Where are the kids?

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 11:07 PM

I am looking for the lyrics to a song about a grizzly bear in the circus that escapes and than is shot by a hunter. Anybody have some info?

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Kelida
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 04:28 PM

I don't remember a time when I didn't like folk/blues/jazz. I've only now started getting seriously into it--starting a folk band and all, learning new instruments, etc. I think that young people just aren't exposed to it, and a lot of people I know (even some of my friends) don't want to try anything new (well, actually, a lot of folk music is old, but it would be new to them). Also, if most teenagers are like me, they are still heavily dependant on their parents. I own a car and have my license, so transportation isn't usually a problem--however, I spend all my money on car payments, insurance, and art supplies(future career stuff), so I don't always have money for music. It may not be that young people aren't interested, but that they don't have time or money.

Peace--Keli

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Joan
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 03:44 PM

After teacher training, I got a half-year job as a permanent sub in music...not certified in music, but the system needed to replace the regular teacher quickly and they knew me from doing school programs locally. Certification was waived. The first day I stood up in front of the classes and sang "Rattling Bog" telling the kids when it was their time to sing the refrain. They were shocked! No piano; no music books; no word sheets, even. AND they were expected to sing out loud. These kids customarily got music by either burying their noses in the book or glueing their ear to the boom box. They didn't know from singing out loud for fun. Anyhow, they got distracted from rigor mortis when it finally dawned how a cumulative song works and it was funny. They sang. I pulled out every crazy kid pleaser I could think of the first few weeks.

For that half year, my goal for them was to teach lots of songs with good singing choruses so that they could sing non-stop in the bus on field trips going and coming home. (We won't go into the anguish of teaching them recorder by keeping one lesson ahead of them). They may have gone back to rock and rap, but somewhere in their little heads there will be a nice memory of good songs and singing them with friends. At least a little seed got planted.

Joan

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: selby
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 01:31 PM

The school holidays are here in the UK so on that bend The Jug (previously mentioned in many other threads)is young muscian friendly. We will be there tonight 19/4/00 with our kids a 10 year old melodeon player and a 12 year old fiddler. Many Catters gather there on a Wednesday so it is worth a journey. Keith

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 11:31 AM

We play folk music to kids in the Georgia public schools through Young Audiences. For the most part, kids are highly accepting.

There is a kind of prevailing attitude that quiet folk concerts are too "adult" for kids. Some "adult" audiences have complained that kids are too noisy for "adult" concerts. I love to see kids in the audience. I love the enthusiastic response that they give, albeit sometimes boisterous. I can't imagine a Pete Seeger concert without kids there. Woody always wrote for them. The best folk singers honor children and speak to them directly.

One of the beautiful things about folk music is that it's meant for all ages. It's important that kids are recognized and respected as the carriers of the tradition of folk music.

Kids are there. Folk music lives.

Frank

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Hyperabid
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 09:45 AM

Liz the Squeak has a point. I was in the habit of attending a broad variety of recitals / gigs with the lead gutarist of the band I was in at that time. We'd go to learn about different styles sometimes with the drummer, sometimes without. (I was playing bass for this particular outfit)...

We laughed our socks off and eventually got into slanging matches both for the same reason... once in a prog rock recital once in a folk club... Being musicians we like to discuss the technique / style / musicality of the poeple performing - comment on things we might like to imitate.

Both times some beardy-wierdy told us to shut up... Then got offended at simple questions like "why?" and "are you having any fun then?" and "where's your lot going on to after then, the laudrette or the cemetary?"

I'm not "young" on the music industry scale any more, but if you have to put your hand up to ask teahcer if you can talk you ain't gonna see teenagers turning up.

My £0 0s 2d...

Hyp

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: GUEST,JulieF (at work)
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 09:10 AM

When my daughter was young she slept through the best of bands - Fairport / Battlefield Band etc. Now she is keen on a lot of folk such as Runrig and the Levellers ( loud stuff that appeals to 14 year olds) and is just beginning to play in sessions. Her current problem is finding people she knows and making sure that we don't turn up ( Don't parents just cramp your style?). We just played allsorts of music at her ( She bounced in her cot to Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols) and encouraged her with Irish Dancing -( which meant that the tunes were always there). We also have been helped by the people in Sheffield who encourage youngsters such as members of the Irish Community, The South Riding Folk Network and other individuals. Going to The Sheffield Traditional Fiddle Society has been a great help ( Selby - We may have met ! Were you at the joint Wooton and Sheffield Workshop in Bradfield just over a year ago - Havn't made it over to Wooton yet but my brother lives near in Bigby)

Julie

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mooh
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 08:49 AM

Art,

Small world eh? Margaret instructed puppet making at our Celtic College for a couple of years and my wife's product from there still stands in our home. I still use some of Phil's lyric sheets from a guitar course I did with him. We will miss them this year!

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Ditchdweller
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 08:27 AM

Went to the Old Kng's Head last night with the eldest pair. Unfortunatly it was not a session night but a booked group "Monkeydoyles", so P&EM did not get a chance to play. Not a bad night however, they both enjoyed it. Sapper

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Chocolate Pi
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 06:02 PM

This kid (18 1/2) is going to be standing in the center of the hollow square, leading a song (probably Rainbow or Windham) at the Midwest Sacred Harp Convention (April 29-30, 9:30a-3p, Ida Noyes Hall, Chicago IL).

Chocolate Pi (who has spent many a delightful evening going through Rise Up Singing with other people in the dorm and trying to teach each other the songs we know)

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 04:44 PM

Getting back to the original question - maybe they are too frightened to come in because snooty club managers and posy gits on stage are abusive to them for making a little more noise than the average corpse..... I lost count of the times I was asked to leave, because as a new-comer I needed an oldtimer to explain what was going on....

LTS

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 04:22 PM

Mooh,

I rode to the Cleveland Folk Alliance convention with Phil & Margaret & Kate. Good people & good friends...

Art

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: GUEST,Mbo_at_ECU
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 03:50 PM

Kim, the big rock version of "Loch Lomond" was the Scottish Celtic rock band Runrig, performing at the World Cup. I ABSOLUTELY love the version---especially with that "ho ro mo leannan" choral ostinato. This live version I believe can be founf on their album "Beat the Drum." Excellent stuff, and not really that different from the original!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Kim C
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 02:20 PM

Well, I've noticed a couple of things. First thing is, as living history musicians, Mister and I have kids following us around whenever we play someplace where there are kids. That may have a lot to do with the period clothing. But they eat it up. Last Christmas we played a house tour and got the kids to come down and sing carols with us. Kids always ask us questions! I think there is plenty of interest there, but maybe not every child has someone to help foster it. There are still plenty of parents who think music is not a worthwhile pursuit; plus, when school budgets have to be cut, music is one of the first things to go.

The other thing is, there are a lot of bands & artists - not necessarily folk artists, but Top40 as well - outside the US who incorporate their country's folk music into what they're doing. One night, I think it was on Thistle & Shamrock, I heard a Scots rock band doing a heavy-metal version of Loch Lomond. It was different, but it was good. And the audience was singing along. While I still have to warm up to contemporary versions of old old songs, I must admit that these type of things introduce the old old songs to a new audience, who might not have heard them otherwise. I don't really see many contemporary non-folk US bands & artists doing this- but maybe I've missed something since I don't listen to the radio much anymore.

Regards ----------------- Kim

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Wavestar
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 05:09 PM

I've been meaning to read this thread for some time... just to say, Here! Well, I'm a bit older now, but I've been amazed... all the little kids I knew as a teen, and occasionally mentioned that they should come to a contra dance, or concert... are going to NEFFA without me! (well, so I'm in Scotland... wet walking.)

I do, however, wonder exactly what caught them. I think it was the dancing, and since there's not much to do in our small New England area for young people that doesn't involve getting really drunk, or driving a long way, the contras are pretty popular. I had the advantage of having folkie parents, Saturday nights we'd all sit around and listen to Garrison Keilor, and the few folk programs that were on PR... otherwise, I heard their recordings, borrowed from their collections, listened to my mother sing, and (perhaps most importantly, indeed!) we went to folk festivals... Champlain Valley, although I haven't been in years, Storytelling Festivals, and certainly the Clearwater, which I've worked for the past... 12 years? maybe more. My friends at school thought the idea was cool, most of my peers laughed. But they always laughed anyway.

Now in college, there are enough of us with similar tastes that we group together, we have a session Wednesday nights, in my house, because the pubs don't like us to sing over the footie matches. There's so much young talent to be inspired by, as well... I remember discovering Dar Williams, hearing Rachel Bissex do her "When I was a Boy," and then buying the album, long before she went on Lilith... and meeting her and working with her at Clearwater. Every young performer I've seen at festivals and such, or had the money to buy recordings of, has been very talented, and very inspiring.

I think what has been being said about schools and music teachers is a valuable way to try and get this out there... but my music teachers made valiant efforts with little to no enthusiasm in such a small and sometimes close-minded community.. especially close-minded among the youth. (I understand now why my eccentric family was never accepted. MY BROTHER and I didnt fit it - the adults could deal with my parents, but their kids couldn't.) Not only that, but Peter Amidon and his family even came to us every year... I felt we were lucky, everyone else hated it. Perhaps, if no one can think of a way to spark enthusiasm about what kids don't think is cool (in middle school, anyway), you'll just have to put up with us - the kids of folkies, and all our friends. But I'm not losing hope!

-Jessica

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Ditchdweller
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 03:45 PM

Well tomorrow night I'll be at the Old King's Head in Belper, Derbyshire with my two eldest, Phillip & Emma. Phillip, nearly 11, is struggling manfully with the fiddle and Emma, 7, has just passed her Initial Grade music exam for the guitar. They are both made very welcome and their playing is always given the same consideration as more experienced and accomplished players. just wish there were more venues like this one! Sapper

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: GUEST,Erin
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 02:42 PM

Hey.. I haven't read all the posts on this thread, but just wanted to say I'm 17 and learning the whistle. I constantly listen to the old Clancy Bros & Tommy Makem recordings, but can't find a soul my age, in my area, who appreciates this stuff. Ah, well. I have to go now, and put on the Spain Brothers to block out the Britney Spears song my sister is playing..

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: selby
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 01:54 PM

The kid's are out there, the trouble lies in location's and transport unless mum or dad's taxi is available you will not see them (a bit elusive is the younger generation)i'm sure this is the same the whole world over as it is here in the UK. My own son participates in two fiddle groups one through school and music centre with his music teacher who has produced folk based tune books for young musicians. The music centre has approx 30 young violin players whom often play folk music but as their parents are not folkies you will not see them at any festivals. The second is the Wooton Fiddle club where there are a great number of fine young muscians playing folk music but not always going to festivals. There is of course also Folkworks doing good work as well. All we have to be is patient they will arrive. Keith

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mbo
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 02:19 PM

Man....I'm thinking we should have a Mudcat Youth gathering or something!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 02:11 PM

We're just finishing our week-long folk festival today. We had some astonishingly great youngsters' groups play this week from all over Alaska, everything from Irish to folk to bluegrass.

Two of the groups got standing ovations- which is not that common an occurrence

And in the audience are dozens of enthralled children. I'm not worried about where our next generation of music will come from! Ebbie

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mbo
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 01:41 PM

Right on Kelida & KC! I was at the North Carolina RenFaire a few weeks ago, sitting in the audience while a traditional band played. I was the only one who was singing "Whisky Johnny" along with them...and all the rest of the folks were adults! In my Figure Drawing Class last semester, which includes 3 straight hours of drawing models, our teacher would bring in music so we wouldn't be totally bored...sorry to say I that Etta James DID get rather tiresome after the 3rd time around, so I brought in my Green Linnet Celtic albums and let my teacher play them. I thought that being the modern hardcore-music loving people college students are, that they would find it boring...but I actually got a good response--even from the model! You shoulda seen this one guy improvising along with "Alistair Mhic Cholla Ghasda" by Capercaillie! it was great!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: GUEST,a little one
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 10:47 AM

Ok, so I'm not *so* little - 19 - but I loved this thread because I'm glad that you guys are interested in us! My dad had me listening to folk when I was quite small and I loved it then, and knew all the words. Of course, I hit adolescence and disowned everything but the latest fad, but that didn't last long, thank God. Now I'm back to listening to the craziest mix of music - from Nanci Griffith and the Chieftains to Blink 182 and Pearl Jam. I went to a Great Big Sea show about two weeks ago, and I knew just about all the words and had an amazing time. You will all be glad to hear that at that show, standing behind us, was a group of early college-age guys in full "college guy" attire, yelling requests for songs like "Old Black Rum" and "The Jolly Butcher," and singing right along. In specific response to a previous post, I personally like Dave Matthews Band et al. and that sort of music *because* I like acoustic guitar-ish music, not the other way around. I think the music I grew up with has given me this amazing background, which helps me evaluate music on a more global and historical scale. So don't worry - we're here! Just keep playing fiddle and banjo and bodhran in our ear, and we'll catch on eventually. :-) little kc

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Kelida
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 12:09 AM

There are actually a lot of people at my high school that are into traditional and celtic folk music. One of my friends just joined a traditional vocal group (although they do write some of their own songs) and me and another one of my friends are starting another instrumental (for now) band.

Also, My best friend and I went to a show last night where we were the youngest people except for a couple babies and one teenaged guy, and we had a great time. She's 16 and I'm 17, and we didn't think there was anything "uncool" about going to a place where the average age was probably about 50. This was after we spent the afternoon with my grandparents.

I think that a lot of young people just don't realise how very valuable our elders are and how much we can learn from them. The best thing that all parents and grandparents, etc, can do is try as much as possible to just expose kids to history and tradition as much as possible to make sure that the past lives on.

Peace--Keli

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 10:49 PM

Rob, no I don't, but I also live in southern Ontario, so I can't keep up with them. My wife says to "look under Margaret Nelson" for a website though, that might help you.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Rob-IL
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 06:02 PM

Mooh: I would like to see Phil, Margaret, and Kate... do you know of any show that they will be doing this summer?

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: bobby's girl
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 06:00 PM

To see young folk at its best a visit to the Folkworks Youth Summerschool in Durham is a must. There are kids from 10 to 22ish playing, singing and dancing all day and well into the night - sometimes all night. Our own Sam Pirt and his friends got together at Durham, and there are lots of other kids equally as talented. The problem is that when they go back to their home environments, they won't even consider taking their instruments to school, or even admitting that they play something like an accordion or melodian because they are ridiculed by their peers. I know my daughter suffers from this, and she is not alone - she has enough trouble admitting she has a mother who is a Morris Dancer! I think that a lot of trouble these days comes from peer pressure rather than lack of interest.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: bobby's girl
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 06:00 PM

To see young folk at its best a visit to the Folkworks Youth Summerschool in Durham is a must. There are kids from 10 to 22ish playing, singing and dancing all day and well into the night - sometimes all night. Our own Sam Pirt and his friends got together at Durham, and there are lots of other kids equally as talented. The problem is that when they go back to their home environments, they won't even consider taking their instruments to school, or even admitting that they play something like an accordion or melodian because they are ridiculed by their peers. I know my daughter suffers from this, and she is not alone - she has enough trouble admitting she has a mother who is a Morris Dancer! I think that a lot of trouble these days comes from peer pressure rather than lack of interest.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 05:36 PM

Art, et al,

Sorry folks, that last post was intended for Art specifically, but everyone's welcome of course.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 05:32 PM

If you're in Illinois, you must have encountered Phil Cooper and Margaret Nelson and Kate Early who do a wonderful job of everything including the historical perspective and relating old songs to contemporary conditions. My own kids think they're great, and I have learned much from them. If you know them or see them, pass on my regards. Thanks.

Peace Mooh.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 11:11 AM

Mooh,

Good thoughts again. We agree pretty much. Aside from doing adult shows and concerts, my work in the schools---for over 20 years with the Urban Gatways arts-in-education agency program all over Northern Illinois and Chicago---taught me the further truth of your statements. Dan Keding, the fine storyteller who also posted here in this thread, feels very strongly in that same direction. My low energy level that I spoke about is the result of various physical problems---not a diminished burning desire to keep plugging along for and with this music we care about so much.

All the best,

Art

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mooh
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 09:59 PM

Art, and others, "Fight the good fight with all your might..."

I know what you mean, but maybe it was ever thus. Nonetheless, I plan to go out of here (and hear, pun intended) kicking and screaming and satisfied that the kids will clue in eventually; or not, at their peril. By some freak of nature, even though I went through a rebelious period in my early adulthood, I never had any disrespect or disregard for the music of my parents and other elders. I never liked schmaltz, but church music and classical I loved, right alongside of the Stones and Led Zeppelin. I guess I owe my folks that. But I never saw music as a function of an age, era, or a generation. It was never my parent's music to me, music was and is timeless. This is one place where we are failing the next generation, the classification of music by age, and I think it's worse than classification by genre. It is academic that music has a date, but it doesn't need to be confined by or to that date. The current crop of rock-folk (as opposed to folk-rock) bands like the Paperboys, Slainte Mhath et al are doing a fine job of crossing eras and genres but they are not mainstream. Neither are the scores of fine singer/songwriter types out there mainstream. And maybe too many among don't want to share our little musical world with too many others. Be that as it may, I too get tired of swimming upstream, so I rest sometimes.

My partial solution would be ("If I were King...") arts programs in all grades of public education including music appreciation, heritage and cultures of the world, with a focus on arts (as a contrast to war worship), and more funding for the same.

I hope this doesn't sound too left-wing for people because I don't intend or consider it to be a political issue, and I've gone on too long about it.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 09:20 PM

Mooh,

Good point. I, also, agree that it is the responsibility of the old to educate the young. Lately, though, when we strive to do that here, we are often called old farts who are mired and wallowing in the non-reality and delusion that must've been running rampant and infecting those of us who were unlucky enough to be exposed to the obviously false attitudes about things folk during the 50s and 60s. I used to fight back more than I do these days. The energy just isn't there now.

Art

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mooh
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 08:45 PM

If the kids don't hear folk and blues and whatever else it's not because it doesn't exist, it's because there's no radio, public, or public education support for it, when and where the kids can hear it. Commercial acceptance is a reaction to commercial support and promotion and the result is artistic pablum for the masses.

In my community there a wonderful organization which produces monthly (sometimes more) "coffeehouses" which attracts 150 to 300 people every time, and this with a population of about 7500 not including the surrounding farmland. Live music from local favourites to nationally recognized names, with great desserts, no alcohol, and a featured artist's or craftsperson's work displayed prominently. And guess what, it's popular with the kids.

If someone is never exposed, how will they know they were never exposed? It is the responsibility of the informed to educate the next generation. Don't abdicate this responsibility and allow commercial radio and big record co.'s educate the kids about music.

My $0.02.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Rob-IL
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 07:17 PM

I will be back in mid June... so I'll try to email you after I get back...

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 04:42 PM

Rob - e-mail me when you're back in Northern Illinois and I'll be glad to sit and pick a while if you'd like.

Whistle Stop is right on the money. I have three boys who listen to Dave Mathews, Beastie Boys, They Might Be Giants and occasionally to me and my music. I like the stuff they like and it has helped (I hope) keep me from getting stuck in the same old box I arrived in. My niece and nephews in Toronto have also given me a taste of the Cape Breton music that is absolutely fabulous. The kids are everywhere - so is the music - you just have to be willing to open your ears.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Rob-IL
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 03:41 PM

I, being at the young age of 19, have just started really getting into folk music... the hardest part for young people I think is that you just don't hear the music enough... My exposure to folk music mostly has been from Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, and the Allman Brothers Band... I have always loved the blues and now have found more and more folk songs creeping into my repetoire, and many of my friends hear it and say "that's really cool..." The point is that there are a lot of young kids who like the music, but there isn't enough out in the society to hear... So if the elders keep playing, eventually the people like me will hear, and then we can learn too. The thing is that you have to work to find the music and LOOK for it, if you want it nowadays... I think that it will catch on again and become more popular as kids start to hear some of these old songs... This summer two other kids and I are planning on going into the studio to record some of these songs... I've been eager to hear/play with some other people who know the music better than I do... so if any mudcats are near Columbus OH or are coming through... let me know... or I live in Northern Illinois for the summer (Thats actually where I'm from...) Keep on singing because we're listening...

Rob

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mooh
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 03:21 PM

Huh?

It wouldn't be the first time I was all screwed up about something but, ya know, I think ther's a much higher quality and ability of musician among young folkies than among young rockers (for a lack of a better description) today. I'm real impressed with some of the trad young'ens I hear 'round about. There's true hope for folk music.

As for young concert goers, I only attend a couple to a few festivals per year but lots of concerts and all are well attended by the comparably youthful. It's a blast to see a crowd of teenagers dancing into frenzyland almost moshpit style at a folk festival, with narry a poser in sight.

Peace and hope, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Hyperabid
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 11:48 AM

Erm...

Not a view to win a popularity contest but...

There are young folkies out there... I was one but having past 30 can't make the claim any more...

A & R men look for sales... Perhaps because the music has deep roots young folkies spend less time on image and markeitng that their contemporaries in other genres do.

A few of our elder statesmen might offer a bit more a lead in terms of how to deal with the marketplace...

(Putting on tin helmet and ducking for cover)

Hyp

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 11:34 AM

Interesting thread here, as much for what it illustrates about people's perceptions as for what it says about the state of music today. At first I thought it should be titled "why aren't kids today just like we were?" -- or even more accurately, "why aren't kids today just like we like to remember ourselves?" There's a lot of wistful talk about the late 50's/early 60's glory days, and why that isn't happening now. But back then there were plenty of old farts who were pining for their own glory days, and bemoaning the fact that "kids these days" weren't that interested in what had happened during their parents' childhoods. Tom Rush even wrote a song about it, by that very title. Nothing much has changed, really.

I was born in the late 1950's, so I wasn't quite old enough to participate directly in the early 60's folk boom. But I doubt that it was quite as uniformly wonderful as people remember it. I also wonder whether anything being done today would compare favorably to people's memories. Nostalgia is a pleasant thing, but let's not mistake it for the truth.

Shambles had an excellent point -- there's an awful lot of pretension in the folk world today, and kids typically don't have much patience for that. I wouldn't expect most of them to want to hang out in the basements of Unitarian churches listening to an aging Dave van Ronk with people their parents' age, even if that is something us old folks like to do (that's what the "real" folk scene largely consists of in my corner of the world). All the exclusionary talk about "true folk" that tends to crop up in the Mudcat is evidence of this -- whether we're right or wrong in how we define these categories, we should recognize that by being precious and exclusive, we're making the whole genre less appealing to other people (young and old) who may not share our particular view of "authenticity". If we want to be exclusive, we have that right; but that is kind of at odds with the more inclusive approach we like to pay lip service to.

Kids will come to folk music their own way, based on their own influences, whether or not we approve. Some will become intrigued by the acoustic guitar by listening to Dave Matthews, Ben Harper, or even Jewel -- and while old folks like us are looking down our noses at that, they'll be taking their initial introduction and looking for contributing and complementary influences. Ultimately, they'll remember their glory days, when they wrestled the "tradition" away from their stodgy, narrow-minded elders and breathed new life into it. Good for them.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 09:58 AM

I couldn't come close to finding kind enough, Mr. Thieme. Those times and that place (Chicago, circa 1970) seem so rare and precious in terms of my personal development, and I know I'm one of many who feel that way.

Which brings me to the point of this posting. When I got to play those clubs at that time, there was a feeling that the best days had passed - everyone knew that the 50's and 60's at the Gate of Horn were the hey day of the music - and I had missed it! Shucks. It always seems that the good'l days (see John Hartford, on his Steam Powered Aeroplane recording) are gone, gone, gone. . . The truth is that the past is just prelude. The good old days are right now. And to all the "kids" of all ages that may be reading this I only have one thing to say: don't waste one minute of today regretting what you may have missed yesterday. A look at the past is a good way to get a little context for what you want to do now (I can't wait to get a hold of the Gibson & Goodman books that Art mentioned), but the best is yet to come and the road goes ever on. Personally, I can't wait to see what comes next.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:26 AM

Bartholomew,

Thanks for your kind words. The Chicago folk scene, all the way from the heady days in the late 1950s at the Gate of Horn (nightclub) when I was a kid and just gettin' into it, to the Orphans (a bar) and the Earl Of Old Town (another bar)and Barbarossa (self explanatory) and Holsteins (a cow and a bar)and No Exit (a coffeehouse), well, it was just a great town/scene to be a part of.. I'll never forget it.

Check out BOB GIBSON's biography/autobiography by Bob & Carol Bender (Folk Era is the publisher I think). It's a great look into that mesmerizing world I was honored to be a part of. I'm reading it now, but I'm only on on page 40. When I finish it, I'll do a larger review in a swparate thread. (Comes with a CD which includes Bob's version of "No More Cane On The Brazos".)

Also, another insight into that whole era will be the book Clay Eals of Seattle is writing as we speak on STEVE GOODMAN. It's nowhere near completion yet but it is sure to paint a grand picture of another portion of the Chicago folk music landscape. I can hardly wait to read it.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Metchosin
Date: 13 Apr 00 - 11:31 PM

There there and deeply into DYO and at that last alternative? band practise I overheard, one of my daughter's was covering Dylan's Masters of War. (voice and mandolin), so they haven't totally forgotten folk music.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 13 Apr 00 - 11:29 PM

This is a truly enjoyable and slightly wistful thread for me. It seems like not so long ago I was one of the kids getting to share the stage at Orphans in Chicago with the awe-inspiring Art Theime and many other great acoustic players too numerous and obscure to mention. My partner T. Douglas and I came to the scene very head strong and cock sure; we were lucky enough to see the folk tradition live and in person and still carry those lessons with us. I still enjoy playing the songs and telling the bad jokes I picked up along the way. We got to steal from the best.

Now I've been introduced some new kids on the block, so to speak. There is a strong new grass tradition in the 20 something set, based around Garcia, Grisman, Rowan et al. And I get to pass some lessons along every now and then. There is a regular semi jam at the Town Hall Pub on Friday nights that you need to check out if you're in Chicago. That's where some of the kids are.

They're also in the coffeehouses, too. Part of the problem is that they have to move some of the old fat guys out of the way to be seen.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: JamesJim
Date: 13 Apr 00 - 11:24 PM

I performed at a benefit a few weeks ago and a young man (late teens, early twenties) approached a friend and myself and asked if he could play fiddle with us. To our delight, he was very good and we enjoyed ourselves very much. My friend and I are in our late 50s, so this was a nice surprise. The young man even invited us to a Weekly Friday night sing-a-long. They are out there, although few and far between. We have Memorial and Labor Day hoots and there are always a few around. Keep the faith!

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: GUEST,Terry
Date: 13 Apr 00 - 09:37 PM

I got on this thread by searching "The Original Sloth Band". I would like to see the lyrics to a song on their album Whoopee After Midnight posted. Its a spiritual number about Angels and "coming in glory". But on the topic of Where are the kids I think the answer is "they're everywhere". It should be obvious to all of us that marketing can't kill music. We can only hope that some day music will kill marketing.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Night Owl
Date: 23 Feb 99 - 03:15 PM

P>S> In an effort to be concise in my message last night I left out the obvious....playing,singing... and collecting, storing and SUPPORTING the incredible work Mudcats is doing.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Bert
Date: 23 Feb 99 - 02:54 PM

Night Owl,

That's what I with my Dad. He made this cassette with dozens of songs on it. I'll have to get him to do more.

Bert.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Night Owl
Date: 23 Feb 99 - 01:54 AM

Couldn't resist jumping into this looong thread. My daughter asked me last weekend to make a tape of the songs she grew up on, for my new granddaughter to grow up on...includes Woody Guthrie, Hazel and Alice, Jean and Lee Schilling etc.,etc.,...I really don't think the traditions of "folk music" can fade away, as long as we keep playing and singing.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Laurel
Date: 22 Feb 99 - 05:56 PM

HI! Apparently my friend and his group has gotten a gig at the Renissance Festival in Minnesota in the Irish cottage this summer. He is 13 and a true enthusiast. If all goes well, I might play there also.

Laurel

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: BK
Date: 20 Feb 99 - 03:12 PM

Great Thread; just takes a long time to read, & then, @ my advanced age of 53 (or is it 54?? I don't care.. have long since stopped caring..), I tend to forget some of the notions that came to me as I read...

Anyway: As I shared w/ Tom Paxton several yrs ago, singing on the street & having young kids know all the words to many of my favorites by him amazed me - when I asked where they learned them I was told "at camp." I certainly think that's great.. I wonder - what if I sang "County Down?" Would they sing along?

As for Dysneyfication: I looked for years to find a version of "Coulters' Candy" in plain enough english rather than heavy brogue; when I finally sang it for some kids they said "we know that, Barney sings it." (I think they were more familiar w/the tune than words as I did them; Barney may use entirely different words.) I'm still trying to decide how I feel abt that.. So far, my gut doesn't feel very good abt it.. I'd like to know how other 'Catters view it..

As for venues: As long as the music is good, I'm generally OK.. But I also remember when a 25 yr old guy in Navy boot camp w/us 17-yr-olds caused us to worry that he would have heart trouble trying to keep up w/us. I would not have considered where a grey-beard -like me now- went as some place very interesting.

One thing, though; cigarrette (or, worse yet, cigar) smoke makes me ill. It always did - why I never could smoke. (Thank God!!) As a physician I know the consequences of this drug addiction. I've seen good studies doccumenting the striking addictiveness of nicotine. As a correctional doc, I've had the toughest street-hardened gang-warriors, mafiosi, etc.. tell me they could walk away from cocaine & heroin, but could not give up cigarrettes. I'll be damned if I will any longer quietly choke in public because of somebody's drug addiction.. So, non-smoking venues, both for performing & listening are very important for me. This (somewhat) conflicts w/the notion of sharing a music scene w/the young, as it seems at least some older folks are willing to smoke outside or gave 'em up. (In my experience after their first or second heart attack or stroke -but many, like my brilliant but pathetically addicted EE uncle, don't.)

As for songs vs tunes; I really enjoy some celtic instrumentals, (particularly harp) as I do much latin, latin jazz, baroque classical - and the John Williams' Star Wars Suite (absolutely NOT a trekkie, but I am otherwise a life-long sci-fi fan, something I can share w/ & talk abt w/many young people). In fact I'm rather nuts abt Vivaldi, esp some of the Mandolin pieces (I know, same song many times..)

On the other hand, I can only take very selected opera, and am equally selective abt most blue grass or celtic instrumentals; It isn't just that as a mainly by-ear guitar player, playing the same few chords in the mainly same key at mainly similar pace to accompany the -to me- seemingly endless & near identical jigs & reels bores me (I know, there are IMPORTANT technical differences in the various types of jigs, reels, hornpipes, etc..). It's that they don't grab my emotions the way good ballads do - whether from singer-songwriters ("diarroids??" -great term!!) who don't have (much) diarrhea, (or it's "good shit" [??]) or "traditional," which like "folk," is defined differently by different people.

I have realized that I've always loved some kinds of (mainly folk/traditional) ballads, and, in spite of my above comments, it's the types/styles of ballads & other oral traditions as well as instrumentals (& opera) that I've enormously expanded my appreciation of - as I've become more eclectic -and older.

In central Missouri I've seen really young kids, esp girls, trained in classical violin, performing, & winning contests in, "old time fiddlin'." They are tremendously talented, have the energy -god bless 'em- of youth, and are taking lessons from male fiddlers in their 70' & 80's. It's fantastic...

So there is hope; both for expanding my thick-headed personal horizons, and for the future of folk/traditional music, whatever that is...

Gotta run; Saturday Honey-Do & sorting-out-new-move chores to do; running my computer/fax line on a patch from the room across the hall, etc, etc, etc..

Cheers, BK

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Feb 99 - 12:36 AM

Muckskipper,you hit the nail on the head!That is the great power of traditional music-it is strong enough to thrive under the changes that each generation imposes upon it, because the roots are changeless and enduring.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Banjer
Date: 19 Feb 99 - 08:10 PM

Way to go Muckscapper! It's good to see that folk music of all varieties, (ballads, sea chanties, protest songs, etc. etc.) are being carried on. I'm sure that folk will outlive much of the forms of music(?) that are abundant today, much as it has outlived many of the styles of music that have come and gone over the years. Keep up the good work, all of you younger ones. While I have the floor, along the same vein, does anyone remember when country music was great? The early to mid 50's up into the mid 60's seems to be the Golden Era of Country Music. I have the two multi volume sets of Country's Family Reunion, hosted by Bill Anderson and they sure bring back some really good memories of days when we gathered around the radio to listen to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday Nights....Ah, those were the days!

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Anne Lee
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 10:10 PM

Laurel started a thread awhile back entitled something like "What are schools doing to folk music". Some of the issues, concerns, responses are similar, sort of...anyway...our local school district seems to do a pretty good job. I know for a fact at the school I teach at has a fantastic program.

As long as we expose the younger generations to folk, it will continue. Thank God. Tunes you can actually remember and sing...TRy hummin' a rap song?

Anne Lee

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: SeanM
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 09:04 PM

As a slightly younger member of the set, I'd like to say that we're out here.

I work the Renaissance faire scene as a member of an acting/singing troupe with a speciality in sea shanties. A few of us have just started a side group performing music from several periods. We're preparing our shanty set for the Faire, and have also been doing gigs for the California sesquicentennial (sp?). Our ages are from 23-35, and in the larger group we come from we range from 11-45. Don't give up hope yet. And don't pass the mantle... we're building a new one with everything that's come before, and a touch of our own selves built in.

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: MAG (inactive)
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 08:58 PM

Grizzly Bear: (grizzly has 3 syllables)

Talking 'bout the grizzly, grizzly bear

old work song with a very strong rhythm

doug showd us how to stretch it into a creative drama with:

stomp and tromp like a grizzly bear have you got big claws like the grizzly bear into your den like ...

sleep all winter like ...

simple Aminor - Eminor vamp; sorry, it is NOT in Doug Lipman's *We all go together: creative activities for children to use with multicultural folksongs* like I thought it was.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 07:20 PM

Somewhat along the lines of what Banjer was saying, but opposite:

I was merrily singing a few tunes along with the guitar like "Dark Hollow" and "Pig in a Pen" when my teenage son comes into the room saying, "I thought you didn't like the Grateful Dead!"

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Banjer
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 07:04 PM

I don't know what part of the world Bri is in, but all I can say is "Good for you, Bri" (and all the others you know who like folk music.) Here in the American south, it seems that folk music is not as popular as it once was among the youger set. I often get a good laugh when young folks, even my own kids, come raving about a song they just heard as a new release. When it comes on again and they get me to listen to it they are amazed that I can sing along with it. They listen with awe as I, (the resident Caveman, well ) tell them of how their mother and I also thought at one time that this must be a new song untill OUR parents told us how THEY had heard it when they were young....and so the cycle repeats itself....help it along, Bri and company.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Bri
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 06:38 PM

I didn't read most of these, only the first two, or so, so i don't know if the topic has changed. I'm 15 and i luv folk music. My parents don't listen to it. and we often sing it in choir and it tends to be more liked than the other religious stuff the teacher has us do. i know lots of kids my age that know some of these, ones that aren't in choir. and camps...damn..that's ALL they sing! and that's like 1,000's of kids singing the skye boat song. they're there! bri

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Bert
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 05:04 PM

Grizzly Brear? I don't know that one Mary Ann
Heard a poem in school once about 'The Grizzly Izzly Bear'. WOuld that be it?

Bert.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: MAG (inactive)
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 04:08 PM

Just caught up to this thread; thanks to Lonesome EJ for refreshing it.

Most of the posts refer to "kids" as being tweens, young adults, adolescents; whatever you call 'em. If you mean who is PERFORMING folk, that makes sense.

But as far as growing new fans, in my professions of young people's librarian I find I am constantly gently reminding parents and other caregivers to share what they already know.

Just this morning I sang and taught "Grizzly Bear" in preschool storytime (I learned it from Doug Lipman and it is in his great book. If you have an auditorium full of wiggly preschoolers and Raffi is off in the rain forest again, call Doug.)

Last week I sang and taught "Magic Penny." It showed up in church again Sunday (UU, of course.) (I kept diverging from the leader until I realized the leader was doing it the way Malvina Reynolds wrote it; after years and years of singing along with Mr. Sing Along, Fred Holstein, in Chicago, I had to readjust.)

When we had our centennial celebration and I needed to entertain 30+ kids of all ages, I did play party games, and not one kid knew "In and out the Window," and adults kept saying "I haven't heard that since I was a kid!" (Too much electronic babysitting I guess, but that's another soapbox.)

(Play party games, by the way, are the great way to teach kids the skills for folk dancing later on; I highly recommend them).

One more memory for me; busking in Chicago subways again.

A little girl and her mother wanted to stop and listen but hadto hury for the train instead. since I was tired anyway, I headed on over to the platform myself, and the little girl asked for a song while we waited for the Northbound Howard St. line.

So I pulled out my beater and started singing, song after song. When I began "Bingo," the mother wandered over and joined in. The child stopped in amazement. "You know this song?" "Oh, everybody knows that old song." I encouraged her to sing it with her daughter, since she apparently did not know it, and was crying out for stimulation. "Oh, she'll learn it in school sometime" said the mother, as they boarded the train and I gaped in wonder.

If you worry about where the next generation of folkies is coming from, get jobs working with young people. teachers. camp counsellors. have your kids join scouts and campfire and everything else, and volunteer to do programs. (The leaders will love it.)

And check for libraries like mine, where you will find all of Fink and Marker's excellent tapes, and those great instructional vidieos from Rounder and elsewhere. Tweens looking to learn how to play will take out any genre of instruction.

Mary Ann

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mitch
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 03:33 PM

I've been approached by my fourteen year old daughter concerning Folk music. This was rather an interesting topic needless to say. I had to immediately refer to the place where I could gather immediate information. From what I've been reading about I like to say it has been positive - diversity is truly a wonderful thing, this applies to music as well as culture etc. Hoping to learn more.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 01:30 PM

above post was mine...forgot to sign it

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From:
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 01:28 PM

I just read through this thread and I think this is one of the most thought provoking ones I have read.I recently read an extensive interview with Cordelia's Dad, a group of traditional musicians ,all twenty-something.The interview was interesting for a number of reasons. One was the obvious disgust with being described as a "folk" group.In fact the liner notes for "Comet",an excellent collection of traditional music by them, refers to"types of f*lk music", as if the word were an obscenity. And yet the interview goes on to describe research into manuscripts for forgotten tunes from the mid-19th century, the lead singer's early interests in Shape-Note Song, and differences between frame-drum and bodhran technique.This band also performs electric versions of these same mid-1800s songs in a style that I would have to describe as Punk-Trad.(God forbid I should use the term folk-rock). I think these young musicians bristle at any description or classification of what they do that implies they are following in the footsteps of their parents.When I was 19 and singing with my band "Mythology" we sure didn't aspire to do new interpretations of terrific old Tommy Dorsey songs.Somehow the music of our grandparents was less of a threat, and maybe that accounts for some of folks popularity among my generation.It wasn't shoved down our throats:we were able to "rediscover" music forms like folk and blues that had been obscured.Funny thing,how Big Band music is making a comeback now,huh?

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Jan 99 - 07:51 PM

Well you could get a bunch of us. God knows this is a diverse bunch, always arguin' over what folk is. But I'll bet there's something for everybody around here somewhere.catspaw

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Karla Ingleton
Date: 25 Jan 99 - 06:56 PM

I run a network called SEEN.COM and we have been trying to get full-families out to our events which always feature live music. My question is - How do you keep the kids and parents happy? And for how long should a family night concert last?

regards [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Rex Rideout
Date: 25 Jan 99 - 08:07 AM

My two boys have their own pile of musical instruments. Don't know where they got that idea from. When folks come by and we play tunes, sometimes Ben and Daniel drag out their stuff and join in. Sometimes they don't. It's whatever they feel like. I don't push it. But now Ben, (the elder of the two) is taking up violin in school. Somebody pinch me, maybe he'll learn to play it properly and then teach his dad. That's what he tells me. I join in with friends when late summer comes around. We set up a tent city out on the prairie East of Denver. Well, smack dab in Aurora we call Homestead City. The setting is always 100 years ago. This year we will be in 1899 and wondering what the new century will bring. So we all have our little occupations during the day. I repair tools and make some as well. In the evening I end up in the saloon or sometimes we have a dance somewhere. I'm always the last one to quit and when I finally do stop caterwallin' it's always the kids (late teens) that are still there. The old folks have gone to bed. Well the last couple of years these kids have been bringing old guitars and having me set them up. They will play along or go off and do their own thing. I feel like I'm priming the next generation for this tent city. In 2020 or so when I'm cooling my heels sitting in a rocking chair on the porch and telling stories, these folks will keep Homestead City or something like it going. Keep the strings ringing.

Rex

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Rex Rideout
Date: 25 Jan 99 - 07:51 AM

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Pete (inactive)
Date: 25 Jan 99 - 04:13 AM

what about everyone under say - 25 years of age - who's parents or close relations are NOT into folk music - post there name, age and how they got interested in Folk Music.

Maybe this would give a better idea of how Folk Music is reaching the 'Young ones'

Pete (Clansfolk)

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 24 Jan 99 - 07:09 PM

Laurel, you are a breath of fresh air! Good luck in your flute playing and all your music making! We're counting on you and your friends to keep it going in the future- you won't be alone!

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Laurel
Date: 24 Jan 99 - 06:54 PM

All of my friends like folk and Celtic too.

Laurel

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Laurel
Date: 24 Jan 99 - 05:34 PM

Dan- I am a kid. I love Celtic (especially) and folk. I don't listen to the things that most kids like. I play the Irish flute and just got a Ralph Sweet one for Christmas. From my point of view, there are kids who like folk music and that kind of thing. My parents are in a Celtic band called Faire Wind, I have friends who are in a band in the Twin Cities called The Gaels. That's all for now!

The best to all, Laurel

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Pete (inactive)
Date: 24 Jan 99 - 03:25 PM

Ahh who will carry on when we are laid to rest?

Well there are many young folk singers, as previously mentioned and so many of them show far greater talent than we did back in the 60's! Every year at our local festival (Fylde - Fleetwood, Lancashire, England) they encourage the younger people with teach-ins, competitions (the winner performing on the front stage at the final concert)etc.. and from what I've seen there will be no lack of singers, musicians to carry on our love of traditional music. However there is one problem as I see it - the music is going to the converted, as previously mentioned the children attending the festivals/clubs have been brought up with Folk Music from their family interest.

At our local sessions (Falcon Folk - Poulton-le-fylde Nr Blackpool, England) we sing in an open bar - everyone of legal age to enter a bar - is welcome to join in or just listen in some small way this will offer the music to a wider younger group, several have come to have a pint and returned a few weeks later with an instrument and joined in.

We need to repay the music by spreading the word.... not hiding away in the upstairs room of a pub and behind the closed gates of a festival --- let the people have free samples of THEIR music and maybe more will like it!

Ok so lets all take to the streets like the pied piper of Hamilin and hope the children will follow the music.

Take care and sing well

Pete (clansfolk)

ps thanx to Rusty & Stu Wright for all the hard work they have done at Fylde with the children.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Alice
Date: 24 Jan 99 - 12:10 PM

catspaw... enjoyed that last message. Handing down the music means being aware of handing down the instruments, too. Giving musical instruments to kids is important. Whenever there is an opportunity for you to give a child a gift, if you can give them an instrument (even a penny whistle), that is an excellent way to make sure the making of music goes on. I do appreciate the music program in our town's schools. Almost every child plays an instrument in either band or orchestra starting in the 5th grade. So, for at least one year, they all can appreciate having an instrument in their hands and performing music. The school orchestras nurture the string players and the bands nurture the wind instruments and drummers.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Jan 99 - 12:31 AM

harpgirl: I always love to ask if the rappers think gangs, rebellion,beating up cops, terrorizing the civic leaders, and all that kinda'stuff is really cool and new. One of my rap loving 15 year olds got into a long talk with me about this and how I couldn't understand. Rather than take him to my generation (60's) of stuff we went to the the dear old "Garry Owen." Within a few weeks he was playing all kinds of my records, tapes, and CD's. Slowly, a conversion is taking place. He even got special credit for doing a paper on this for school.

We have been involved in foster care for many years and the tastes of the kids are varied ... but I have yet to have any older (12+) child arrive with any knowledge of or liking for ANY type of "folk." Oh, a little folk/rock/pop or C&W, maybe...But I have to get in this one other thing. We have had 14 teenage girls over the years and EVERY ONE has managed to find Janis Joplin doing "Cry, Cry, Baby" somehow. Most have a lot of personal issues and as I recall only 2 new who she was before...but all of them fell in love with THAT ONE SONG. No point to that story...just kinda' interesting.

I am happy to say that all of them got "folk" (whatever that is nobody can agree) exposure while they were here and maybe some of that comes back to them down the road. We just need to keep strummin', pickin', pluckin', bowin', hammerin', and singin' as best we can and have a good selection playing on the stereo...Never know what will happen down the road.

catspaw

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From:
Date: 23 Jan 99 - 10:58 PM

It's nice to keep hammering away in a comunnity. I am now playing for the kids of the kids I played for in my town when I got back from my apprentiships for my trade from rural North Carolina and South Wales{U.K.} around 1970 .It's great to play for peaple before they are thinking of what is cool {say fith grade and less} and can get to the essence that home made music is FUN! Then the action of playing music catchs them from a real place. I don't know what Garage music is but I could amagine the kids doing that sometime might go to find Robert Johnson,or Clarence Tom Ashley to play on their back porch. I think home made music will beget home made music garage or porch.Our job is to show them how much fun we'er having and that truth will always make for new folkys.THank you Allen Block for having so much funplaying fiddle at the Sunapy Crafts Festival in 1968. Hello to all

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: rick fielding
Date: 23 Jan 99 - 10:09 PM

Never heard the term "soft-seaters" before. Greatly descriptive, sort of like Woody's "flat wheelers" and "dead enders", from "Hard Travellin'". I started hearing the term "diaroids" used in Toronto this year to describe singer-songwriters (they're gettin' it from all sides it seems) and finally "bird feet" for the kind of footwear favoured by "non-progressive" women on stage. Whooee, what a language we have!

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From:
Date: 23 Jan 99 - 04:50 PM

And part of the problem is that up and comers generally play bars rather than soft-seaters when they go on the road. You can have performers under 19, but not an under-19 audience. Even if technically they can be admitted, the owners don't want them because they don't drink, and if they do drink, they do it illegally and risk the license.

Folk clubs are generally so God-awful crushingly dull and pretentious, and so full of rules, New Age superstitions, exceedingly bad coffee, and anally retentive farts and fogies that I can't blame the kids for not going. A Metallica concert or a rave sure sounds more fun to me. In fact, I can't think of a place that presents traditional music more out of context than the modern folk club. The reverence and pedantry with which the music is presented reminds me of a Bible study class. At least sailors, dragoons, ploughboys, and flash girls really did roister in taverns.

There are "folkies" of a sort playing at the coffee shops that the teenagers like to frequent, but they tend to be contempory-style singer/songwriters and don't play traditional stuff. I'm not not knocking them for this, because some of them are quite good, just pointing out that traditional music is generally not heard in these places.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From:
Date: 23 Jan 99 - 04:33 PM

Natalie MacMaster is only 23 (first recording at 16)and Ashley MacIsaac not much older. There is also another band from Cape Breton Island, Slante something or other,(relatives of the Barra MacNeils) where I believe they are just graduating from high school. PEI fiddler Richard Wood is about 20 or 21. The Ennis Sisters from Newfoundland are in their late teens or early twenties. Mary Jane Lamond, a Canadian who sings in gaelic, is in her twenties. The guys in GBS can't be over thirty. In fact, if I thought about it long enough I could probably come up with a long list of Canadian folkies under thirty.

Part of the problem might be the cultural thing. In places like Cape Breton and Newfoundland, people actually play and sing this music at home for their own amusement, so the kids pick it up. Plus their festivals and dances are decidedly family affairs ,often much to my curmudgeonly chagrin.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: harpgirl
Date: 22 Jan 99 - 04:22 PM

My sixteen year old son says they aren't playing it because it isn't cool, they're not interested in history, and they like rap and heavy metal better. This from a kid who sang Dixie Darling with me at a bluegrass session last week and knows all the words to All For Me Grog and A Drop of Nelson's Blood!!! I think that if we continue to drag them to festivals and keep playing in our living rooms and on our porches, eventually they will get interested in "history!"...harpgirl

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Animaterra
Date: 22 Jan 99 - 03:07 PM

The fact of kids in schools not being exposed to folk music really gets my professional (elementary music teacher) dander up! What are we supposed to be doing, for goodness sake? Sandy's wife Carolyn recently coined the phrase "the Disneyfication" of elementary music education, where the kids are entertained with bubble gum pop style feel-good music. We run the risk in the States of greatly diminishing our cultural heritage when we give into that standard. We music teachers, I mean- --

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Jan 99 - 01:37 PM

Where are the kids?

We must be useing too many condoms... Sorry.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Jon W.
Date: 22 Jan 99 - 11:20 AM

In Utah, not quite as sparsely populated as Montana (or is it?) I've see two really good local Celtic bands - one a trio of brothers 17, 15, and 13 years old at the time, the other a father and 3 daughters 18, 13, and 11 years (don't ask the age of the father). They're playing traditional stuff and writing stuff of their own that is nearly indistinguishable from the tradition (that's a complement by the way).

I myself have a young friend, now 16, who has occasionally come over to play the blues with me.

So there are some kids out there who like folk. I just wish some of my own progeny were among them.

Jon W.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Alice
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 10:59 AM

Hey, Gearoid, I really enjoyed what you had to say about your experience with your friends. I have been thinking about this topic as it relates to rural and urban areas. In the cities, like Dublin and San Francisco, there are opportunities to find many kinds of music. In rural areas of countries that preserve their heritage, local people still sing and play trad music. In a small rural western US town like mine, we are the envy of folkies in the state because we have three sessions a week. Helena has a bluegrass session that is healthy, but Butte, heart of the Montana Irish, has no session at all. Most folks that are serious about folk music and can afford to take the time to travel have to go to Seattle for the festival to get their yearly 'fix' of folk music. There area fiddle contests in the region and some other get-togethers, but in general, as one music teacher told me, the college, high school and junior high kids have had no exposure to trad music. He sang Shenandoah to one of his classes in the high school, and none of them had heard it before.

It is in sparcely populated areas like Montana that the radio, tv, and CD's define music for young folks. It is nice to see, though, that a large number of the people who show up to listen to session music are from the local University.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: George Henderson NSC
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 07:57 AM

Our rural circle sessions are beginning to attract younger people partly because those sessions are being held in rural parishes rather than big population centres.

However, our Nenagh singers circle DOES NOT attract many younger people. Maybe its because of our voluntary contribution - I'm not sure.

I am a lot more optimistic about it than I was 5 years ago.

Of course the tradition will survive.

You talk about revival but you must remember - some places like Ireland didn't need a revival in the 50's and 60's. It was needed in the 80's and 90's hence the massive increase in singing week-ends.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: AndyG
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 07:08 AM

Having just re-read this thread in its entirety, it seems that generally we (the Folk Community) have successfully "passed the mantle" on to the next generation. The overall perception however is that the emphasis has changed:

a) Away from the songs to the music.
b) Away from the traditional clubs, to "more open" venues (festivals etc).

I infer from the understated comments that most of us have tried (and failed) to make traditional club venues more open and we haven't yet found a working method ?

I live and work in Cambridge (UK), and neither of the folk clubs see much of a student audience, yet as I said above the Waterson:Carthy gig, at a non-club venue, the audience was 150+ people, I'd say about 25% students and almost no-one (ie ME) from either of the folk clubs. Tickets were 10 UKP per head (about twice what a club would charge), and that's a lot of money for a student. I'm pretty sure that if a club put them on 150 different people would turn up.

Controversial Generalisation (NOT a complaint!):
From what I see at festivals etc. I'd say the youth audience wants to jump up and dance to shitkicking diddley-diddley^TM, and a lot of the young bands want to see this reaction. You can't do that in a folk club!

AndyG

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Gearoid
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 05:25 AM

People

The voice of youth has at last rared its rebellious head.

No seriously, I would consider myself an average 22 year old and I listen to folk music (Irish folk that is), dance, indie, classical etc.. depending on the humor. I grew up hearing all the Irish rebel songs and ballads and I learnt the tunes while playing them in a marching band.

Personally I go to all the sessions I can (much to my girlfriends dismay) and I can guarantee you that I will never have a problem getting the lads to accompany me.

Also you would be surprised how many people will join in singing when closing time arrives and you decide you want a session (much to the Barman's dismay) most will know at least the first verse to each song you massacre.

Just to prove my point (on St. Stephens day just past (boxing day 26/12 to the rest) the Wolfe tones were playing in the Mean Fiddler (for those of you unacquainted with Dublin, the Mean Fiddler is usually a "young" concert venue where new rock/indie bands play). I went to this concert with about 11 lads (ranging from 19 to 23) each one of them sang his heart out and said they never had a better night (now I find I am without my favorite CD's, but that's the price I pay for converting the non believers). The majority of the crowd that night was under thirty and the atmosphere was volatile (as mostly rebel songs were played).

Any way you can be certain that this young fella will do all he can to stop Irish folk music being ignored by the youth of today.

Trust me I won't disappoint you.

PS (I might just have a bunch of freaks for mates)

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: karen k
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 01:54 AM

While helping to sell Folk Legacy Records at Champlain Valley last summer I was manning the booth alone and a young man (couldn't have been more than 16) was flipping through the CDs. He had one in his hand looking at it when I noticed that it was Mississippi John Hurt. I was sure he had no idea who John Hurt was, so I asked him if he knew who he was. His reply was, "Oh, sure, I've been learning to play his songs for 3 years now." I was really quite pleased. I took the opportunity to tell him that in the 60's I helped run a coffee house in Connecticut and that John Hurt had played there 3 times and had stayed at my house each time. This young man was so interested. He asked a whole bunch of questions and wanted to know everything I could remember about him. It was a great experience for me to see someone so young really interested in John Hurt and many others who have long since passed. There's no doubt in my mind that the music we all love will go on and on and on and on.......... He bought the CD and I hope his love of John's music grew even more than it already was because I was able to tell him a little bit about a truly great musician.

k

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 21 Jan 99 - 12:39 AM

My daughter's 11, she came home dying, the music teacher was teaching them "Drunken Sailor" & "South Australia" & had asked my daughter if I would come in with any of the guys I sing with & do sea songs. I can't believe she didn't toss the note out well knowing I'd say yes. It was great except my daughter died up until the whole school began belting out the choruses & what a beautiful bunch of letters we got from every class, signed with their take on the music by every kid. They found it very amazing the people sang about whales & the seas & about work & that you could make music from spoons & bones. Thank god they've got a great music teacher. We take our kids to the festivals & they meet alot of other kids & like Barbara I see quite a bit of great young players not so many singers though. Saturday we'll be heading for a Burns supper & a few of the pipers are just kids & the hosts kid is quite the trad singer. Last Mystic Sea Music Festival a group of 2 youngins, (they may not be kids but I got close to 20 yrs on them) called the Nex Tradition blew me away. Seeing how we were sharing the stage with them & a group that did river songs, us & the two whippersnappers decided to sing as one, they'd back us & we'd back them, back & forth seeing as how we did alot of the same songs. Prison work songs, us older folk did it the traditional way & damn when these two started in, it was something. If I'd been cutting wood to they way they sang I'd have been shaking my hips, tapping my toes & smiling the biggest shit eating grin. It was the swinging energy of youth (like Eliza Carthy) that I saw & heard & felt, it was a ball to sing behind them. I remember as a teen going to coffee houses, liking the music but the scene was boring & it carried off into some of the music. The 60's was a high energy time for music & a as a kid I went right to it, got bored after awhile & came back to it in the mid 70's when I had mellowed a bit. The places where I see kids today are at hot picks at festivals or hot sessions. Where the singing's low keyed or slow or just not exciting for the young blood I don't think I ever get to see an impish grin in the crowd. My take on it is that kids & teens need a more continuious & a higher level of stimuli than us older worn torn folks & their attention span keeps them jumping away to more exciting music. Face it, as others said here if you were younger would you hang out with us, maybe at a campfire jam at a festival but I wouldn't be caught dead with me & neither would my kids if I were at a coffeehouse sipping tea. Still young, if only at heart, Barry

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Dan Keding
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 11:21 PM

When I came to Springfield all those many years ago there was a third grade boy in one of my residencies. I was teaching about folk music and storytelling at one of the elemenatary schools and I became friends with he and his family. Later in high school he took guitar lessons from me and when he went to college he taught himself banjo. Now he's twenty two years old and visits me once a week for a session of music and talk. He's teaching science at a local junior high and brings his banjo and guitar to school to entertain his students. Its happening again just like it did for us. Someone hears a tune and finds where it came from, someone gets the itch to make music him/herself, someone "discovers" this music that was really here all the time. I'm seeing young people at the storytelling events, at the music events, hauling banjos and guitars. The difference is that they might be turning onto banjo because of Jerry Garcia instead of Earl Scruggs. Who cares as long as they play. It'll happen, sing it and they will come!!!! Dan

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 09:41 PM

If you don't think the kids are playing any music, you should walk around the campsites at Winterhawk or Thomas Point Beach, or check out the crowd at Escoheag. There are LOTS of kids, LOTS of acoustic music being made at these festivals.

The jazz buff just got home, in fact, from a little session at his friend's house. They call their music funk or whatever, but you can hear strains of tradition if you listen carefully, and you can hear lots of influences from all that came before.

That damn condom thread is tempting to read, but I'm hesitant to check it out because someone may come up behind me and read over my shoulder and worry that, Oh God, she's into bad stuff on the internet! (I do have one great condom story from my after-school job in a drugstore. Maybe later).

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Frank McGrath
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 08:40 PM

I'm glad to inform you that the kids in Ireland are singing, beating bodhrans, sqeezing boxes and having the craic as much and more than ever.

There will always be folk music and song. They just won't and cannot be killed. Of course folk's popularity will wax and wane over time as some new fad takes centre stage for a while. But it will always survive. It's in our blood.

BUT WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE KILL THAT SHAGGIN' CONDOM THREAD.
Sighs......

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 08:17 PM

Youth! Where art thou?

The venues where I like to listen to folk music are usually smoke free. A great number are alcohol free, and I have never seen excessive drinking. This does not describe a place where youth "hangs out." Hell, when we were youth we would not have hung out with us. There were no smoke free coffee houses. Many a "folk night spot" was just a bar with entertainment.

I went to a concert of the "Cry, Cry, Cry" tour (Lucy Kaplansky, Dar Williams, and Richard Shindell). Lots of young people there. I suppose they were mostly drawn by Dar Williams who went on the Lillith Fair tour. These three "folk" artists in their own "write" dedicated this tour to singing the songs of the artists they admire.

I realize that these three are unknowns to many on the 'Cat, but they are part of the keeper of the flames for folk music. Hell, Richard opened for Baez on her last tour. 30 years ago that was Pete's job (partly because he was an "unknown" who deserved to be known).

I suspect Richard is a generation behind me. Lucy and Dar are maybe one half of a generation behind him. Most of the artists I go to see are younger than I am. Perhaps their time will come to lead the generation behind them.

I believe in the "cycles' thing. I figured folk music would have an increase in popularity when I got older. I figured I would make a killing by singing all the old Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul, and Mary songs. Well, the boomlet came, but it wasn't like the '60's. And I'm glad I can sing some new songs that were written last year.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: alison
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 07:42 PM

Hi,

Let's face it... when you were 16 - 25 ish did you want to hang around in places with "old people" ?... (and by old I mean over 30!!!!!)........ no offence intended

When I was that age I certainly wouldn't have wanted to go and sit in a folk club with a bunch of people in their 50's and upwards..... doesn't mean I wouldn't have enjoyed the music, but it wouldn't have looked "cool" to my friends. (and that's pretty important when you're young).

There are certainly a lot of young people out there playing (and going to festivals,)but they're unlikely just to drift into folk clubs on their own ...... somehow we have to make it more attractive and they might come in bulk... and share what they've been playing in their garages / bedrooms.

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 07:14 PM

Here in my small part of Australia I believe that the situation is much like the UK. There are large audiences of young kids going to what I now view as world/folk music gigs, but you won't find them at normal folk venues, nor will you hear Wild Mountain Thyme or any Child ballads.

At the recent Woodford Folk Festival there was a significant proportion of people under (maybe) 28, what seemed to me to be an age gap in the 30's, and then another swag of people of 40+. I was fortunate to be one of the judges of the Grand Final of the Great Band Competition - scratch bands of pros and amateurs thrown together in a lottery just for the competition - and I reckon that the average was probably 25. And the music was fantastic, and exciting.

Folk music is far from dead, but it is evolving much more rapidly than many of us had realised. There are two factors at work in Australia that I believe are significant:

- Just as Australian's eating habits have gone through a transformation due to multi-culturalism in the last decade or so, so has our appreciation of so-called ethnic and native music. Younger people seemed to have embraced this music with vigour and melded it into Celtic and other Western styles.

- Percussion, starting with Afro-Cuban, has had a big influence on the way that young people play and enjoy music, and of course percussion is integral to many 'Eastern' music styles. Some Asian percussion styles such as Gamelan are starting to exert some influence.

I won't rave on much more - but I'm also impressed by the number of younger women in bands playing instruments that have long been the domain of males, and the almost equal gender mix in younger folk bands, and folk audiences.

Regards
John

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Big Mick
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 06:35 PM

Dear Dan, Alice, Mike Billo, AndyG, Catspaw49, King Brilliant, Steve Latimer, Barbara Shaw, Joe Offer, Animatterra, Allan S, Shambles,and Art,

Thanks, that is what I was trying to say as I rambled on.*******Grin******

Mick

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 03:01 PM

The points made about the UK and the young people playing the music are true though slightly less so with the singing side. It is very exciting the open way that they approach music. The catagories don't mean much to them.

You don't see them in folk clubs though. Why not?

I suppose if I were to put myself in their position, I would not go to folk clubs either. It's not that people do not welcome the young to the clubs, at least they say the right things, but in truth there is not much for them there that they wouldn't find tedious. Our fault?

If you were to call it something else like a 'Roots' Music Club or an Original Song Club you would probably not see anyone there over 30.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 02:50 PM

sorry for the above typos---too much coffee this afternoon.

A problem, as I see it, is the Folk Alliance (of which I'm a proud charter member) muddying the waters and bluring the distinctions as well as making this a real business for the first time. That wasn't true in the past except for the few mega-stars. But think how very many jobs have been created for agents and roadies etc. etc. In the old days we were a group gettin' to gigs by sticking out our thumbs (trying to be like Woody) or taking the bus. Did that until we got a $50.00 car. Thought that was how it should be done if we were in the tradtion of those who went before. Got our own gigs too--on the phone & not using the computer.

We always thought you could take all the sincerity in show business and stuff it into a flea's naval & still have enough room left over for 3 carraway seeds and an agent's heart!!!

Now, I see we're all folks doing the best we can.---While some are still shysters (spelling?), others, like my good friends Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer(who once again, have been nominated for a Grammy in the kid's music category) are simply superb musicians AS WELL AS being top-notch, go-gettin', business folk!! I, to Cathy's huge frustration, hated doing that end of things. But I sure do admire it when I see it done so well by Cathy & Marcy! (And _Blue Rose_ is one of the finest bluegrass bands I've ever heard.)

Art

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Mike Billo
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 02:22 PM

I see kids at festivals, shanty sings, etc. all the time. My 18 year old daughter has the most extensive collection of recorded Celtic music I've ever seen, and regularly goes to various group singing activities with her friends. My 14 year old son and I plan to go busking across America as a Harmonica duet this coming summer, performing the fiddle tunes and Cowboy songs he plays. I recently went to a David Grisman Quintet concert, and I was by far the oldest person in the audience (I'm 49). Maybe it has something to do with living in the San Francisco Bay Area( although I'm not sure why that should be a factor), but, this younger generation seems to be turning out all right as far as I can tell.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 02:19 PM

My good buddy, Dan Keding (whgo if he was here now would tell ya himself), was recently on tour in the U.K. Dan told me the "kid's getting involved in the music" factor is in wonderful and full bloom over there. The kids, complete with numerous piercings and spiked blue and magenta hair, are embracing the older music with both arms. He was truly moved by the degree to which that's happening over there. The kids doing the real thing are in evidence everywhere---festivals--concerts--coffeehouses & clubs.

Here in the USA it's just different right now! In the Midwest we always say if ya don't like the weather, just wait 15 minutes and it'll change. (My uncle, plowin' with 2 oxen--One died o' heat stroke & while he was skinnin' it, the othe ox froze to death.) But we've got the Freighthoppers & a few others too give us hope...

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Allan S.
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 02:00 PM

Reading all this really makes me wonder. Many of those playing seem to be writing their own music very little of which is lasting. Othere are in to Political songs that all appear to be left wing. {save the world} I know whats best for you. The rest of the the younger crowd has swung to the right so the music has no appeal to them. C&W is still going strong but of course has changed [Folk process??] Blue grass is going strong but as one chap said "Its all the same tune only the words change" I understand that Hip Hop in now No. 1 in the USA God save us all.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Alice
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 01:54 PM

I was thinking of this yesterday, as I rehearsed with the pianist on the four Robert Burns songs we will perform. I chose four songs that most people would have never heard before. I was talking with her about future performances I want to do with her in our town. My goal is to perform the folk songs... as well as Ladino, arias, and whatever is appropriate for my voice and personality that people may not hear anywhere else. They hear the standards at the session... Star of the County Down, Wild Rover, etc., but my goal is to perform pieces that I hope the audience here has never heard before, live or recorded. That is why I look for old books, like Herbert Hughes, which is filled with songs people have not repeatedly recorded. That is why I will mix in songs like Caro Mio Ben, because people in this area are rarely able to hear live singing, unless it is country/western bar bands or an occasional performer on tour.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Animaterra
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 01:30 PM

90% is exposing the next generation, and the next, and the next. I look 30 -50 years hence and I see the few devoted middle-aged folkies going around to nursing homes and retirement communities with their tape recorders, frantically recording the last vestiges of living folk music before it dies out again. Who will be the Alan Lomax or Cecil Sharpe then? Those who will have heard Sandy and Caroline, or Art, or Alice, or any of us and liked it enough to care to preserve it!

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 01:27 PM

I have one son who is trying to make a living as a musician, and two who would like to - all are in their twenties now. I suppose their preferred form of music is punk rock, but they have explored every kind of music you can imagine. My eldest son even recorded an album of instrumental surf music that sounds kind of like the Ventures. I tried to get into a Doc Watson - David Grasman "Doc and Dawg" concert last year, but it was sold out. I stood outside the theater to try to buy a ticket, and watched as people in their teens and twenties streamed into the building. I was disappointed because I've always wanted to see doc Watson, but I was encouraged to see all the young people going to see this type of music. I think young people have broader interests than we give them credit for. If we preserve the tradition, they will carry it on.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 12:52 PM

We can expose our kids to our music, but then it's up to them to develop their own taste. My younger son went to bluegrass festivals from the time he was in diapers, and still goes with us to Winterhawk, but he's going to major in Jazz Studies at college next year.

He's heard it all. Maybe he'll be back. I wasn't ready for Folk/Bluegrass at his age either. I was a rock 'n roller and then moved on as my taste changed.

Here again, the important thing is to introduce them to music. Let them experience the joys of any kind of music. Then let them be. Folk will stay around, as long as there are folk.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: To Alice
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 12:46 PM

Very well put, Thank God that there are some small independant labels trying to preserve music as an art form, not as a means to a fortune.

My brother told me the other night that it dawned on him that "Easy Listening" is an oxymoron.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Alice
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 12:29 PM

I think the difference between now and the past is the way the music business markets music. There is a profit strategy that relies on 'hits' and volume of sales, which are sometimes related to a movie soundtrack, to an extensive performance tour, to the latest gimmick, etc. The idea that music is what Mudcatters all seem to think it is, does not translate into the way music is marketed to the public on radio and CD's. Music to the masses (young people) is the latest 'new' sound, not the old sounds. There are some, like the Beatles, who could compose original music that will stand the test of time, but how much music from the 90's will still be sung in 20 years? Music used to be handed down from generation to generation by personal contact. It is now a product. Young people are exposed to the music product more than they are exposed to traditional music. Fighting the tide of mass marketing is a challenge, but it is fighting the good fight.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 12:11 PM

When I was in elementary school in the late sixties I was listening to the Beatles, The Monkees and anything else that A.M. Radio gave us. One day we had a special visit to our classroom by a couple of guys who called themselves "The Original Sloth Band." They amazed me by making music with things like a jug, a washboard, I believe I recall them having a washtub bass and it was the first time I had ever heard bottleneck guitar, which I have come to love. It was a small setting and very interactive, we were able to ask several questions and I think we were allowed to try some of the instruments.

The way I listened to music changed that day. I am forever grateful to "The Original Sloth Band" who turned out to be the Whiteley Brothers, who are still quite active and successful on the Canadian Folk/Blues scene.

Perhaps if the performers among Mudcatters would do something along these lines with their local schools the kids would realize that there is an alternative to The Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and all the rest of the fabricated 'music' that they are being bombarded with.

For what it's worth, my eight year old daughter is learning "Willow Garden" on Guitar. My sister performs it, my daughter heard her practising it and asked to be taught it. Alas, she also listens to the Spice Girls, but there is hope.

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 11:43 AM

They are definitely at the various festivals we go to in the UK over the summer. Sitting around playing and singing and sounding really good. So they must be getting together regularly somewhere

Kris

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 11:15 AM

Art...you may have your "jingles" back (see condom thread). Well stated...well done! catspaw

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Art again
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 11:11 AM

See the condom thread for talk of Harry Cox. ;-)

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 10:52 AM

Dan,

You are correct! It used to bother me---until I realized it was only depressing me--so I let it go and simply figure that what will be will be---just a part of the cycles. My answer for it, professionally (and when my health dictated that I tour less), was to link up with a steamboat on the Mississippi where I could play music & tell jokes/lies for almost a decade while I watched the music I cared about lose it's audience. Now I see, with much less anxiety, that the law is whatever the Supreme Court says it is (USA) at any given moment (to metaphorically view this). And I joyously participate in the sorrows o' the world (as Joe Campbell pointed out the Buddhists try to do).

And I gave my main lap dulcimer to a 12 year old kid who definitely was very interested. Any time a youngster shows real interest (or even before) I'll show 'em what I can. I kept my fees very low for shows I did in the schools of the 8 counties in and around Chicago for 22 years for this very reason. This allowed the inner city students (along with the more affluent suburban kids)to be, at least, exposed to this music they'd never hear otherwise.

The fellow I gave my dulcimer to just came over to show me the electric guitar he bought. That's O.K.! He'll take the dulcimer off the wall and start playing it 20 years from now, and then he'll posess the wisdom of age that is so often needed to enjoy our music best. Where I came to the music first out of youthful rebellion, he'll come to it out of intellectual and spiritual need born of a nostalgia for the old bearded guy in his past who took him aside and gave him a gift of the music.

Art

Art

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: AndyG
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 10:14 AM

Now this is personal experience but I have noticed that if I go to a Folk Club the audience definitely fits the desciption offered by Dan, but if, say, I go to a Waterson:Carthy gig in a non-Folk Club environment, the average audience is considerably younger.

I don't believe it's the clubs actively rejecting youth, but it could be youth rejecting the "old ways" (just like I did by going to folk clubs).

In the UK the music is in good young hands already (Rusby, Carthy, Cutting and many, many more) and has been for the last ten years (Morton, Hancock etc. I could go on.)

Youth is playing, singing and listening already, they just don't go to folk clubs very often, which I think is a shame but I don't know how to change it.

AndyG

Subject: RE: Where are the kids?
From: Big Mick
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 08:51 AM

Hi Dan,
I have been pondering this one for a bit, and I don't think I am anywhere close to the answer. I will say this. Upon reflection, it occurs to me that this is just part of the great wheel. At various times, throughout history, other styles of music have come into prominence and the folk arts moved to the fringe. At times like that, our spiritual forebears, gathered in the music and protected it until the young ones came back around. Think about our own lifetimes, and the generation just before us. There was a golden age of folk music that got interrupted by the big band sound and early rock 'n Roll. We had a revival in the late 50's and through the 60's. Then comes Disco, back to the fringe. And so it goes. I guess I feel that our bardic task is to keep it going, until the next Woody or Pete or Bok, Muir & Trickett comes along. And he/she will. We have a lot of interest right now, which allows us to preserve more of it for posterity. I must admit to having the same concerns as you. But each time I play some venue and my 20 and 22 year old daughters show up with their friends; and the friends ask me about the music and tell me how much they like it, it helps me to understand that we couldn't kill the music if we tried. It has appeal, and only needs us to expose it to 'folks'.

All the best,

Mick Lane

Subject: Where are the kids?
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 20 Jan 99 - 08:14 AM

In some regards folk music is very healthy. Many people can't get enough Riverdance; Irish pubs proliferate all over Europe and beyond; there's a session just about everywhere in the States. Bluegrass continues to be very popular, etc.

When I look at the audience for what Americans and Brits would call [generic] Folk Music, I get shivers. Everyone I see is my age (not especially young) or older. Where are the kids?

I don't mean your kids or my kids - who would be used to hearing folk music in the house - but other people's kids! Someone we know professes to being part of the Next Generation; that person is 33!

Give me stories about groups of teenagers singing sea shanties, doing the Woody-Cisco-Sonny thing or committing Harry Cox's repetoire to memory and I will be heartened for sure. However, the median age group for folk music enthusiasts is rising by about 11 months every year.

As the sooner-than-we-think Mantle Passers, what are we doing wrong or, rather, what can we do better to make the music of our lives and the lives of singers long since buried more appealing to younger folk?

Any thoughts?

All the best,
Dan Milner