms. I believe that, way back when, they were very much like you and I are now, some interested in just having fun with some friends pluckin' or sawin' while others were perhaps more atune to convention. Either way who can say how much of what survived was due meticulousness and how much due to the drunken improvisation of a blasphemer with no respect for what had gone before. ;o) Listening to some talk radio the other night on the way home from the big city I caught a piece of a conversation about ancient mathematical concepts. The guest mathematician pointed out how, years ago, one pioneer who called into question the staus quo. His ideas about math were considered so radical that the upstart was taken by his colleagues to a lake and drowned for his observations. Hopefully we're a tad more enlightened today about such matters and can find it within each of us to give equal rein to both sides of this very passionate issue. End of rant.
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