Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:39 AM

Art, is that new CD ready yet? Or has it already come out and I missed it?

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:34 AM

Hi, Jerry---and Ruth too!

Love to ya both,

Art

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:15 AM

I be me--real name and all! I've been wising up for all of my 64 plus years. And I show no signs of fading away--even though I once dropped 100 lbs. All but 30 of those pounds found their way back onto my current visage. I ain't proud, but I am now smart enough to see it isn't worth worrying about. When I do finally fade away, I will finally lose the weight.

folk ART-ist THIEME !!!
(and now you know who to ask for when you buy my CDs from Folk Legacy Records at www.folklegacy.com or from Camsco)

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:05 AM

Justin Case.. you any relation to Justin Time?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 09:47 AM

All right my real name is Tom Hamilton what's yours

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST,Justin Case
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 09:47 AM

It's always interested me that so many people can't tell a joke or remember more than a few songs.
What I've noticed is that they screw up a joke because they can't remember to tell it exactly like it goes. To paraphrase kills it.

The other thing is, if you can remember one song, or two, or half a dozen, why can't you remember a hundred? Where is the cut off? Can anyone explain this?

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: kendall
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 09:41 AM

We could usew a bit more tolerence.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Deckman
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 09:37 AM

This is being a very good thread! Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 09:30 AM

Very few people use their real name here, including Tam the man. What sort of name is that? Are you in the phone book? Could I call you or visit with just that made up non name?

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 09:16 AM

Tam - this is the first time I've ever felt like euro-sceptic

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 09:05 AM

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST,[life of a] Japanese Salesman
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 09:03 AM

anyone for Trad Folk KAREOKE..!!???

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 08:55 AM

why don't you tell us your sodding name guest are you scared, I'm not.
Anyway we all do things differently over here in EUROPE,

God it's like hitting your head off a brick wall on this thread.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 08:53 AM

be god you must have a better memory than me guest please I don't, and I do connect with the audience because if I didn't they would soon let me know

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: kendall
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 08:25 AM

When I first started performing I was as nervous as a Christian scientist with a severed artery, so I used a stand and crib sheets. I felt the disconnect with the audience and so did they.

I see a big difference between a performer and an entertainer. I decided to be the latter.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 07:47 AM

If you can't remember the sodding lyrics, study your sodding book and sheets until you do. Then leave them home. You can not connect with an audience while staring at a sodding book.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 04:50 AM

one one level I disagree.

my feeling about singing is that it's a form of expression that calls for committment to the material, at least to the point of knowing the words - but really far beyond. And no one finds word learning easy, but with experience you learn the process and the feeling of being at one with the lyrics.

an actor must know his words as though they were the next thing that came to his mind to articulate, and a singer should perform as though those lyrics are at the root of his being - right next to his heart.

Jack Hudson once explained to me, You must inhabit the songs!

However if someone reading stuff to you entertains you, fair enough.

As for David Bowie if his sodding lyrics meant anything in the first place, perhaps remembering them wouldn't present such a problem.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 04:48 AM

At least someone understands, and the reason why I was shouting was for out of the 16 times I have posted I told you about Europe, but you wern't listing, so I thought If I shouted then maybe you would undestand.

Because none of you read my post either or you would of noticed that I was talking about EUROPE.

Tam

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 03:40 AM

I guess people get into performing for different reasons. I can understand why someone who is "success driven" would want to stick with a winning formula. Hell's bells, that's what runs the television entertainment industry: a drama or sitcom that really works tends to spawn a whole gaggle of imitations. Same with movies.

But often, when I hear a song, it hits me in a way that I have to learn it. Something like lust sets in. I've often bought a record or a CD that I didn't particularly want because it had one song on it that I did want. And once I've learned it, naturally I want to sing it for others. Sure, when I was performing actively, I would repeat material. But I was constantly adding new stuff to the repertoire. One of the kicks, for me, is springing new stuff on people, songs they probably haven't heard before.

But—one of the biggest thrills of my life was at a thirty-year reunion concert of a bunch of regulars who had sung at Seattle's "Pamir House" in the University District back in the early Sixties. The concert was packed with lots of old patrons. They were a bit greyer, but most of them were pretty recognizable. It was heavy nostalgia time.

One of the bits I used to do consisted of two songs I had put together: Copper Kettle segueing right into a particularly mournful version of Moonshiner that I'd learned from Rolf Cahn. At the reunion I opened my set with this, and when I sang the first line, the audience broke into applause. They remembered it!

Man! That's heady stuff! But you can't plan that sort of thing. It just happens when it happens.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST,Stephen L. Rich
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 12:26 AM

This is , sadly, not an uncommon phenomenon in any genre. I've worked in several over the years and have seen it countless times. Some of the previously mentioned explainations make a good deal of sense. There are a few other factors to consider.

This can happen with performers who don't work more than a few clubs or small fest in any given year. This cuts down the pressure to learn or create new material. Not all of us are driven to constantly try new things or stretch our own limits. this leads to another reason.

There's a comfort to the familiarity of tested and reliable songs and patter for both performers and large portions of thier respective audiences. Back in the days of vaudeville many a performer would learn a three to five minute act and build a career on it. They would travel the country for twenty years or more with that material.

There are some who, believe it or not, actually fear any change in thier performances. While I don't completely understand why, I know for a fact that the condition exists. I currently know one or two performers who are like that.

In the lng run, as long as club owner, festival bookers, and, most importantly, audiences are willing to actively support it by continuing to book said acts, or attend thier shows the phenomenon will not go away. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen.

Stephen Lee

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 12:01 AM

.. but David Bowie at least cheerfully admits in public
to his need for onstage notes to help him remember the lyrics to his own songs..

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 11:59 PM

and dont be too surprised to discover how many big stadiun
bands and famous solo singers perform their entire set
to a midi click track that not only keeps the drummer and band tied to a rigid predetermined
performance setlist..

but also drives a video autocue screen hidden low on stage behind the monitor speakers..

all the lyrics to every song scrolling along in time
for the benefit of these now increasingly 'aging' megastars..

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Mark Clark
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:42 PM

Fascinating discussion, glad I found it.

I tend to think the way a singer handles the issues in discussion here can vary according to the way the singer presents himself. If a singer presents himself as one who is keeping a tradition and passing that tradition on the best way he or she can, then I think there is an understood responsibility to have learned every aspect of every song: Its history, its meaning(s), its lyrics and certainly its performance details. People presenting themselves as folksingers have assumed that responsibility. Such singers place more importance on the song itself than on themselves as artists.

If a professional vocalist is presenting a program that includes interpretations of folk-derived songs for which scores have been prepared, I see no problem with the vocalist singing from the score. In this case the material is understood to be secondary and only a foil for the performer.

Thirty plus years ago, I took my bride to be to a Chicago showcase club called The Quiet Knight to see Dory Previn, a singer who was popular at the time. Because Dory was very popular and lots of people wanted to see her, they ran two shows an evening and turned the house over between shows; an unusual step for that club. The Quiet Knight was managed by friends of mine so they asked if we'd like to sit through for the second show and we accepted.

Ms. Previn did a nice show with good patter and one song in particular had a rather long lead in that went by without notice in the first show. We were surprised to discover that the second show was identical to the first in nearly every respect. Same songs in the same sequence with the same patter, the same impromptu assides, the same inflections; her whole show was like a dramatic role in a play, well rehearsed and precisely executed... except for one small thing. During the lengthy lead-in, identical to the first show, she lost her place or her concentration or something and literally could not get to the song. She was probably eight minutes into a ten minute speech and wound up starting the whole lead-in speech from the beginning, with practiced assides and inflections, because it was the only way she could get to the next song. We and the staff may have been the only ones to know how pathetic she seemed.

I know big name rock bands hit the road only able to perform their most recent CD plus a couple of greatest hits as encores but you don't really expect that from an individual performer in an intimate setting.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:39 PM

So, why didn't Elvis, and Frank Sinatra, and Sting and Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee and the Beatles and Dire Straits and....
use song sheets? Or Hank Williams or Doc Watson or Mississippi John Hurt, or.... They would have feared for their lives. Why should we expect less when we go to see someone performing professionally, doing folk music?

I think that you're right, Kendall. This has to be culture class.

As for forgetting words, I've done it, and so have the best of them I've heard. When the concert is over, most people don't leave thinking about a line that someone messed up. It's the connection that's made between performer and audience.

I've also been on both ends of the equation when I've forgotten a line and someone from the audience sang it out (and we all had a good laugh) or when a performer has forgotten a line and I've sung it out (and we all had a good laugh.)

I second what bbc says, too. If I go hear someone a second time over a short period of time, I go understanding that it may be a very similar set list. I expect that the introductions will be at least somewhat similar too, as it's difficult to come up with a unique introduction every time you sing a song. I don't expect an evening of music that seems phoned in. If a performer is going to repeat introductions (and asides) word for word, put it out on a DVD and I'll throw it in the machine and watch it at home.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:02 PM

I'm late getting here, but I'd still rather see songsheets than hear the same performance every time, especially if it's someone local whom I'm likely to run across again and again. I have a good memory until I get onstage and get nervous, and then everything goes blank. I don't usually need help any more but I used to write out bits of dulcimer tab on napkins as cues in case something escaped.

I'm not a professional but I used to do odd gigs and open mics, and I was always careful to have at least 33% new material, or, in a pinch, played old stuff that I hadn't performed in at least six months. Of course, I didn't often have a big set to do, and I'd repeat stuff if somebody wanted to hear it, but I never repeated sets one time after another. Yawn. There were several otherwise great performers I knew whom we all came to dread because they'd been playing the same ten songs for ten years.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 09:48 PM

Tam/Guest 7:34 - if you're going to shout Goodbye, then mean it and shut up.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: bbc
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 08:41 PM

Getting back to the original topic & speaking as an audience member, I learned the hard way to leave some time between concerts by the same performer. On a concert tour, it seems that many performers do the same group of songs in the same order & that makes sense. If I've paid several dollars, though, I'd prefer some variety. I think that's all our original poster was saying. Most good concerts that I've attended, by performers whose music I know, have been a mix of their well-known music & their newer music, but, from concert to concert, the songs & order of songs varies. If a performer stays in the same area, I agree that s/he had better keep bringing in at least some new material or folks will simply get bored & not bother attending. I think this thread topic is worthwhile.

best,

bbc

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: kendall
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 07:40 PM

Culture clash?

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 07:34 PM

I just wish some people would just accept the fact that certain folk artists use songbooks on stage, that's their style, if you can't accept them then I think you lot should take a good look at yourselves, I mean how many europian tours have you lot done, not many, and yet there are groups as Tam the man said who have done a lot of europian tours and no one gives a shit just as long as they put on a great show.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 07:13 PM

OH I FORGOT TO TELL YOU THAT I COME FROM EUROPE AND I'M JUST KEEPING UP A TRADTION THAT WE HAVE HERE

GOODBYE AGAIN

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 07:12 PM

FOR THE VERY LAST TIME OVER HERE IN EUROPE THERE IS A TRADTION OF SINGERS AND GROUPS THAT USE SONGBOOKS ON STAGE AND THEY TRAVEL THE WORLD AND THEY GET PAID AND THEY DO FESTIVALS AND NO ONE OVER HERE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THAT.

SO GOODBYE

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 03:09 PM

Hi Le Scaramouche


There's also an excellent & extremely comical Hedgehog song that I believe was penned by Heather Wood

Barry

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 02:43 PM

Tam, lighten up will you? This thread isn't about you.
It's about giving good money to see artists who are getting paid to perform. If they don't know their material, or don't have enough of it to vary their shows, they are not doing their job. If learning new stuff is really THAT much of a trauma, why go onstage?

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: kendall
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 02:16 PM

"The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you are a success." (George Burns)

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 02:11 PM

Hedgehog Song, that's a great Incredible String Band number!

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 01:59 PM

i would just like to add that to my mind theres more verbal grace in most Derek Brimstone song introductions than there is in half the oxford book of Verse

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 01:18 PM

It is all show biz--which means that the performer must script, rehearse, and act in order to achieve the sense of spontaneity and sincerity that is expected.

At any rate, Lowden, you needn't worry, as those folk entertainers who never get their acts together ultimately figure out how to fade away without need of advice--

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: kendall
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 12:30 PM

What Jeri said.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 12:05 PM

I'm not feeling sorry for myself or anything like that, I just forgot to read your earlier post that's all.

THANK YOU DON

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 12:03 PM

THANK YOU DON, YOU JUST HAVE EXPLAIN THINGS TO MEA BIT UNLIKE YOUR EARLYER POST.

I WILL TRY THAT,

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 11:37 AM

Tam, for Chrissake stop pissing and moaning, feeling sorry for yourself and feeling insulted! If you'd read one damned word of what I wrote, you'd note that I've given you a workable alternative to carrying around a stack of books.

I'll say it again, louder.

TYPE OUT THE SONGS YOU'D LIKE TO SING AND PUT THE SONG SHEETS IN A THREE-RING BINDER. STUDY THE SONGS. LEARN WHAT WORDS MEAN. THINK ABOUT THEM. KEEP THE BINDER WITH YOU WHEN YOU GO TO SONG FESTS, OPEN IT, PUT IT WHERE YOU CAN SEE IT, AND TRY TO SING THE SONGS WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE WORDS, BUT IF YOU HAVE TO, GO AHEAD AND LOOK!

SING! ENJOY!

Nobody's insulting you. If you have trouble memorizing, then I have sympathy for you, and so, I believe, does everbody else. Don't give up.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 11:02 AM

Tam, the thread WAS about folk PERFORMERS doing paid gigs where people expect to hear a professional quality performance. It was NOT about folk clubs and people taking turns singing. You keep saying you don't have a CD, you don't do paid gigs, well fine - I'm the same situation.

As this thread is about paid performers and performances, and "If folk performers expect to get repeat bookings...", neither of us is being criticized.   

If I pay to see a performer who constantly screws up, relies completely on song sheets and generally seems to believe he's there because it's HIS chance to be a 'star' and doesn't appear to give one shred of an iota of a shadow of a shit about whether the audience is actually enjoying him, he IS going to 'Fade Away' because those of us who are bothered by this apathy are not gong to intentionally put ourselves through that torture again. It's irrelevent whether anyone thinks that's right or wrong. It's going to happen.

On the other hand, if I hear that a person has made an effort to improve, I may give them another chance.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:50 AM

I think I'll just leave, one more thing before I go is one of the reasons is on the Club night, I lkie to try out a new song, which I just got the words to and never had time to learn it properly.
I'm sorry but I just a bit stupid, I'm sorry if I have upset evryone.
I think I'll leave now.

SORRY

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:46 AM

You miss the point
A real artist who works within comedy acquires grace and power of his delivery of a joke by rehearsing it and doing it time and time again. Check out Lenny Bruce at the height of his powers.

Connolly too, was better and sharper and more disturbing when he worked to set pieces like The Crucfixion.

How the hell do you think Peter Ustinov and Victor Borge got so good - you think they just made it up five minutes before they went on stage?

Part of the reason people like carrott and Cobnnolly and Mike harding got out of the working mens clubs was to get away from arseholes at the back shouting 'heard it!'

In the 70's these artists developed a discursive style of humour in folk clubs. And personally I'm bloody sorry they didn't prove to be trtadition that continued. They were a bloody sight more interesting than some of the folksongs that did survive.

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:36 AM

well I thought you understood, I think I'll just go an hang myself on my musicstand, and the world would be a better place, because it loooks like certain people on this thread don't like me and think I'm talking shit

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:33 AM

Thank you very much rhyzla, someone how understands

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:31 AM

So you lot haven't forgotten a verse or the tune, I mean Sean Cannon does it all the time, he goes de da dum, and that's just to remember the tune and the key.
God I feel like the condemed man that has this illness, like aids or HIV or something like that, we're all different, Anyway I wished I haded opened this thread now.
And I'm sorry if I can't remeber words, and I do try put what the feeling of the song means to me, and if I have to use songbooks then That the way I'll do it, there are lot of singers that do this, or you going to condem them as well, Why is it wrong to use songbooks, I mean how to do practice new songs, you must use Songbooks, OK not in concert, but you must use them at home surely.

Anyway I'll just stick to using songbooks when I perform, oh by the way I don't get paid ( well sometimes) Peter Seeger once used a blackboard and an easel at on of his concerts, and sometimes he sticks the words to songs on his microphone.

Tam

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: rhyzla
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:25 AM

Having the words and/or chords in front of you means - "never having to say you're sorry"

For me, it's forgivable for an artist to have a memory aid, whether it's a music stand, or an autocue.

But's it's a pain in the arse when an artist breaks down in the middle of a song - there's not normally any excuse!

But to play the same songs and tell the same jokes is bloody lazy!!

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Tam the man
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:20 AM

so you lot haven't had mental blocks in your life, and the songs I do sing do have meaning to me and I try to put that feeling I have for the song over, as I said I just have a shit memory, so what you lot are saying is that all these musicians should all just give up, Since when was a crime to sing songs out of a book, God I feel like the condemed crimal here, and I have commited a terrible crime along with the others that rely on songbooks, as I said we are all different.

Tam

Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
From: Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:12 AM

In a song sung by Johnny McEvoy titled "The Hedgehog Song" part of the chorus goes something like, "You can sing all the words and play all the notes, but you never quite learned the song......" I think that is partly what Jerry is saying. I can't help but believe that if a song has meaning to the singer, it shouldn't be a major task to commit it to memory. I don't doubt Tam the man's difficulty with remembering stuff, but I can't help wondering if it is not related, at least in part, to skiping from one new song to another. I have some friends who can play tons of songs but rely on the words being right in front of them. And when they sing the songs there is no depth of feeling behind the words. They have great voices and command of their instruments, but there is a lack of feeling and conviction in their performances that is noticable.