Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s

Subject: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: GUEST,BASSMAN
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 04:23 PM

I have noticed for a long time that it is nearly impossible to hear live performances where oldie folk songs (ie Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary among others) is performed. (that is of course except the original artists still performing at large venues) I'm talking of club sized venues. Recently I have joined a group that had played back in the 60's and are reviving this music, and so far we have had terrific reviews, but the point is that everyone says "We just don't hear this style of music anymore" There seems to be a tremendous interest albiet silent for these great old songs. Anyone have an opinion?

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: smallpiper
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 04:29 PM

There seems to be a revival going on in 60's and 70's folk style songs at a session last night there were at least 3 lindisfarne songs sung.

Good stuff bring it on back

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: GUEST,Bassman
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 04:36 PM

I should have made myself clear, smallpiper. I was refewrring to American Folk music. I enjoy Celtic traditional music tremendously, and have spent some terrific times listening to sessions in Doolin and other places in Ireland and Scotland, but somehow we in America have not revived this music as you folks have in Ireland and the UK. We are doing a great arrangement of Roddy McCorley, however!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: M.Ted
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 04:48 PM

You just started a revival, Bassman--groups come and go, and, for good or ill, the music that is performed in public depends more on what performers are interested in playing than in what audiences are interested in hearing--chances are, no one even knows what music people want to hear until they applaud--

"Folk" performers evolved from pop or classical performers who performed pop or classical arrangements of "folk" songs to Weavers/Kingston Trio "one style fits all" kind of playing to protest singers to Dylanesque psycho-balladeers to Seventies Middle-of-the-Road "acoustic" to a revival in interest in traditional playing and singing styles, to the current singer-songwriter stuff--the thing is that the performers move on to new and allegedly better things, but the audiences remember what they love forever--

Years ago, there was an old guy who played at the Alameda flea market, and he wrote out the names of every song that he knew on giant pieces of cardboard for people to request--Pop Goes the Weasel and Camptown Races were very popular--and, believe me, no one had played either tune in a Bay Area club in living memory--

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: UB Ed
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 05:05 PM

Tapping into nostalgic baby boomers; of course you'll have good response to those songs played on the radio in that day. Marketing, marketing, marketing. But the music was good. It'd be interesting to see the reaction from some lesser known songs from that period.

You gotta do "I'm in Love with a Big Blue Frog" and "Weep for Jamie."

Where ya'll playing?

Ed

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 05:10 PM

You are 100% correct about folk Singing at clubs. Yup it's back but you are wrong about the type or era of songs thats popular. Anyone is fine, also it helps if the songs allow the audience to join in. People like good singing as much or more than good songs!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 05:11 PM

I think that as the folk music "movement" moved away from the "Great Folk Scare" of the 60's and more into tradition-based modes such as bluegrass, old-time and Irish music, the music of Kingston Trio, PP&M et al fell into disregard among many active folkies. Now that forty years have passed since their initial appearance, many of those 60's songs have achieved the respectability that seems to naturally come with age. They just don't seem as "cheesy" now as they did twenty years ago. At one time, I wouldn't have done "Puff the Magic Dragon" to save my life. Now, I'd do it without hesitation.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Mudlark
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 05:17 PM

Haha...I still draw the line at Puff, but have always sung the Border Ballads and American folk music that was sung and made popular in the last 50's/early 60's. Since I still know that (large) body of work by heart I still play it a lot (whereas w/memory aging I have a harder time now memorizing) and it seems to me there is a growing interest again. There was a time that to call oneself a folksinger was to empty the room!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: CraigS
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 05:20 PM

Go back thirty years and that stuff was so common you didn't want to sing it - if you did try, you'd work up a couple of songs, get to a club and someone else would sing them right before it was your turn - then you'd be scratching your head for something to sing. Luckily, most of those people are now pipe-and-slippered in front of the TV, so you can take a chance on it these days!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: jimmyt
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 05:42 PM

Thanks UB ed for the counsel! Those tunes need reviving, but there are so so many that do! We are in Dalton, GA about 100 miles north of Atlanta near Chatanooga. Good bluegrass country, but the oldie folk music is, so far, a hit!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: jimmyt
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 06:28 PM

By the way, MudLark, where do you play? I'd like to catch a show!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: smallpiper
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 07:10 PM

I guess you've not heard of Lindisfarne then - not just an island off the coast of Northumberland - but also a 70's band that loosley (very they included a mandolin player) fitted into the genre of folk rock and sang their own compositions. Songs like Fog on the Tyne, Lady Elenor and Hey Mr Dream Seller ( a song about drugs if ever I heard one) being in the pop charts. They seem to be a bit on the revivalists list. Sorry never heard of most of the chaps you're talking about.

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: jimmyt
Date: 26 Aug 02 - 08:09 PM

smallpiper, where do you hail from? I was actually in Lindesfarne a couple years ago, right out from Berwick on Tweed, if I remember, and I wondered after you said that if I had missed a music association there! We have a very good Scottish heritage celtic band here in the states hailing from, of all places, Louisiana. They are called Smithfield Fair, and quite good.

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 01:20 AM

A singer I know sings a lot of songs that 'no one' ever sings anymore and the people love it. Songs like 'Home on the Range', 'You are My Sunshine', 'Red River Valley', 'Grandfather's Clock', 'Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kitbag', lots of others. She sings from many different eras and genres and artists: Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, John Denver, Patsy Cline, Bill Staines, Jo Stafford, Satchmo... Pretty amazing. But what surprises me the most is how many people welcome the songs they learned as children. They sing along lustily and ask for more.

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: GUEST,Taliesn
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 02:12 AM

Peter ,Paul & Mary's material is alive and well , but I guess the turning point / decline of folk-civilization was the folk-Pop-izations of "The Mama's and the Papa's" which , I'm sure , will wrinkle a few noses here , but their harmonies are still classic and "Creek Alley " as well-written a folk song ,albeit California-style ,as any written in capturing its *time* and it is still predominantly the vocal harmonies which can be supported by a single guitar as any P.P&M tune.

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Mudlark
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 03:58 AM

Ebbie...those old childhood songs are the last ones to go, too. Singing in convalescent homes with a large number of dementia and Alzheimers, many of whom can't put together a cohesive sentence, I find they can still sing You are my Sunshine, My Bonny Lies over the ocean, Workin' on the Railroad, etc. Makes me think that music resides in the old brain...

JimmieT...These days I mostly sing on my front porch, out in the country near Paso Robles, CA. But I occasionally do an afternoon gig at a local winery, and I play with a couple of local musicians. They are younger, however, and to my surprise am finding myself playing a lot of Eagles tunes...a far cry from Mary Hamilton!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: smallpiper
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 05:15 AM

I'm from Northumberland out of Irish parents (republicans who came here to help the Brits fight Hittler) but for my sins now live in that mecca for catters - Hull. There will be loads of sites around on Lindisfarne the band - who are no where near as wonderful as Lindisfarne the place - and you will surely be able to hear some of their stuff on MP3.com

When I was small there was a predominance for songs from the north east of England - music hall songs Cushy Butterfield, Lambton worm etc which declined form many people's rep but I noted at Whitby folk week are making a welcome return. So the revival appears to be global.

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: alanabit
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 07:26 AM

The title of Lindisfarne's "Hey Mr.Dream Seller" was actually "Meet Me On The Corner". I am sure the island is a wonderful place and I shall go there when I have a chance. However, in defence of the band, I have to say they were fine musicians and good blokes. I met them in my college days and admired both their music and their decent, unaffected personality. They played what we called folk rock back then. It could be too much rock for some tastes, but there were jigs and reels in there along with Woody Guthrie songs. Wasn't the "Creek Alley" by the Mamas and Papas actually "Creque Alley"?

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: GUEST,Bassman
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 12:14 PM

To Alanabit and others on this thread, I hate to be stupid, but could anyone shed some light on what traditional music is played in England? I have heard several times wonderful Celtic sessions in pubs in Scotland and Ireland, especially County Clare, but is there a significant amount of English music or is the music predominantly of Scot or Irish origin? Sorry again, but maybeI will find out.

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 12:36 PM

"I think that as the folk music "movement" moved away from the "Great Folk Scare" of the 60's and more into tradition-based modes such as bluegrass, old-time and Irish music,"

Bluegrass, "traditional"??? Hardly. It's a modern, commercial, consciously designed music, whose originator and general (modern) time of origin are well known. The name refers to the band, The Bluegrass Boys, where it all started. The name of the band does NOT refer to the music, but the other way around.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 01:12 PM

Interesting thread... Just a couple of observations. I was asked to book an opening act for an appearance of the Kingston Trio eight or nine years ago, which I did. I booked Sally Rogers and Howie Bursen, who brought a lot of energy and entertainment on stage and did it with great professionalism. When the Kingston Trio came on, they were so oblivious to the audience that I found it one of the most insulting experiences I've ever had. Their playing was sloppy (even by Kingston Trio standards) they spent way too much time cracking jokes among themselves, hardly acknowledging the audience's existence, they cracked each other up laughing how drunk they'd gotten the night before, and punctuated all the self-indulgence by tossing bones to the audience... the music we grew up with. I've never heard anyone get on stage and put so little effort into their music as I did that night. And they didn't need to. I listened to the audience as we were filing out of the auditorium and they were all raving, "Weren't they great!" Talk about Pavlov's dogs! Man!

I don't think I am unnecessarily critical about all of this because I happened to LIKE the Kingston Trio, bought several of their albums and still sing a couple of songs that I learned from them. But, I expect a little more commitment to the music than a lousy lounge singer. They just seemed like a lousy lounge trio, singing folk music. I guess you might say that I didn't enjoy them. :-)

As for us old fogies, when we heard the Kingston Trio and the Highwaymen and the Chad Mitchell Trio and all the rest, it created a fire in us to find the original sources, which we found much more exciting. That's a trip that's hard to reverse. Now, if someone was singing The Ballad Of The MTA and sang it with a freshness and enthusiasm, I'd still probably like it. Maybe a new generation can bring some freshness to those 60's "arrangements" of songs that go back many years before the 60's. Unless you're talking 60's songwriters, there aren't any 60's "folksongs." There are songs that are much older than the 60's that were popularized briefly in the sixties. Those songs have continued to be sung since the folk boom fizzled. It's just that they're more likely to be sung in a pre-60's style in folk circles.

Many years ago, I participated in a terrific workshop titled "Songs We All Know But Are Too Cool To Sing." I think that every folk festival should have that workshop. I did I've been Working On The Railroad, and everyone sang along, lustily. But, the topper for me was my old friend Jerry Rau (he of no discernible ego) who sang A, B,C,D,E,F,G and asked everyone to sing along with him. And everybody did. There wasn't a cool person left standing. :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 06:14 PM

Actually, you can go back further than the Sixties.

I first got interested in folk music way back in 19 aught 52. Back then there were no more than about half a dozen of us in this area. When we said "folk music," people thought we were talking about "Country and Western." Although lots of people liked to listen to us sing our weird songs, most people thought we were kind of peculiar. Our sources for songs were pretty skimpy compared to now. There was no internet and no DigiTrad. All there was were half a dozen Burl Ives records (10" LPs), one or two apiece by Richard Dyer-Bennet, Susan Reed, Cynthia Gooding, the Weavers, Josh White, and a well-stocked record store might have a couple of Folkways records such as Pete Seeger's Darling Corey album, and maybe even a Leadbelly. The Anthology of American Folk Music came out about that time, but most record stores didn't stock it and most of us didn't even know about it. Printed sources we knew about were pretty much limited to Carl Sandburg's American Songbag, Lomax's Folk Song USA, and one or two paperbacks like The Burl Ives Song Book. Some of us dug around the public and university libraries and discovered all kinds of good stuff.

Several songs were considered "standard repertoire." Songs like Down in the Valley, On Top of Old Smoky, John Henry, Lord Randal, Barbara Allen, The Streets of Laredo, Greensleeves, Black is the Color, Venezuela, The Drunken Sailor, The Midnight Special, and a couple dozen others. Some of us who frequented the libraries discovered recordings by people liked Frank Warner and Bascomb Lamar Lunsford and even more Folkways records, plus a few field recordings. We learned songs from these to add to our "standard repertoires." Then came Harry Belafonte in the mid-Fifties, The Kingston Trio in 1958 with Tom Dooley (which I had already learned from a Frank Warner record), and then all hell broke loose. The Great Folk Scare took off.

There was a sudden outpouring from radios and juke boxes of songs that most people had never heard before. Many were traditional, but a lot of them were brand new songs written to sound like folk songs. Aspiring singers newly introduced to folk songs usually didn't bother with the older recordings, especially those scratchy old field recordings, they used Kingston Trio, Brothers Four, Peter Paul and Mary, New Christy Minstrels, and Joan Baez records as their sources. There were new songs everywhere—and a rapid turnover in songs. It wasn't long before it reached a point where if you started to sing something like Greensleeves, John Henry, Lord Randal, or (God help you!) On Top of Old Smoky, people would sit there and groan and roll their eyes. These songs had become too familiar and since there was a whole bunch of new songs coming out, these old war horses had to go. The sad result is that I rarely, if ever, hear any of these songs sung anymore. And there are hordes of relatively younger singers of folk songs who not only don't sing them, but many have never heard them—or even heard of them.

Now, I know that there are those who would say, "Well, that's just the folk process. Songs come and go." And they usually add, "but the good ones last." Well, that doesn't quite wash. Suddenly thrust into the realm of "Pop Music," folk songs and ballads that had lasted for sometimes hundreds of years were subjected to the principles that govern "popular" music. The world of Pop music deals with "disposable" songs. Once they become familiar enough have made a pile of money for somebody, they have to be tossed in the Dumpster to make room for the next batch of "hit songs," so that more records get cut and sold and more money gets made. You can't have old songs clogging up radio station turntables and record store bins. As a result, as the Sixties progressed, a lot of very good traditional songs got tossed along with the schlock stuff. If you hauled a song back out of the Dumpster and tried to sing it, the eye-rollers went to work, sighing heavily and looking bored. More often than not, these were other singers! Not only did a lot of traditional material suffer that fate, but a lot of pretty good newly written stuff went the same route. It seems to be an aspect of our "disposable" culture.

Well, I'm all for recycling! I've long thought I would like to put together a concert—and possibly a CD—entitled "Oh, NO! Not THAT again!" made up of songs like those I've listed above. These are good songs, and it's damned well time people started doing a little Dumpster-diving!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: GUEST,Mike Nichols
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 06:46 PM

My friend Pat has a great show with a ton of listners. It's called Roots Rock Live and it debuts for the year on August 5th! Check him out on radio.babson.edu @ 6pmEST...He's had Jonatha Brooke on, who I love!

If his show is any indication, folk and folk rock are very popular

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: BH
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 06:57 PM

My .02 cents worth to this really interesting thread.

Back when the Kingston Trio was a rage I always wondered why---they were not traditional, they were not of the quality and commitment of the Weavers(or other people from PPM, Ochs, etc)---basically they were "commercial pop folk" with a nice sound. My opinion.

Now as to the "folk scare" of the '60s---dare I say--Kumbaya. Does anyone dare do it anymore? Lovely piece---why is it used now as a metaphor for the "corny 60s"?

Any song can be used and recycled in many versions---and bring joy and meaning to new generations of listeners and performers.

BIll Hahn

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: curmudgeon
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 07:07 PM

I don't know if I'm showing my age or my title, but I would rather not see a remake of the popular folk gruops of the '60s. Oddly enough, Bassman, who started this thread explains it thus, "We are doing a great arrangement of Roddy McCorley, however! "

Now there's nothing wrong with an arrangement, but that's about all these aforementioned groups wre about. Take a good old song (read no royalties to pay) slicken it up, and shove it up the ears of the unknowing public. And make a lot of money.

I was fortunate enough to know a little bit about folk music prior to the Great Scare. My grandfather knew a couple of songs, I found more in old song books while learning piano, I got a couple of recordings of Ewan macColl and A.L. Lloyd while in high school, and a teacher introduced me to an early recording by Frank Warner.

I admit, I did listen to the Kingston Trio, the Highwaymen, et al., but if I heard a song I liked, my first impulse was to find out the sources of the song, the history, and the correct text. For the big companies to copyright a PD song, changes had to be made.

If you want a good example of how this worked, find a copy of the Tradition LP, "Come Fill Your Glass With Us," Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers. Now after enjoying these straightforward renditions of trad songs, listen to what happened after Mitch Miller and his gang got hold of them.

I do have friends and acquaintances who still perform in this '60s manner:more power to them. But I personally feel a closer rapport with the countryman who commented to Vaughan Williams at a professional presentation of folk songs,"I suppose it's nice for him to have the pianoforte, but it does make it awkward for the listener."

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: michaelr
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 07:18 PM

Being somewhat younger than the average Mudcatter and having come of age in the early 70's, I remember PP&M, The Kingston Trio, The Limelighters, The Clancy Brothers, and other sweater-type folkies being regarded among my age group as desperately unhip. We wanted nothing to do with that -- it wasn't rock'n'roll!

Everyone tends to regard with fond and sentimental affection the songs they heard and loved during their formative years -- the popular music that was played on the radio. If you grew up with schmaltzy pap like "The Sound of Music", you can love even that, as evidenced here in some recent threads. And if you grew up in the 80s, you may well still like the metal trash of the big hair bands.

The point is, the phenomenon has nothing to do with the quality of the music in question, and everything to do with memories.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: jimmyt
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 07:21 PM

Regarding to Don Firth, I say let me at that dumpster! There are a lot of fine old tunes that people still love to hear, if they are performed well. to curmudgeon, the point is that Roddy McCorley is a great song with a great message, as are any number of Kingston Trio songs, and songs fromthe the 16th centuryto the present. Good music is timeless. Why should old music not be revived? Shakespeare is still popular in theater!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 07:26 PM

Exactly so, curmudgeon!!

Dialog heard in a Seattle coffeehouse in 1959:--

(Guy requests song. I sing it.)
Guy: "But that's not the way the Kingston Trio does it."
Me: "Sir, first of all, there are three of them and only one of me. Second, I learned that song before the members of the Kingston Trio even met. And third, I learned it from the same record they learned it from!"

Similar dialogs happened fairly frequently, and I was not the only one.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: curmudgeon
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 07:47 PM

Jimmyt -- I fear you have missed my point. A good song is a good song. But when it gets buried in arrangements, overorchestrations, sweet melodious harmonies, the song gets lost. The listener is more absorbed by the arrangement and loses sight of the message.

Listen to the words, listen to the tune -- all else is superfluous -- Tom

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: jimmyt
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 07:59 PM

Something to think about, but I for one enjoy the harmonies perhaps as much as the words, but I guess I am from more of a musical rather that a poetic background. I sometimes get caught up not paying enough attention to the message! Point well taken!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 07:59 PM

MichaelR: I've always felt that you could probably guess someone's age within an accuracy of five years if You asked them what music they loved the most. It's usually the music that they heard when hormones started raging. That's another thread: songs as a memory of the onslaught of puberty. Get married and have you first kid, and you'r out washing the car listening to Chuck Berry, or Jimi Hendrix, or maybe by now, even Nirvana. That's why I was so amazed that the people who came to the Kingston Trio concert that was so slap-dash, when they thought sounded great. They were in the back seat of their 1958 Chevy Impala, or staying up all night talking in their dorm room. Nothing wrong with any of that. You can guess my age pretty closely when I tell you that I was completely floored the first time I heard Gee by the Crows, and Earth Angel by the Penguins (not the Crew Cuts.)

It's not the songs that died when the folk Boom ran out of steam. It was the novelty of hearing them on top 40 radio. Personally, I have no desire to hear Highwaymen or Chad Mitchel Trio arrangements of traditional songs any more. I've looked at a collection of folk songs from the 60's titled Bleeker and McDougald. I was there when all of that was happening, and I was very excited about it. Now, when I look at the recordings, they don't interest me. I'd rather pull out my Old Time Music At Clarence Ashley's or my Watson Family albums and listen to them.

That said, I agree that the old songs should be resuscitated. I remember in the 80's hesitating doing The Cuckoo, because everyone had heard it to death by Clarence Ashley. But, I did it at a coffee house and it was a new song to half the people there. It's not just On Top Of Old Smokey. How about stuff like Wagoner's Lad, Little Sadie, Stackerlee, and all the other great songs that (almost)no one does any more? Why limit yourself to reviving The Kingston Trio's repertoire and arrangements? The SONG'S the thing.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Mark Ross
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 08:33 PM

I'm with Jerry, the best part of the THE GREAT FOLK MUSIC SCARE was that it encouraged so many of us to dig deeper. There are songs that need to be sung, not just because they are old, but because they have something important to say. I just found out that Childs' criteria for ballads was if he could trace them prior to 1475(the date of the introduction of the printing press to England). These songs have lasted that long because they mean something! And to most of those youngsters hearing them for the 1st time, we are as close to the tradition as they are likely to get. Jerry, as to what you say about dating someone by their musical taste, last year at a Canadian festival, I bet Ken Perlman who was leading the banjo workshop, that I could tell within 2 years when another player started learning the banjo by his performing style. I won. The fellow sounded "so '60's" that it was so obvious that he had started playing around 1964. His presentation made that obvious.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Amos
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 09:05 PM

Well, for my part I was well into digging deeper by the time the Trio showed on the horizon and I really thought their stuff was slick, over-smart, unfeeling of original context and shallow. I outgrew this rabid superiority compex when I got a little older and realized how much money they made!! LOL!!


A

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: GUEST,Guest:Mudlark
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 09:09 PM

I've played Wagoner's Lad, and Who's gonna shoe your pretty little foot, and Shadygrove, to name 3 of about a million--give or take--of old songs of their ilk for 40 years. And you are right, Jerry, to most people now they are brand new.

I agree also that Leadbelly, Doc Watson, the Carter Family and the songs they sing/sang will be around long after the likes of the K Trio are forgotten. Tho I listened to the K. Trio, et al, I thought they were uncool and dorky compared to MacCall, Cynthia Gooding, etc. A little like the Boston Pops doing the Beetles...

Don Firth...great story!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: John Hardly
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 09:57 PM

Hey, Weavermania is performing (in Chicago and elsewhere)...

Can PeterPaul&Maryania be far behind......ChadMitchelltrioania?......BarryMcGuireania?

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Art Thieme
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 09:58 PM

Early Bob Gibson was deeply rooted in the tradition. His arrangements (chord changes) showed up in MANY other folk scare set lists. Some even paid Bob for those. The Limelighters did a huge batch of 'em----as did the Chad Michell 3 especially when Jim Roger McGuinn was their intrumental backup.

FOLK ERA RECORDS (check out their site) has issued a ton of the old Folk Scare K.T. stuff----and the new stuff too by John Stewart, Eric Darling etc. etc. etc. Critic's Choice CD catalogue has good collections too.-----------One o' these days some retro company might even buy up and put out my LPs on a compilation CD or two. (**BG**)

Out of Chicago, right now---as we speak----there is a fine group called WEAVERMANIA. Michael Smith does Lee Hays' bass parts, Mark Dvorak does Pete Seeger's role on banjo, Michael's wife Barbara Barrow does Ronnie Gilbert's parts and Tom Dundee does Fred Hellerman's guitar work and singing parts. Recently Pete Seeger joined them in their concert at the Chicago Historical Society and radio station WFMT-FM broadcast it live. I just sent a copy of the part of that concert I managed to tape record to Roy Harris in Cardiff---U.K. (Roy is Burl here at Mudcat.) Whoops, maybe I shouldn't've let that out. Just consider it a verbal cyber-fart.-------------Roy is a great fan of the "good aspects" of the American revival in those years-----as am I a huge fan of those Ewan and Bert Lloyd and Isla Cameron and Peggy Seeger and Roy Harris and Lou Killen and Jeanie Robertson incandescent years. Some of us folkies did o.k. stuff me thinks. And it WILL get noticed down the line somewhere. What goes around, comes around ! As with CDs, history repeats, but it costs twice as much every time around----or so it seems.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Art Thieme
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 10:02 PM

John Hardly,

You beat me to it. But I gave some detail -- and that delayed my post.**BG**

Art

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 10:44 PM

How come nobody is doing rock and roll and rhythm and blues like Pat Boone did, anymore? :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: M.Ted
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 10:57 PM

Thanks for your comments, Don--very true, and very entertaining as well!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: jimmyt
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 11:03 PM

Thanks for your input everyone! This is my first post on this (or any other folk) site so I appreciate your being kind to a novice. I love folk music, but I am a relative newcomer to it. I will take much from your opinions BASSMAN

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: bflat
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 11:37 PM

Hey , if it weren't for the Kingston Trio I might never have turned to folk music as my prime focus. I was a kid back then but my older brother, whom I idolized, was into bongos and Harry Belafonte and then the Trio and it became my intro. I believe I've grown since then and isn't music the expression of the soul and therefore it's own depth for the listener. I get totally lost in music, can you? I will always be interested in the past.

Ellen

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 27 Aug 02 - 11:55 PM

For what it's worth, I routinely sing Kumbaya, The Sloop John B., Danger Waters, The Cruel War Is Raging, and 500 Miles. I have sometimes been known to do The South Coast, Take Her Out of Pity, and The MTA Song, and I can be cajoled into singing Tom Dooley.

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Amos
Date: 28 Aug 02 - 12:40 AM

Tom Dooley was widely circulated long before the KT got it -- Frank Warner played it on a hand-crafted banjo, for one.

But there's nothing wrong with their songs as such -- even the corny ones like Scarlet Ribbons and Long Black Rifle have a place somewhere, i guess -- the thing that always annoyed me was their slick blend and their smarmy polish. They seem to have no gut feel for the real work behind the songs they sang. When they sang with enthusiasm, you got the feeling it was because it said "Sing enthusiastically here" on the scores, or something. I don't mind their songs but I never could connect with their style. Money or not.

A

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Aug 02 - 12:58 AM

Pat Boone is still around--his heavy metal album is a favorite of mine--but everyone to their own taste--

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Mudlark
Date: 28 Aug 02 - 03:11 AM

Amos...I agree completely..."con gusto!" way overdone, to the point that many more serious folksingers got kind of wary of emoting much at all in a song. I noticed this was true of all the old timer Arkies I knew also...their deliviery was very deadpan, tho possibly for differnt reasons. I think it was the country equivalent of uncool, to "show off" by emoting at all.

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: UB Ed
Date: 28 Aug 02 - 09:34 AM

Jimmyt/Bassman (as you seem to be one and the same? Bassman the evil twin?)...

Welcome to the Mudcat! Use the search engine for lyrics and research on just about any topic (yes, even non-musical) you can think of.

I've been to Dalton; lots of carpet folks up there, but beautiful scenery and close to the start of the Appalachian Trail. I believe Young Harris College is also nearby.

Your proximity to Chattanooga should also be another opportunity for gig venues...

Best to you.

Ed

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: GUEST,BASSMAN (jimmyt)
Date: 28 Aug 02 - 09:55 AM

Ed,Thanks for the note! We are close to Chattanooga, and are thinking of trying our hand at some busking just for the fun of it! We mostly just love to play, but the interest in hearing this music is keeping ahead of our song list. My background is in commercial standards music. I started playing minstral shows and "dances at the VFW, etc" in 1962 when I was in the 8th grade. Played trumpet in about any type of music you can imagine from clubs playing jazz to rock groups in the early 70's. Had little interest in folk music until my wife turned me on to this wonderful stuff in 1968. It is just within the last 3 months that I have had an opportunity to perform the music, as I have picked up a string bass a couple years ago to mess around with and it is now consuming me! I have done a lot of theater, and have a soft spot to those smarmy harmony do-wop groups of the late 50s and early 60s, having performed Forever Plaid as well as a couple other original shows that were well received, but this folk music has a lot more substance to it and I find it to be a lot more gratifying to sing and play. I know a lot of the purists on this thread are probably gagging at this account, but facts are facts, and this is how I have arrived at an interest in the music. We can't all have cut our teeth on the Weavers!

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 28 Aug 02 - 10:26 AM

Bassman: No gagging here. Truth is, almost everyone at Mudcat cut their teeth on popularized folk music, whether it was by the Kingston Trio or the Weavers. I know that the Weavers were far more committed to folk music, and knew the tradition, but they still had a commercial sound or we never would have heard them on a.m. radio. Whatever brought you to the music... :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: Amos
Date: 28 Aug 02 - 10:54 AM

JErry:

That's the core, and well said, too. Whatever brought you into singing is worth a tip o' the hat, even if it was the Carpenters!! LOL!

A

Subject: RE: Help: Why so little interest in performing 60s
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Aug 02 - 12:54 PM

Some of you are beginning to lapse "Folkier than thou art"--and you have forced our polite newcomer, Bassman, into a polite and unnecessary apology--shame on you!

As per Jerry's comment, many of the Weaver's earliest radio hits featured the full studio orchestra and chorus that was so popular in mainstream "pre-rock" pop music--makes the Kingston Trio sound like field recordings--still fun to listen to!