When did your 'folk' switch flip on?

Subject: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From:
Date: 15 May 00 - 06:29 PM

I remember I was painting my daughter's bedroom with the radio on. For some reason I was taping the show on my Radio Shack boombox. I taped Eric Bogel's "Green Fields of France/Pvt Willie McBride." I played it over and over about 50 times. I instantly knew that, musically, I'd never be the same. It was like a conversion, seeing the true light. I've since realized that "Green Fields of France" is kind of pretentious and Bogel's other stuff is mostly hot air, but that song pulled me in.That was 11 years ago. I went thru a Celtic phase, progressive country, old-timey, John Gorka, etc. Anybody wanna share?

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 May 00 - 06:39 PM

The summer I was 13 I was at a summer camp where we sang folk songs at lunchtime and there was a group of older kids who were learning guitar. There was this beautiful girl, Linda "Cricket" Rennie, who had this way of putting her tongue between her lips when she was trying to make an F chord work that was extremely sensuous. I have always had a fondness for "The Titanic", "Casey Jones", "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," "Freight train", ever since. If anyone knows what happened to her, please don't tell me.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,Phil Cooper
Date: 15 May 00 - 06:40 PM

I was raised on folk music and classical. The folk stuck. I can say I've seen an opera twice and feel no need to do so again. When I bought a guitar I learned songs from the Phil Ochs songbook and learned anything I could from him, Tom Paxton, Eric Andersen, etc. I later got bit by the traditional song bug and tend to measure newer songs by how they stack up to those these days. I think that reflects more on a change in my attitude than a change in the quality of songwriting. Pivitol moments for me would be hearing John Roberts and Tony Barrand sing "The Twa Magicians" on the Studs Terkel show on WFMT when I was in high school, first hearing Martin Carthy singing and playing "The Famous Flower of Serving Men," and seeing Richard Thompson doing an acoustic show back in 1982 (the songs, the tune arrangements, and before the effects sounds). I could go on, but will stop at this point. Thanks for asking.--Phil Cooper

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: kendall
Date: 15 May 00 - 06:48 PM

Mid 40's Buryl Ives. Then, The Weavers, Gordon Bok, The Kingston Trio. Then, all of the Folk Legacy family. Lately, Utah Phillips and Tom Paxton. (You will note the absence of "blues"

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Chicky
Date: 15 May 00 - 06:54 PM

About two-and-a-half years ago, when friends from the Solidarity Choir in Sydney started dragging me along to sessions at the Glengarry Castle.

And then they revealed to me the joys of the festival circuit...

I'm hooked.

- Chicky

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Gary T
Date: 15 May 00 - 06:57 PM

I was back home for the summer after my junior year at college, which included a heartwrenching break-up with my first serious love. I was pretty depressed and mopey. For some reason, I really wanted to hear my older sister's folk music, which I hadn't cared for much previously. She had Ian & Sylvia; Peter, Paul, & Mary; and many other 60's folk artists. The song "Changes" (Phil Ochs) by Jim and Jean was my favorite--not overtly the message, just the general tone and feel of the music. I've retained my fondness for it over the years.

A year later, after hearing my roommate play Kris Kristofferson's "Silver Tongued Devil" album about a kajillion times, I began to appreciate country music. Up until then, you couldn't have paid me to listen to the stuff. Now I really like the country music of the 40's through the 80's. Modern country music doesn't do much for me.

My sister also introduced me to Irish folk music, listening to The Bards at Matt Kanes in Washington, D.C. I still love Irish folk songs, although I find 3 minutes of "jigs and reels" is enough for a month.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 15 May 00 - 07:12 PM

I don't know.. I guess I was born with it on... Classical music grew on me. Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: JenEllen
Date: 15 May 00 - 07:22 PM

I was born with it on too. My mom used to sing American folk stuff to me as a child, and my grandparents sang the Scottish and British folk songs they learned growing up...it's just always been a part of my life. It certainly expanded a bit once I reached adulthood, but I still play/enjoy the things I heard as a child.
~JenEllen

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Callie
Date: 15 May 00 - 07:57 PM

I've always liked it, but didn't know all the things I liked had a collective name, and that you could get involved in the kind of music I liked most nights of the week. Found this out around the same time as Chicky (see above)

Callie

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 May 00 - 08:08 PM

When I was in high school in the early 1960's, I used to babysit for two families. One family had all the Peter, Paul and Mary albums, and the other had what seemed like stacks and stacks of Kingston Trio albums. I loved babysitting at those two place. We had five kids in my family, so we didn't have money for lots of records. My dad bought a Radio Shack stereo and five record albums - PP&M's first album, "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Trapp Family Singers Singing 'The Sound of Music,'" and budget recordings of "South Pacific" and one other musical. It was probably a year before we got a sixth album.
I think my folk music tastes have become more sophisticated in recent years, but I have to say it was PP&M and the KT that started me out.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Amergin
Date: 15 May 00 - 08:12 PM

It happened a few years ago during my short stint in college. Parents introduced me to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez who in turn introduced me to Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, and Pete and so on and so forth. I discovered most of this on my own. Now am finding more thanks to you all.

Amergin

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: MK
Date: 15 May 00 - 08:23 PM

It hasn't.

First time I was asked to join hands around a camp fire and sing "Cumbaya", I knew I was going to become a jazzer.




Mind you, there are certain elements I do like. In the same way, that I'll drink orange juice but not eat oranges.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From:
Date: 15 May 00 - 08:36 PM

Reminds me of "Momma's Opery." Tell me you don't know that song and I'll faint.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,Phil Cooper
Date: 15 May 00 - 08:46 PM

Even as a died in the wool folk fan, the thought of Cumbaya (Kumbaya?), etc. gives me the shivers.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 15 May 00 - 08:47 PM

I grew up on Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and the like, and didn't think of it as folk music when I was a kid. It was just music. I always had an appreciation for it, but the switch was really turned on three times in my life. In the 70's, I got a New Lost City Ramblers record out of the library and couldn't get enough of it, but didn't branch out into listening to other old timey groups. The switch really turned on in late 1985 when I stumbled across the Irish record "The Bothy Band:1975", at the library. I had heard about it from a student when I was called in to work a shift at a co-op kitchen. When I put on the record, the first song that struck me was "Pretty Peg." I played it over and over. Then, I obsessed on Tommy People's fiddle playing. It inspired me to take up fiddling. That was the album that changed my life. I don't knw what I'd be doing if I hadn't worked in the kitchen that day in 1985. A few years ago, just when I thought there were no more switches to turn on, I heard Alison Krauss, and I was completely hooked on her. Thanks for asking this question! Hey, Michael K. Check out that Bothy Band album on CD. Kumbaya it's not!

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,Baba
Date: 15 May 00 - 08:57 PM

The school hall at the end of my street was used for Irish dancing lessons, and somehow the sound of an accordian is like heaven to me.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 15 May 00 - 09:21 PM

To be honest, I think I was born with the folk music switch hard wired in the "On" position. I grew up listening to the Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary and the Chad Mitchel Trio. This was in the '60's When I went to High School, All my friends were into Foghat and such. (Early 1970's) I was into Joanie Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot and getting into Irish folk. I was also introduced to ther Merrymen by my brother who lives inb the Carribean. Mike if you want to avoid kumbaya (A course I heartily recommend) Check out the Bothy Band 1975 or Old Hag You have Killed me. You can also check out PLanxty and Christy Moore's stuff. You might also check out Steve Young's Seven Bridges Road. If the title sounds familiar, The Eagles covered it again in the 1970's. Also check out Lui Collins, her stuff is awesome! Or the late Stan Rogers if you're in a nautical frame of mind. Reguards to all. It's nice to know I'm not the only "Folkie" out and about!. Neil

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 May 00 - 09:50 PM

Burl Ives on the Jack Paar show...and a concert of Pete Seeger in 1961...then the Beers family, and the New Lost Cit Ramblers soon after...wow!....then Jean Redpath records in the library

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 15 May 00 - 09:52 PM

Guess I was brought up on folk music in the 40s. The collection of 78s for the wind up gramophone included Carson Robison and Jimmie Rodgers. Then, there were the Weavers and Leadbelly on the wireless. School music lessons included chanteys, and English, Scots and Irish "Trad" songs. Scout and Tramping Club sing-a-longs added more. Then came the folk coffee bars of the 60s. I'm amazed at how many songs in the DT database were just "part of life" - from as far back as I can remember.

Guess my "folk" switch was turned on at birth. The contacts are so corroded now, I can't turn it off

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 15 May 00 - 10:07 PM

The first time I ever heard 'Puff The Magic Dragon', that was it for me, I was hooked.
But I didn't do anything about it until last year when I found Rick Fielding and started learning how to play the banjo.
I still can not figure out for the life of me why Rick won't teach me how to play 'Puff The Magic Dragon'.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 May 00 - 10:11 PM

As a kid, we had Burl Ives and the Weavers and the like, but we also had Harry James, the Ink Spots, and Count Basie. Then there were the ones ranging from Pee Wee King to Vivaldi Bassoon Concertos by Sherman Walt. I was an active woodwind player and far more at home with Brubeck, MJQ, Coltrane, and Parker than I was with anything else. Late in high school, I must have been standing in the fallout of the 'Folk Scare" or something. The major turning point came at Berea College where dulcimer was part of the curriculum. Combined with political activism, the folk music of that time began to change my tastes and although I continued to play with jazz groups til I was 22 or so, my interest was seriously waning as folk took over. Friends I played with then went on to play with Kenton, Don Ellis, and Maynard Ferguson. I went on to play guitar in the bathroom.

I never treated guitar and folk instruments with the same drive for achievement as I had reeds. I can't describe how wonderful it has been and how I have enjoyed the music for the pure thrill of the songs, the tales, the stories, and the morals. I was having a lot more fun playing in a jug band/folk group at Berea than I was playing summers with OSU's Jazz Workshop. Somewhere in all of this is tied up the strange feeling that if I "work hard" at folk, the fun will go away.

I need to see a shrink.

Spaw

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 May 00 - 10:21 PM

In the 50s, before TV was available 24 hours a day, the local stations used to run test patterns and little fillers of Burl Ives singing Barbara Allan and Jack Was Every Inch A Sailor. Susie Snowflake was in there too but Barbara Allan and the entwining rose and briar caught my fancy.We had recordings of early country and western stuff along with Burl Ives and Civil War collections. My grandmother, aunts and uncles all loved the Gay Nineties and musicals.I went through the rock, jazz, and classical stages but always came back to folk.Although I still love a night at the opera.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Ron Olesko
Date: 15 May 00 - 10:24 PM

I'm turning 43. I can't remember a specific "switch" - but I do have strong memories of watching Captain Kangaroo as a child and watching as his puppets acted out songs like Sloop John B., Hole in the Bucket, Lemon Tree, and others. I remember singing Put Your Finger in the Air while in grammar school. It probably wasn't until college that I discovered that a guy named Woody Guthrie wrote that song and then I really "discovered" folk music. But like anyone my age or a bit older, you couldn't help but have folk music as part of your life's soundtrack.

Ron Olesko

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,Erin
Date: 15 May 00 - 10:32 PM

Growing up, I heard "The Makem & Clancy Collection" once in a while, and even saw Tommy Makem perform once; then I saw "the Makem Brothers", open for him in 1996, when I was 14. Two years later saw their video on PBS, and it's all just snowballed from there! I've thrown myself wholeheartedly into the Irish/Scottish folk scene..

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 15 May 00 - 10:51 PM

I grew up during the 30's and 40's long before TV ~ ROCK ~ etc. The first music I was exposed to was in the kitchen at my grandmothers house (I lived there at the time) when friends of my dad's would come over to play music and sing songs. I still remember sitting in one of those glider type yard swings and listening to my uncle play the ukulele.

During high school I played in a dance band ~ five bucks apiece during those days and if I drove the car to an out of town gig I would get seven. Big money back then. Also, during this time I listened to a lot of Dixey Land Jazz music mainly late at night from a couple of AM radio stations located in New Orleans.

The only music book we had was called the Golden Book which did have quite a wide selections of tunes. It seems that there were a lot of songs about bum's, hobo's and cowboys, going around during these years.

Cap't Bob

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 15 May 00 - 10:51 PM

I grew up during the 30's and 40's long before TV ~ ROCK ~ etc. The first music I was exposed to was in the kitchen at my grandmothers house (I lived there at the time) when friends of my dad's would come over to play music and sing songs. I still remember sitting in one of those glider type yard swings and listening to my uncle play the ukulele.

During high school I played in a dance band ~ five bucks apiece during those days and if I drove the car to an out of town gig I would get seven. Big money back then. Also, during this time I listened to a lot of Dixey Land Jazz music mainly late at night from a couple of AM radio stations located in New Orleans.

The only music book we had was called the Golden Book which did have quite a wide selections of tunes. It seems that there were a lot of songs about bum's, hobo's and cowboys, going around during these years.

Cap't Bob

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: sophocleese
Date: 15 May 00 - 11:00 PM

I'm not sure I had a switch. I grew up listening to different music at different times from my parent's music collection. Beatles, Alfred Deller, Nana Mouskari, I always liked songs and voices best of all and still do. My first singing lesson I was given two songs to practice, Early One Morning and You Light Up My Life; I memorized Early One Morning in a week and I still don't know You Light Up My Life. Earlier than that I played through a book of folk songs for the recorder and then learned the words. The folk I listened to when I was growing up was what I heard at the Festival of Friends in Hamilton, most of it wasn't the ballads and English folk songs I was learning and liked best.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Harold W
Date: 15 May 00 - 11:49 PM

When I was a kid in the 1930's, I can remember my father singing folk songs, He wasn't a musician, but he just liked to sing. That was all the folk songs I was exposed to until I was in my early twenties when I went to a Burl Ives concert in Aspen, Colorado. I also went to another concert, but I can't remember the baladeers name (old age), but it was the first time I heard Barbara Allen. From then on I was hooked.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: rangeroger
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:53 AM

I bought my first guitar at age 15,but I wanted to play rock and roll.During my senior year in high school there seemed to more and more people that I played with who were doing more of the folk "stuff"
When I graduated in '63, I moved to San Bernardino to work at Patton State hospital. That's when the switch was really turned on.
I got together with a group of people who introduced me to Pete Seeger,Doc Watson,Woody Guthrie,Tom Paxton,Tom Rush,Big Bill Broonzy,Josh White,Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee,Leadbelly,Son House,Dave Van Ronk,et al.
I was forever a goner from that point on.
rr

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From:
Date: 16 May 00 - 01:03 AM

I'm not sure, but I think I grew up with it.

Growing up in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, I listened to radio station CJCB, with Freeman Roach, Rick Honey, Ann Terry, and a host of other announcers.

One of the special features was during the summer months listening to the Talk Back show and being able to listen to the summer time Song Writing Contest. Many of these songs were "Folk" for want of another term. They would also play stuff like Charlie MacKinnon songs, and many of that sort of stuff. I remember listening to things like Puff the Magic Dragon, Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Long Black Veil during those years. I guess I was between 7 and 15. I never really got into the Rock/Pop music, but took to Country like a duck to water. Other influences on my music listening were Broadway show tunes, Gospel Music and Big Band Jazz.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: roopoo
Date: 16 May 00 - 03:33 AM

I had parents with (like me) eclectic tastes in music, and my dad had this thing about Joan Baez! Around the same time country dancing was still being taught in English schools by teachers who were themselves products of the "folk revival". It seemed natural to do it. This planted the seed. I suppose the seed was germinated for me when I was 17, after joining a Scottish dance class on a mad impulse. This started me off on the mainstream popular Scots stuff. My flatmates when I was at college liked James Taylor and Fairport Convention. Then just after I was married a few years later I found a good folk programme on local radio, and it blossomed from there, especially when we decided to emigrate and I suddenly realised what I was going to miss! (Luckily we found a couple of Morris sides in S. Africa).

mouldy

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 16 May 00 - 03:57 AM

I got into US folk via skiffle, and blues singers like Leadbelly from my interest in jazz from the 1950's. I now realise that we learned a lot of folksongs at school in the late '40s (Barbara Allen, The Ash Grove, some Burl Ives etc) but I got interested in UK folk in the '60's via the Spinners, Corries, Ian Campbell, Clancys etc. Thanks to the Mudcat I've revived my interest.
RtS

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Llanfair
Date: 16 May 00 - 06:33 AM

The school radio programmes were my first experience in the '50's, Burl Ives, Joan Baez later, but seeing Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick in Manchester in the late 60's had me completely besotted.
I'm with Catspaw in that I daren't practice too much in case it loses it's freshness.
Wish I could play guitar better, though. I'm a singer who uses 4 chords and a capo. Hwyl,Bron.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: kendall
Date: 16 May 00 - 07:27 AM

One of the many rewards of being a folk performer was the night I sat in the audience at a festival, and heard two young men singing songs which they said were from my first album! Thats what it's all about...passing it along.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Bugsy
Date: 16 May 00 - 07:29 AM

At 15 I discovered Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and Dylan. (that's back in 1963.) Couldn't get to grips with the guitar then saw Bill Clifton at my local folk club in Hertfordshire UK. Bill had an Autoharp, and said "If you can't play one of these, then I'm afraid it's the triangle for you." I pestered my Dad, and he bought me an Autoharp for my 16th Birthday. (All my other mates got Motor Scooters)

From then on I was hooked.

In reply to GUEST,Mrbisok@aol, and whilst not wishing to start an arguement (perish the thought),I know Eric Bogle pretty well and with far from finding his music pretentious and mostly hot air, would like to assure you that he feels very strongly about the songs he writes and carries out in depth research before putting pen to paper.

Most of his songs are written from personal experience or from experiences passed on to him first hand. That's what puts the magic into his work.

Anyway, I'm glad he got you "turned on" to folk music.

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: AndyG
Date: 16 May 00 - 07:37 AM

Like RtS and Bron above I actually came into contact with "folk music" through school radio programmes¹. However, it wasn't given that name. I didn't know I liked Folk Music for many years.

In effect it was just there, all the time, but when the revival happened I got told what I liked !

Ho hum.

1 And my mum, who was a primary school teacher and sang² all the time.
2 Not specifically folk music, just songs.

AndyG

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,JulieF
Date: 16 May 00 - 07:47 AM

I can't remember not knowing some traditional Scottish songs in the same way that I can't remember not being able to read music. I went to a very small village school in the very late 60s/ early 70s. We did not have much resources but I do remember the Singing together programs which had songs from different lands. This sort of sining continued when we went to the larger Primary School two miles away.

Although I loved music we were not a family that were steeped in music ( unlike the way we are now) and it wasn't until my mid teens that I started discovering all sorts of different music - I believe I started with Queen and Steeleyespan. The high school had a folk club for a short period of time. A group of us A Level Scientists played rock music in the sixth form and then it was the excitement of live music.

There is still nothing better than jumping up and down to live music. My musical tastes are wide ranging but I can't help thinking that some of the Scottish traditional stuff is routed deep down somewhere.

Julie

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Mooh
Date: 16 May 00 - 08:13 AM

Phil Cooper, Hi, it's Mike from Goderich. Hope you're well. Regards to Kate and Margaret too. We will miss you here this year!

I grew up on church music and some of the tunes that stuck were the folk ones like Slane, Kingsfold, Martyrdom, and the like. I also heard alot of humourous songs of my Dad's, Mum's Scottish influence, and older sibling's 60's folk and rock taste's. Campfire songs. Acoustic blues and rock. Jethro Tull. The Friendly Giant. After I started playing guitar, I always fought between acoustic and electric styles, and though I still play both, I treat them as very different animals, and I've always preferred acoustics. Fate introduced me to folk minded friends in high school, then bluegrassers, and later celtoids. Was 17 when I went to my first folk festival. Always had an interest in other acoustic instruments. I might have been born with the bug but I still need a regular fix.

Cool thread folks.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Spider Tom
Date: 16 May 00 - 08:17 AM

I LOVE music, especially music that connects with me on some emotional level, folk music does that.
I probably started out with the odd folk song via the school choir, but as I grew found songs you could sing sitting on a bus or around a fire etc.
I was born in 1950 and prior to T.V. in Australia, it was common to hear people singing while they worked.
My Grandmother was half Irish (the singing part I think) she was always singing and telling stories, My uncle was a piano man in a pub, and my Dad played the Harmonica a little, he also had Quite a collection of 78s.,a lot of which were old folk or country.
I sing a bit and always favour records of songs I can sing myself so that keeps me in the folk line to some extent, I also love good lyrics and the thought of singing something that has a true meaning, is inspiring.
But I keep mindful of the fact that FOLK MUSIC is music of peoples through time and dosn't have to be archaic, as some would have you believe.
When did I start listening to folk?

Spider Tom Probably just after being born.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: JedMarum
Date: 16 May 00 - 08:20 AM

when I was 10, 11, 12, I began to pick out my favorites from the Hootenany TV show; Theodore Bickell, Johnny Cash, Chad Mitchell Trio - my interest was peaked ... but I'd hafta say my folk switch was turned when I first experienced the live shows of Tom Rush, Jaime Brockett, Bill Staines and a couple of other New England folkies.

when I was 15 years old I played at an open mic at the Y-Not Coffeehouse in Worcester Massachusetts. Bill Staines was one of the feature performers there, in those days, and I was so impressed with his finger pickin', flat pickin', singin' and stroy tellin' - Many many years later after developing some of the same skills, I ran across some old recordings of Bill and was shocked to realize just how much I had emulated what I'd heard that night, right down to even some of the songs I'd forgotten he'd played! - That must be an example a folk switch being tyrned on!

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 16 May 00 - 09:00 AM

I guess for me it was at infant school and doing set dancing classes and having to dance with the boys when we thought that boys were yuck and protested about dancing with them.

Before that though it was in the family.

Then after infant schools from the set dancing days, it was a bit dormant, when I did Classical singing etc at high school, and up until I left university, and I went one evening to a local Catholic Church fund raising event to send someone to Lourdes. I was bullied into going (not really interested in church) by a very strong willed older (matriarch) of the community. And I heard an Irish group and was asked to partner someone for a set dance. It re awoke my interest, and I joined a comhaltas group and learned to play the Whistle, the bodhran and guitar etc and I'm now in a group myself.

Essentially though I think it is part of my family lifestyle which is where it all started and where I was originally encouraged to play an instrument.

E

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Wesley S
Date: 16 May 00 - 09:12 AM

My older brother started listening to the first Peter Paul and Mary LP's in the mid 60's. I always - and still do - prefer them to the Brothers Four and Kingston Trio albums he bought later. Jack Linkletters "Hootenany" show was a big influence also. Then he got this huge cannon of a 12 string. A Gibson B-45-12. It has a bass like an echo rolling down a canyon. The sound seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. I loved it even though I could barely get my fingers around the neck. We still have it over 30 years later. It's in my temporary custody until he gets some stuff figured out on his boat. When I combined that 12 string and the songs of Fred Neil I was in heaven. My Louden 12 string is excellent but it pales in comparison to my first discoveries on that old Gibson.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Mbo
Date: 16 May 00 - 09:18 AM

Well, after being obsessed with Riverdance the first time I saw it in early 1997, at age 18, (one mean word against it, and POW! mind ye) I started listening to the NPR program "Thistle & Shamrock". After hearing Andy M. Stewart sing "Donegal Rain" I knew I'd never be the same again. But after listening to the Clancy Brothers' Greatest Hits, I realized that I wanted to play this music myself! And, well, here I am!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 May 00 - 09:26 AM

RIVERDANCE??? RIVERDANCE????

RIVERDANCE???????

(I leave it to you to say that "Riverdance" is a "mean" word......I didn't)

Spaw

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Mbo
Date: 16 May 00 - 09:32 AM

No, it isn't a mean word. I love Bill Whelan's music...I have all the song lyrics and monologues memorized...I could care less about the dancers looks, but that percussion is awesome to listen to on the car stereo. I can tap out "Rolling Thunder" completely, I know all the rhythms. Yes, and I like Lord of The Dance too. Not because of Michael Flatley, but just the overall thing. Love to play "Siamsa" on my fiddle. Hey, I told you I ain't no folkie!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,dan evergreen
Date: 16 May 00 - 09:49 AM

Actually, the Mudcat. I had progressed from 60's folk to country. A year or two ago I was sick of country and started trying to learn some old love songs, pop songs, show songs, etc. One day I was looking for some lyrics and accidently landed here. I was fascinated at some of the threads. I ordered a few recommended CDs including Jean Redpath's Robert Burns songs and a good one by the Irish Tenors. My search for a musical genre was over.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,JulieF
Date: 16 May 00 - 09:57 AM

The problem with Riverdance was not Riverdance itself - which was a clevery executed piece for the middle of the Eurovision Song contest. The problem was the media phenomena that it became. Lots of kids have started dancing after Riverdance, especially boys and that was great. The problem was that everything was expected to be exactly like it. Many people responded with a traditional backlash. At least it let my daughter's hobby be socially aceptable to her friends for a few years. Michael Flatley , however, I can do without.

Julie

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Allan C.
Date: 16 May 00 - 10:13 AM

I think that in another thread I traced it back to my very first music teacher in elementary school who was the first person I ever heard to describe a song as a "folk" song. But after thinking about it for awhile, I have realized that it goes back to a 45 rpm record player that my brother was given when I was about four years old. My parents bought a Roy Rogers double record set which contained a few snatches of some western basics like, "Streets of Laredo" but with different words. The records were featuring Roy along with "Gabby" Hayes who were explaining all about how to be a cowboy. So the words they sang to "Laredo" were,"Mount up on the left side. Get down on the same." And later in the song, "Don't bother nothin' that don't bother you." (I was a fairly big kid before I knew that those weren't the words to the song!)

Another two-record set came soon after which featured Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. On it were songs such as, "The Navajo Trail" which, although not a traditional folksong, captured my imagination with such lines as "I love to lie and listen to the music when the wind is strummin' a sagebrush guitar".

I nearly played the grooves off of those records.

Between those records and the songs my family always sang while taking long drives in the car, I had all I needed to flip my switch.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,Ron Olesko
Date: 16 May 00 - 10:26 AM

Would we knock Oklahoma because it isn't American folk music? Why knock Riverdance? Might as well knock Who Wants to Be A Millionaire or WWF wrestling - none of them are connected with folk music but if people like them- great. Why get bent out of shape?

I've seen Riverdance, it is a wonderful show and I had a good time. I also got a kick out of Star Wars. Neither one changed my life, but that is me. The media hyped both and lots of people received enjoyment - so what is wrong with that?

If people find their way into the world of trad and folk music because of Riverdance, that is wonderful. That is not the purpose of the show. Riverdance shouldn't be looked at as trad music or expected to be a representation of traditional Irish music.

Incidently, I have a wonderful album of trad music that Michael Flatley recorded in the early 80s. He is/was a decent flute player and has/had a respect for the tradition. I wonder why the album was never re-released with all the hype surrounding him in recent years. Too close to the source for comfort perhaps?

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Bert
Date: 16 May 00 - 10:43 AM

My earliest memories are of my Dad singing us to sleep. So I just loved singing. When I was about three I was going to marry Vera Lynn.

At school English folk songs were the norm. We learned 'The Nightingale', 'The Keeper', 'The Ash Grove' and so on.

And in the Fifties came Lonnie Donnegan - WOW!

Then I got involved in American Square Dancing - Yes there's a lot of it in England. 'Sets in Order' magazine ran a series by Terry Golden of Colorado Springs called 'Americana'. It was American folk songs with a page or so of history about each one. I have a few of the articles still around somewhere. I wish they'd publish the whole set again. Little did I know that years later I was to live in Colorado Springs and getto talk to Terry Golden and to tell him how much I had enjoyed 'Americana'.

My first wife was a folk dancer, mostly international and Russian. So, for many years we did a lot of dancing. RIVERDANCE - Good dancers but I hate watching them. 'Cos the worst torture you can inflict upon a dancer is to play dance music and not let them get up and dance.

When I first worked in The Middle East I picked up a book at the local book store. I think it was called 'Folk Songs' and it was by Tom Glazer. There was a chapter in the back on 'How to play guitar' So I had some spare cash and a lot of time on my hands so I bought a guitar and learned a few chords. And things have gone from bad to worse since then.

Bert.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Jed at Work
Date: 16 May 00 - 10:56 AM

interesting comment, Bert - my earliest memories likewise include my Dad singing us to sleep .. and all those wonderful old Irish/American songs .. I have begun adding them to my repertoire one at a time, over the years. So many times when I introduce a song I start by saying; "this is a song my Dad used to sing to us ... "

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Mbo
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:13 AM

Ron, Michael Flatley plays the flute in "Feet of Flames", the final production of Lord of The Dance with him in it. He plays a gorgeous tune called "Whispering Wind"...was was a multi-time Irish flute champion in his home town of Chicago. This is especially amazing since he suffers from an acute form of asthma.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Max
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:22 AM

Growing up, my folks had hundreds of records. I remember every Bob Dylan album to date; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; John Denver; Peter, Paul and Mary; Joan Baez; A BeeGees album, some Motown, and something I think was called a Folk Box. My father listened to Bob Dylan with surprising intensity, a rare display of passion. I listened to see what moved him so. I remember Bob singing and me hearing about Woody and Sonny and Cisco and Leadbelly and Pete Seeger. When I opened the Folk Box, there was 4 or 5 different albums, listing the names of those people I had some how heard of. I listed to the Folk Box here and there, only partially remembering its contents. I, like my father, became a Bob Dylan fan. Around the same time, I had a music teacher in elementary school that probably was a folkie, cause she was teaching us Woody Guthrie Songs and all kinds of Traditional songs that I only recognize now.

Fast Forward, In high school I became a fan of Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, The Grateful Dead and the like. In interviews, I kept hearing them talk about a fellow named Robert Johnson. Always one to figure out influences of whom I respect, I went out and got The Complete Recordings of Robert Leroy Johnson. I owned it for 2 years before I understood it, and grew to be mesmerized by it by college. In the years to follow, I began finding new magical music, Leadbelly, Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee... seemingly blues, but apparently down that line right between folk and blues. Then Woody and Pete Seeger, Big Bill Broonzy, Tom Paxton, Bill Monroe and Doc Watson etc. I would order Smithsonian Folkways compilations and discover a new great one every time. Color me a fan.

Then one thing happened to seal the deal with me and folk. I went to a gathering! The people I met and the music I heard had to be the finest in the world... and they were people like me. I knew that this was right... Then I started this little thing called the Mudcat Cafe, the best folk Web site in all the world.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Mbo
Date: 16 May 00 - 11:25 AM

And we are all eternally thankful for that flip-on, King Max! Thanks so much man!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:01 PM

Friend says, I got a spare ticket to see this guy named Seeger at the concert Hall...wanna go?.

Lights go down. One little yellow spot comes on. Skinny guy in red shirt comes out and sings "John Henry was a little......."

Game over. Life, as I knew it, over. World opends up!

Rick

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GeorgeH
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:34 PM

Hey, your all so busy telling us how you got off on this stuff that you're going to let the thread originator get away with such nonsense as describing "Willie Macbride" as "pretentious" and Bogle's output as "mostly hot air" . . I reckon that guy's from another species . .

As for "Riverdance" - I've never seen what the fuss was about . . but at least it's not as bad as the infantile choreography / continuity of "Lord Of The Dance" . . And Flatulence is one of the most ignorant individuals it's ever been my misfortune to see an interview with . .

But to answer the question . . age 17, on a sailing holiday with the school - we were asked if we'd like to go to the local Folk Club to pass an evening . . Well, it was in a pub so despite the "no drinking" rule (we managed to get round that, too) we went. Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. And, as others have noted, life's never been the same since. Discovering a music which embodies committment and real meaning . . whether in "Sweet Thames . ." or an anti-Vietnam war ballad. And able to switch from one to the other as consecutive songs . .

G.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:50 PM

My switch was flipped by my Dad when I was three or four years old. He had a guitar and some rudimentary skill, and he had Pete Seeger's book "American Folk Songs and Ballads" or some such title (little blue songbook; used to see it everywhere). My Dad would bring out his guitar, gather me and my brothers around, and sing "The Fox" or "Tenting Tonight" or "Wabash Cannonball" or "Big Rock Candy Mountain," and we ate it up.

Eventually I latched onto the Beatles when they came around (I was five when they hit the US), and the Stones, and whoever else played an electric guitar on the Ed Sullivan show. Then I heard "Like A Rolling Stone," got seriously into Dylan, and started to backtrack to his early solo acoustic stuff. Got a guitar of my own, took lessons, became af arily accomplished classical guitarist, and played in rock and roll bands. Went in every direction I could with music, and it's been a lifelong passion.

I had some difficult years with my Dad in adolescence and early adulthood, like a lot of people do. But we became very close in more recent times, until he passed away last year. Those times when my brothers and I gathered to hear him play and sing along were a gift to all of us, and I find myself recalling them a lot these days.

Sorry if this is too sentimental a remembrance, but thanks for asking.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Jon W.
Date: 16 May 00 - 01:36 PM

From rock to blues to acoustic blues. Stuck there for several years. Then this guy where I was working (about 1991), says I ought to try some Irish stuff, all that blues was harmful to my brain. He lent me Planxty's "The Woman I Loved So Well." The song "Little Musgrave" from that album blew me away. It wasn't long before I started liking the jigs and reels as well. He lent me several more albums and let me keep them, since he didn't have a turntable any more. I owe my braim and my norbalcy to him.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: black walnut
Date: 16 May 00 - 01:41 PM

i would LISTEN to fiddle music (don messer, on tv) with my grandparents.

i would LISTEN to my father practise his bagpipes. he'd play them on the high rocky hills when we were at the lake up north.

i would LISTEN to excellent folk singers and instrumentalists at concerts and folk festivals, beginning with Home County Folk Festival in London, Ont., way back at the beginning of the festival (27 years ago?). meanwhile, i was collecting a classical music degree.

i began PARTICIPATING in folk music 6 YEARS AGO! when i went for the first time to The Woods Music and Dance Camp at Lake Rosseau. since then i've enjoyed 6 years of wonderful folk music and folk friendships. this year we had to put a two-storey addition onto the house in order to fit all of the instruments i've aquired....

~black walnut

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: MAG (inactive)
Date: 16 May 00 - 02:13 PM

I was a young teen in the early 60's during the Folk Scare. My good friends Dave simpson and Bob Matson and others would get together and we'd sing "Four Strong winds" etc. ad infinitum. Heady says of youth. Rudy Reber brought Dylan into the mix. At the time he opened up a new world. Caroline brought in Baez. She sang beautifull. Dave was (and hopefully still is) a musical genius and could lead us in anything. I was a big Smothers Brothes fan and the flap over Pete Seeger and the blacklist made a deep impression. My parents are pretty right-wing and I was into covert rebellion big-time. Getting involved in the civil rights movement and later the anti-war movement led me to Joni Mitchell et. al. In college my best times continued to be sitting around with friends singing to guitars. When I moved to Chicago I made a beeline for Old Town School and the Lincoln Avenue clubs.

My best buddies Stel and Bob once gace me a Bach record for christmas, saying, "Mary Ann, we think you listen to too much folk music." (This, from a red-diaper baby!)

I just wish I had bought a smaller guitar about 25 years ago ...

Hi Phil; say hello to Margaret for me. (Voice like an angel, folks.)

Mary Ann (Aural Trad., Chicago Storytellers Guild, etc etc.)

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,Ickle Dorritt
Date: 16 May 00 - 02:27 PM

The Graduate - loved that film, loved that music bought a simon & Garfunkel album then moved onto Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen -all of which happened 25 years ago. Then someone said you could meet really nice men at folk festivals and so I went to Cropredy and did not meet any, BUT discovered Fairport Convention......

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: InOBU
Date: 16 May 00 - 02:54 PM

Born into it... and if your folk switch has not yet clicked on...
Come here Sorcha Dorcha!
Wendsday May 17! 8 - 10 PM
the New Age Cabaret
23 Saint Marks Place (8th Street betwn 2nd 3rd Ave)
NEW YORK CITY!

All the best
Larry and the band

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: InOBU
Date: 16 May 00 - 02:56 PM

PS that should read come HEAR Sorcha Dorcha, and if you cant get to NYC and need your folk switch switched, here is an into into the process....
Sorcha Page .
Larry

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Mbo
Date: 16 May 00 - 03:02 PM

Love the website, Larry! Great concept, and funny too!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: KathWestra
Date: 16 May 00 - 04:19 PM

The pump was primed by my mother when I was a preschooler in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the late '50s. We listened twice a week to "Festival of Song," a live show with a studio audience produced by the University of Michigan radio station. That's where I absorbed loads of folksongs -- from "Marching to Pretoria" to "Skye Boat Song" to "The Ash Grove" and many others. She bought me a Folkways record by a group called the Folksmiths. (One member of that group, Joe Hickerson, became my husband many years later.) She played me that and many other records of folksongs.

In 1969, I spent some magical summer time at Camp Keewano ("place of the eagle, by the water, under the moon") in Newaygo, Michigan. All our counselors were deeply embroiled in the "folk scare," and campfire singarounds were full of songs learned from the Kingston Trio, Weavers, PP&M, Bob Dylan, etc. I bought a baritone ukelele and kept singing when camp ended.

However, the serious love affair with folk -- the irrevocable "switch flipping" never-turn-back event -- was hearing Sandy and Caroline Paton for the first time in 1970 in a concert they gave at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They introduced me to a whole world of friends, musicians, and songs that have been the mainstay of my life for the past 30 years. (AND they rescued me from Grand Rapids and Calvinism, a true good deed -- just ask Big Mick!) Long live Folk-Legacy, Sandy, & Caroline! Kathy

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 May 00 - 06:59 PM

Correction Max: best site in the world.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Banjer
Date: 17 May 00 - 05:56 AM

I think my switch got flipped in junior high school, (middle school nowadays) when a lot of kids that I wanted nothing to do with were listening to the local rock 'n roll station. You could about set your clock to the music they played each day. They might have had 100 songs and you knew it must be 10:15 if a certain song was playing. I wanted to be different and started listening to the local country music station which played what many of us knew as country music before the 'cosmopolitan' sound became popular. Hank Williams (the original, not his upstart imitation) Red Foley, Roy Acuff, even some of the old Carter family were played a lot. From there it was just natural progression to the current songs of the 60's, Blowin' In The Wind, Puff The Magic Dragon, Where Have All The Flowers Gone, and other Viet Nam era protest songs. I guess it just all boils down to not wanting to "fit in" with the crowd. I always gravitated away from what everybody else was listening to.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,Sam Pirt
Date: 17 May 00 - 06:01 AM

Mine switched on 20 years ago!! When I was Born

Cheers, Sam

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: L R Mole
Date: 17 May 00 - 09:36 AM

Oh, Tom Dooley (Dula, really), I guess. Thence the Limeliters. Chad Mitchell (Lizzie Borden!Super Skier!)With and without the young John Denver, ne Deutchendorf!)Then PP&M, Bobby D, Woody, Pete, and off into the roots and branches. One nexus I haven't seen explored is the barbershop-Four Lads,Kirby Stone Four, Four Freshmen, Lettermen-Kingston Trio (and, in another direction, Beach Boys)- harmony trail.Sometimes our hands and strings push our voices out of the mix, which is too bad: I like a good country third-and-fifth as much as anyone, but there's fun to be had without turning into the Swingle Singers. (Joe Queenan refers to Riverdance as Celtic hopscotch,but he's about the meanest man now writing.)

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 May 00 - 04:58 PM

Irish music was always there in the background. But the penny dropped really when I went on my first Aldermaston march. H-bombs thunder, and so forth. By the second one I went on I had a guitar and could sort of play the songs.

GeorgeH has already said what I wanted to say about the crass comments about Eric Bogle at the start of the thread.

Riverdance was great as the interval for the Eurovision Song Contest, which is where it started. The blown up stage/telly version has some great stuff too. Since the apotheosis of Michael Flatley I believe it's partly recovered. (I just consulted an anagram finder - it came up with 15318 anagrams of Michael Flatley, including some quite remarkable words...I can just imagine him reading through everyone of them.)

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Kim C
Date: 17 May 00 - 05:21 PM

It was all my husband's fault. He's 12 years older than me and was a teenager/folkie/bluegrasser in the 70s. when we met we realized we liked a lot of the same music (mostly rock & roll then). He mentioned some folk & bluegrass people I had heard of but never listened to. Well, back then, our local NPR affiliate aired a show called Folk Sampler. (Gawd, I miss it.) One night, not long after we were married, we crowded round the radio on a Saturday night (that was nearly all the furniture we had at the time!) to listen to Norman Blake play Lincoln's Funeral Train. And that was IT. I ain't never looked back since.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Irish Rover
Date: 17 May 00 - 06:09 PM

I must have been about 11 in a music class they played some old Irish ballads. I went home and told my folks they said oh you mean...... and started to play them I was hooked.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Hollowfox
Date: 17 May 00 - 06:30 PM

I was raised with a solidly eclectic musical base (bass?); opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, Burl Ives, Kingston Trio, hymns - they all carried equal weight (my parents only censored me in one respect. They hid their 10" Tom Leherer record. I guess they thought I'd get into trouble at school by singing "The Old Dope Peddler". They never worried about, say, "Unfortunate Miss Bailey", though.) My switch got thrown twice. About a week after I started college, I went to the first meeting of the folk music club, and I heard an appalachian dulcimer for the first time. That wild, nearly feral version of Shady Grove was like nothing else. Through that club, I went to Pinewoods Club folk music weekends, and figured out pretty fast that it was stupid to treat performers like a different breed of human; it was a lot more fun to become friends, regardless of what they did for a living. I discovered the pure heaven of late night sings, and found myself a happy part of this huge folk network. The second time the switch got flipped was the first time I went into a real coffeehouse (our college one in the Methodist fellowship hall was a nice try, but...) The minute I came through the door of the Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, even before I went up the stairs, even before I saw Lena greeting the customers, I knew I was home.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,BillH
Date: 17 May 00 - 06:41 PM

So, there I was about 10 years old and I hear Phil Harris and "That's What I like About The South". Me and my wind up record player. A wannabee DJ with my li'l ole record player. Certainly not folk---then came "country"--if you are from the NY area you may remember Don Larkin---Harkin To Larkin Barkin. WAAT--circa 1950. Something was missing===then came The Weavers (to me)and it all fell into place. The mental gate opens to the likes of Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and all those people who have something to say through music. Things that speak to a human condition.

From there it is not a far reach to try to find where it all came from---from the Spirituals to the Protest Songs. From the LaMar Luncefords to the Carters.

And we have now a current crop of people who write and sing to the human condition----my own favorite in this generation in this genre---the writer of a bunch of classic pieces (perhaps the most famous being And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda)---ERIC BOGLE. But let us not forget people like Pat Humphries, Magpie, and Kim & Reggie Harris. I respect and admire them just as highly.

Bill H

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GeorgeH
Date: 18 May 00 - 08:30 AM

Hey, McGrath, we must stop this agreeing in public . .

George

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 18 May 00 - 06:30 PM

I was about ten, I guess, so this would've been about '66...somehow I managed to aquire a Bros. Four album...started me on a life-long obscession for acoustic music of the folkie variety!

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: tgreenie
Date: 19 May 00 - 01:28 AM

For me it was the blue yodler, the singing brakeman, the father of country western, Jimmie Rodgers

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 19 May 00 - 11:43 AM

I'm a relative newcomer. It was one of the good aspects of my divorce, about 12 years ago. I dated a man who had lots & lots of Folk Legacy recordings & took me to a few concerts--Bill Staines, Lui Collins, Priscilla Herdman, Schooner Fare, & the like. After a year & a half, we broke up, but I sure kept the music & the love for it! Thanks, Sandy & Caroline!

best,

bbc

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 May 00 - 07:55 AM

I would have said Skiffle and Sonny Terry and all that wonderful American stuff.

But I do remember that the Hymnn, Lord Of All Hopfulness, was the fist song/tune that I really liked.

Earlier in the thread Slane, was mentioned and this was the tune to that Hymnn. Interesting.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: gillymor
Date: 20 May 00 - 08:16 AM

The soundtrack to the earliest part of my life, that I remember, was provided by the recordings of The Weavers, Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio and Burl Ives (as well as Gershwin, Cole Porter, Kern etc.) thanks to my Dad. I guess it all fermented until I was about twenty when I heard a friend of a friend playing Rev. Davis' Candyman which prompted me to go out and get a guitar and to fall in love with all kinds of acoustic music.

Frankie

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: mactheturk
Date: 20 May 00 - 11:09 AM

DECEMBER 25, 1963.

I got a guitar for Christmas. The first song I learned was "Pretty Mary" by Peter Paul & Mary, next "Where have All the Flowers Gone."

Figured out "Don't think twice, it's alright".

There was a show on T.V. called "Hootenanny".

Barry McGuire sang "Eve of Destruction."

Peter, Paul and Mary sang "If I had a Hammer" with Martin Luther King in Washington.

There was a lot going on. It was a great time to be thirteen!

MP

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Mooh
Date: 20 May 00 - 11:29 AM

The Shambles (great handle btw),

If you like Slane, check out some of the better hymnals (which will list tunes as traditional adaptations), for other tunes from the folk tradition. Some of them can be kinda dancie even.

Cool thread, eh? Mooh.

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 May 00 - 12:51 PM

HYMNNS and folk tunes

Subject: RE: When did your 'folk' switch flip on?
From: Margo
Date: 20 May 00 - 12:58 PM

When I heard Lou Killen singing sea shanteys. Fell in love right away. From there the path let to old ballads, the American folk songs of my youth, and Rabbie Burns' songs! Love 'em all! Margo

Lou Killen is superb!!!