Folk in Current Novels

Subject: Folk in Current Novels
From: DonD
Date: 03 Jul 02 - 06:48 PM

When I saw a novel called "John Henry Days" on the 'New Fiction" shelf at the library, I scooped it up and took it home. As might have been expected, it has a lot to do with the John Henry ballad and legend and I enjoyed it and would recommend it. There is a considerable amount of consideration of the folk process and could well quaslify as a 'Cat thread if it were better written. *G* Actually it's pretty damn good. (Author: Colson Whitehead)

When I returned it I spotted another new book, the latest in the Lucas Davenport series of police procedural/thrillers and I'm in the midd;le of it.

Much to my surprise it has a Mudcat connection(?!?). The villainess (is that sexist?)Clara Rinker is a hit-person (compensating, non-gender-specific) visits a struggling St.Louis bar whose owner, Sellos, is an underworld connection. (Mortal Prey pp. 95-99):

She stepped inside the door, paused, let her eyes adjust to the gloom. A long-haired young man sat on a dais at the end of the main room, a guitar on one knee. He was saying, "...learned this song from an old Indian guy up in Dakota. I was working the wheat harvest, this was back in '99..."

Rinker thought, Jesus.

(There's a page of confrontation at gunpoint with the club-owner.)

'You got folk music downstairs, John," Rinker said. An accusation, and it nmade Sellos uncomfortable. She slipped the pistol back into her jacket pocket. They listened for a minute, and heard, faintly, through the floor, the singer's scratchy voice: ...the Sioux and the Arikira are gone, driven by the white man's trains, across those treasured free-wind plains, where the wheat waves like dollar bills, and overflows some banker's tills...

"Gotta pay the mortgage, Clara," he said. "The guy costs me nothin'."

"How're you gonna grow your bar traffic, John, with some asshole singing about freight trains and wheat? Folk music is WORSE than nothing. Hiring folksingers does nothing but encourage them. It's like letting cockroaches into your house."

"I gotta have something, and I can't hire country," Sellos said defensively. "Country people won't come down here. And blues are dead, except with the corduroy university crowd, and they can make a whole night out of a beer and a dish of free peanuts."

(more crime stuff till she's ready to leave)

She stood up and stepped away to the office door, and then said, "Listen, John, you gotta get rid of that fuckin' folk music, okay? Promise me?" She let out a thin smile. "I mean, I'm not gonna shoot you if you don't, but just do it for ... American civilization?"

What do you think of that?

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Jul 02 - 06:51 PM

I think we better copyright those story and tavern threads!! The Mudcat Collective Press!

I've got some titles by Sharon McCrumb which I will enter, later. We're sort of talking about one of them in the current thread about Scot folklore-Branigh's cup...

kewl thread, thanks!

kat

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: rich-joy
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 05:25 AM

I really LOVE Canadian writer, Charles de Lint's novels (mythic fiction), which are filled with music and art and folklore, interwoven with great characters and stories!!!
(that is, WHEN I can locate them here Down Under ...)

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 09:45 AM

I try to work it in my stuff when I write but it is more what the characters are listening to and playing. And of course i do mix it with other music. Neil

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 09:59 AM

Theres some good lyrics in Anne McCaffreys 'Dragon' series of books, particularly the volumes dealing with the "Harper Hall" (Centre for teaching and propaganda for a whole planet). They discuss songcrafting to some extent, and I have a CD based on the novels, byTania Opland & Mike Freeman. The CD is "The Masterharper of Pern" DHCD001 Nigel

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 11:37 AM

the "ISOT" trio have a bunch of folk music scattered through them.

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 11:46 AM

rich-joy, I LOVE de Lint's, too, and they are difficult to get here, also! One used bookstore owner told me nobody wants to trade them in, so they just never get them. If I come across any that I've already read, I'll pick them up, send you a list, and pass them on if they are new to you.

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 01:14 PM

Black is the Color of My True Love's Heart by Ellis Peters, 1992. Synopsis on amazon.com sez:--

Gathered for a folk music seminar at the neo-Gothic country mansion called Follymead, musicians and students are in for a surprise when talented singer Liri Palmer tries to send a message to the audience, just before tragedy strikes. Reprint.

I read it a few years ago. Not bad.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 05:42 PM

Black is the colour was actually published first in 1967.

As for song in science fiction - I've just found this site http://www.filklore.com/songs/dragon.html and this one, http://www.smacdonald.com/songs/dragonflight.html, sorry the blickies didn't work, which should give you lots more....

Dancing in Circles by Julia Hawkes-Moore, is all about a folk festival too.... with lots of folklore in it. The fact that I know the author is beside the point.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 08:53 PM

Can anyone tell me if the Songchaser book is any good? We saw the film for the first time last night - good god, what a stinker! (IMHO). The ballad singing however was first rate and (for Hollwood) deeply authentic in setting. But the conceit of the pre-Cecil Sharp (a Dr. of musicology, no less)was a non-starter. DID they in fact grant doctorates that early? I thought it was a German innovation. I don't know enough about Olive Campbell (Sharp's collaborator) to know how close to the truth the general storyline was: Sharp was grossly miscast. Other reactions?

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 10:12 PM

Yeah, I thought I read it earlier than in the Nineties. I guess Amazon's is a reissue.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 01:29 AM

Jon, I haven't read the one the movie was based on, but I am in the midle of a new novel by that name, written by Sharyn McCrumb. I talk a bit about it in this thread. McCrumb is a good writer, always has a thread of msuic running through her Appalachian-based novels. This one has a song in it about the Brahan Seer!

kat

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 02:20 AM

Various bits of folky stuff in Chaz Brenchley's Dead of Light and Light Errant (Irish sessions).

And much musician content (folk rock and other) in a lot of Phil Rickman's books, most notably December. The same characters keep popping up in different books, much like Charles De Lint's stuff.

Cheers Sarah

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 02:22 AM

Oops

Forgot that one of the best for trad references is Phil Rickman's Man in the Moss which has a border-type pipe player as the key character.

Cheers Sarah

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: rich-joy
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 05:25 AM

katlaughing, that's a wonderful offer!! Thank you!! (I have a list of friends here too, waiting to read them!!)

I'll get together a list of what I already have and PM you sometime soon ...

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Hecate
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 07:12 AM

Would also recomend Charles De Lint - "The Litte Country" is a bit patronizing in places, but good musically, and often his characters are folky artists/musicians or the like - lots of folklore in what he writes as well as folking figures. And the stories are good too.

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 10:20 AM

No problem, rich-joy, just let me know.:-)

I know I've mentioned her before somewhere, but one of my fav. series was done by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, really entertaining and well done. Here's a review of the first one in her Songkiller Saga:

THE PHANTOM BANJO-Vol 1 in the "Songkiller Saga" Elizabeth Scarborough; Bantam-Spectra Books, ISBN 0-553-28761-3

This book made me laugh. It also, more often, made me cry, rage, and chilled me to the bone. It is fantasy-fiction, but some of the passages, and some of the plot-line, hits far too close to reality to make it a nice, casual and inoffensive read for me. You see, I am a professional singer and collector of folksongs. I was raised singing the songs of the Appalachian Mountains, discovered Mexican music, and then went nuts with the rest of the wonderful ethnic musics we have in America and Great Britain and Ireland....and this book tells all about the plot of the Devil to steal our -real- music from us; to take the one source of fun and comfort for the poor and hungry away.. ..and substitute the homogenized "corporate-pop" ("corporate-PAP!") culture...Sound familiar? Devil does it in little things...killing off the center of the folk revival, a tall, skinny, leftish banjo player that likes to lead his audiences in singing.....keeping foreign singers of folk music out of the country by pressures from the Unions (THAT is happening FOR REAL RIGHT NOW with the Dept. of Immigration!!!!).....making the Music Police get tough about royalty payments and Union membership (THAT is also happening for real right now in many places, and driving the small clubs out of the entertainment side of the business!!!!)....making the Music Police get overly tight-a**ed about copyrights....and taking away the memories of the words of the songs....destroying the collections in the Library of Congress and destroying personal collections too....many, many little things that (in the real world) are -really- happening.....scares me to death! But....see, that banjo player's banjo was made by a little old man in Appalachia who had "power," and he put that power into the banjo and all that singing for years and years put power into that banjo....and another folksinger has it now....and he, and several others, are fighting back! Fighting back against the Chairdevil, and the Bureaucrats and Buisnesspersons, and all the others that want to Take Control over something that can't really be "owned" by anybody because -everybody- owns it. So maybe all is not lost...the next book will take them to the British Isles; to the source of the music...where the devils haven't really touched....yet. There, they must re-live the old ballads, and bring them back! Supposedly, there will be a third book. I already have number two and three reserved at my local bookdealer! And if they ever come out in hardback, I intend to make them a permanent part of my library, right up there with Manly Wade Wellmann and Alan Lomax! GOOD STUFF, Maynard. And, as an absolute banjomaniac myself.... GREAT BOOK! And damn sobering in spots.

There there is Picking the Ballad's Bones (The Songkiller Saga, Vol 2) and, the third one, Strum, again?

All are out of print, but you can usually find them used. It looks as though Amazon may have some copies.

kat

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Midchuck
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 10:42 AM

Has anyone else read the "Gabriel DuPre" mysteries of Peter Bowen, out of MT.

The protagonist is a Metis, 50+, living in the uncalifornicated (northeast) part of Montana, supposed to be a cattle brand inspector, but keeps getting involved in strange homicides and stuff. Likes to drive 120 on the Montana back roads while sipping bourbon and/or rolling his own cigarettes one-handed. My kind of guy. But he's also a helluva fiddler, and travels to big-city festivals. Where people often get killed, at least in these novels. I'm working through the series for the second time now, while I wait for another one.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 11:13 AM

Thanks, Peter! I'll check those out!

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Mooh
Date: 07 Jul 02 - 09:10 PM

This is actually Maribel Toshibo speaking here. You beat me to de Lint and Dragonriders. However, I would suggest the Exiles trilogy by Melanie Rawn, or the children's book series Redwall for some good stuff. ~MT~

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Lanfranc
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 04:25 AM

It's probably a bit old hat now, but I have fond memories of James Mitchener's "The Drifters", which, as I recall, had one character obsessed(?) with Child Ballads. Must read it again some time.

Alan

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 04:35 AM

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Accordian Crimes by Annie Proulx and Turlough by Brian Keenan. Both brilliantly written with amazing factual detail.

Sarah

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Hecate
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 12:12 PM

Ah yes, Turlough - very good point well made, superb read, a touch disturbing in its own way. Of course, if you want to go back in time a bit, Thomas Hardy is also quite good on the folk front, with the advantage that he was writing about something that was happening at the time. I gather there are Thomas Hardy song books out there.

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Hollowfox
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 12:57 PM

Try Gutbucket Quest by Piers Anthony. This is not part of any of his series (what is the plural of series, anyway?); it's rather philosophical, you might say. Not laden with puns, much as I love 'em, but they wouldn't have fit in the story.

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 01:25 PM

there's always Manly Wade Wellman's series of which Vandy Vandy was my favorite. I remember Mitchener's The Drifters but always got a puzzled look from people if I tried to identify a Child ballad ONLY by the number; can't imagine doing it in real life

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 02:52 PM

Kat, the Sharyn McCrumb novels are quite good. I am reading "The Songcatcher" (2001)now. The new ballad by McCrumb reads like old Child-collected verses and is worth recording:

Lyr. Add: THE ROWAN STAVE

Upon the hill above the kirk at moonrise she did stand
To tend her sheep that Samhain eve, with rowan stave in hand.
And where she's been and what she's seen, no living soul may know,
And when she's come back home, she will be changed- oh!

When midnight came, the owls cried out, the shepherd girl did hide;
She saw the churchyard dead come forth, from graves laid open wide.
And where she's been and what she's seen, no living soul may know,
And when she's come back home, she will be changed- oh!

When all the dead but one returned, she neared the empty grave,
And 'cross its narrow earthen sides she laid her rowan stave,
And where she's been and what she's seen, no living soul may know,
And when she's come back home, she will be changed- oh!

"Oh, what has barred me from this grave I left for Sanhain tide,
I've journeyed far to Denmark's shore; I left there as a bride;
And where I've been and what I've seen, no living soul may know,
And when I've come back home, I will be changed- oh!

"If you will let me gain my grave before the end of night
I'll gie your babe a magic stane that he may have the sight
And where he'll go and what he'll see, no living soul may know,
And when he's come back home, he will be changed- oh!"

McCrumb says: "The story told in 'The Rowan Stave' is a Scots legend about the mother of the Brahan Seer, telling how she got the stone that gave him the Sight. I wrote the words, and my friend Shelly Stevens, a dulcimer player and singer with the Ohio folk group Sweetwater, wrote the melody."
I hope that it is recorded, or will be recorded soon.

I also am a fan of "Gabriel Du Pre," the creation of Peter Bowen. A few years back, a Metis combo played at one of the more disreputable joints here; I especially enjoyed their fiddle playing. Indians frequented the place, so it was not on the list of approved clubs in Calgary.

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 05:31 PM

A cd is out with "The Rowan Stave." Type it into Google.

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:24 PM

Ngaio Marsh (1920's, New Zealand author, wrote a murder book where the victim is an accordionist.... couldn't happen to a nicer man.... unless there's a banjo player around!

LTS

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 09:19 PM

Anyone interested in old jazz should read the mystery novels of Bill Moody. Three of his are "The Sound of the Trumpet," "Death of a Tenor Man," and "Solo Hand." He also writes Jazz history: "The Jazz Exiles: American Musicians Abroad." He is a musician himself, having recorded with Earl "Fatha" Hines, Lou Rawls, Jon Hendricks and others.

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Wotcha
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 09:34 PM

Try Philip Caputo's "The Voyage." He recites a few shanties or songs of the sea -- he must have hit a session in Connecticut but mistaken the Mingulay Boat Song for an ancient shanty ...
Cheers,
Brian

Subject: RE: Folk in Current Novels
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 04:52 AM

Jazz Books? Who has read "Bear Comes Home" ? A wonderful read about an aspiring animal jazzer!