BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: Surreysinger
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 06:21 AM

Which particular space-time continuum are you in then Linda?? I have to admit that there are one or two of the nominees that I either haven't heard of or haven't heard - but then, you can't be everywhere and hear/do everything can you? I can at least say that I used to be a member and a regular attender at the Ram Club in Claygate (until I smashed my little Metro up and failed to replace it) - so for once I actually know the Club of the Year!! (:-) (Well deserved win, by the way - although of course there's now another club in Surrey on Friday nights that I go to in preference - well _somebody's_ got to sell the raffle tickets!!)

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: Scrump
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 07:35 AM

If you are worried about not knowing some of the nominees for the Folk Awards, listen to the Mike Harding show. He plays them all just about every week.

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 08:18 AM

"smug", "bland" = "actionable". Ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa................

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: Surreysinger
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 08:31 AM

"If you are worried about not knowing some of the nominees for the Folk Awards, listen to the Mike Harding show.
I ain't worried - and I only listen to that show once in a blue moon. (May listen to this week's on replay - and will DEFINITELY listen at the end of the month to the one that features Nic Jones) Thanks anyway...

Guest of 8.18.... what are you on???

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 08:31 AM

I'm sure that Tim van Eyken is really, really nice - a really super and lovely human being - a saint whose breath smells of vanilla and whose ... need I go on? Of course I haven't met him - so the above may be slightly exaggerated ...

Thing is though, like many recent 'Folk Prodigies', I find his music smug and bland - sorry, but there you are!

Recently a friend played me one of his recent CDs and I thought, "what the f..k has this got to do with folk music?" Over-produced, over-orchestrated and not very interesting. The contents list contained some titles of trad. songs - but I found it hard to recognise them.

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: Scrump
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 08:38 AM

I ain't worried

Sorry, Surreysinger, I should have made it clear I was addressing my comment to Linda Kelly who had said "...I've never heard of the rest of them -worrying isn't it?"

Apologies for any confusion caused.

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 08:46 AM

recent 'Folk Prodigies'

Recent??

Tim van Eyken won the first Young Folk Award competition in 1998 and it was around then that his first (and so far only) solo CD, New Boots was released. As most (I imagined) people know, he has since collaborated with Rob Harbron both as a duo and in Dr Faustus and has spent seven (I think, almost) years in Waterson:Carthy while Saul Rose was on paternity leave. Now he has his own (loose) band Van Eyken with long-time casual collaborators on the CD Stiffs Lovers Holymen Thieves (which covers most trad music really).

What on earth has he does that's over-orchestrated or even over-produced? Are you even thinking of the right musician?

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 08:52 AM

"the CD Stiffs Lovers Holymen Thieves"

Yes, I think that was it. As I say "over-produced and over-orchestrated" (must have missed the unaccompanied tracks).

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: old girl 1
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 09:01 AM

Well done Tim. Nicki sends his regards   Rose & Dave S/Wales

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 09:02 AM

SLHT is a band CD, not one of 'unaccompanied tracks'. You have clearly missed Barleycorn which got Best Trad Track. Missed the sparseness of the stripped down arrangement in contrast to the never-ending torrent of overdone, bombastic offerings from others.

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: GUEST,Trying to help
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 09:20 AM

Shimrod, I just checked something that I thought was true, remembering other threads. I checked and it is. Almost every single contribution to any thread that you have ever posted is attacking someone or something. Are you aware how negative your responses are? Usually this means the person is very unhappy and is throwing their negativity onto the world (rubbishing other people) in order to avoid dealing with their own issues. Perhaps you need to think about this. I genuinely hope you will, and that your response will not be simply to attack me. I really am trying to help.

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 09:25 AM

Shimrod, I have to say it sounds like you've got the wrong CD, and in fact musician, to me. I can't imagine a less accurate description of SLHT - overproduced?! And if you're basing your assertion that his music is "bland and smug" on one inattentive listen at a mate's house, maybe you ought to listen to it properly before casting nasturtiums.

Can someone explain to me how music can be smug, BTW?

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: HipflaskAndy
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 01:05 PM

Hey there Shim....
Tim's a real gent - met him once - at a lock in after playing Oxford Folk club! He showed this 'amateur' a lot of consideration and kindness as I (the only guitarist present) struggled to keep 'up' with he, Boden and a few others into the night. Knock his (or my) music if you don't like it - but don't knock the chap himself please!
You say......The little git will be even smugger now (and even blander?).....
no need! Surely!

Oh..... IMHO his Barleycorn version sure knocks spots off mine!

Ta for the good raps Les - appreciate it - but I'm never gonna be 'award' material - only sparsely 'known' across the UK - not in same league... etc etc
.....up to now! Who knows - one day afore I croak it - eh? (sighs and dreams on...)
Hugs - Duncan

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 01:40 PM

I have actually been living on Planet Kelly for some time - run a folk club , do festivals but admit to being on the 'fringe' of traditional folk music. I know Tim from being part of EthnoEngland and he is hardworking and motivational, a fantastic musician. but we don't all have the same tastes do we?-for instance I can't stand the music of Tom Paxton -no hope for me is there? however, no point in holding a debate over who is better than whom-if you don't like cheese then you don't like cheese! Doesn't mean cheese is bad just that in my view it tastes like vomit!

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: GUEST,folkiedave
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 01:51 PM

Duncan - you are a really good guitar player, I am sure you could have kept up with them!! But I admit the young prodigies get all the wawrds, look at the last couple of years...Martin Carthy, Dave Swarbrick, Danny Thompson, John Tams, Paul Brady, Ashley Hutchings etc etc.

Dave

Subject: RE: Folk Awards - Results
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 01:52 PM

Ahem . . . oops sorry Dunc, I didn't mean your Barleycorn when I said what I did, just that Tim's is a million times better than many. Gives me a chance though to say again what a top bloke he is. Kind, helpful, friendly and yes!! a shiny halo. And a jolly fine musician. Has to be, to have done all he's done so far.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 03:03 PM

Shimrod, Old Bean.
Keep taking the medication. It will start working eventually.
You just have to give it time,,
Now, Now...Go and lie down and have a little nap,
Hope you feel better tommorrow.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: GUEST,surreysinger (forgot to log in)
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 04:26 PM

Well if Diane's repeating what she thinks of Tim, then so will I ... everything she says about him is spot on as far as I'm concerned, and echoes my own feelings on the matter.

Oh, and Scrump, it's OK... when I reread what you'd put and scrolled back I realised I had probably misconstrued. Mind you, just like Linda (like the idea of Planet Kelly, by the way!) I hadn't heard of a couple of the nominees - or if I had heard of a couple, I hadn't heard anything by them.... but then they're not in the particular area of this "wide church" of ours that I'm particularly interested in, so I'm not altogether surprised. I look forward to hearing something by them at a later point.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 05:50 PM

Thank you 'trying to help',

Yes, I am unhappy - I'm unhappy because the music I love appears to be going down the drain. Where there used to be beautiful or stirring songs with great tunes, and great performances, there are now pretentious 'bands' and pseudo rock performers. Thanks for attempting to psychoanalyse me (although I don't remember asking you to?). Think of me as a dissident, who is not influenced by fashion, and remember that in certain totalitarian societies dissidents have often been dealt with by bringing their mental health into question.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: HipflaskAndy
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 05:52 PM

No worries Diane - as my post said - Tim's version is THE tops by me any day!
Cheers - D

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Scrump
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 05:02 AM

but we don't all have the same tastes do we?-for instance I can't stand the music of Tom Paxton -no hope for me is there? however, no point in holding a debate over who is better than whom-if you don't like cheese then you don't like cheese! Doesn't mean cheese is bad just that in my view it tastes like vomit!

I agree Linda - we all have our own tastes and that's nothing to worry about or be ashamed of. If you don't like Tom Paxton, that's your choice. There are artists I don't particularly like, and there are some of the Folk Awards nominees I've heard little of and have never seen live. As Surreysinger said further up, "you can't be everywhere and hear/do everything can you?"

In spite of me spending a lot of time in folk clubs and at festivals, there are still some of the 'major' artists I haven't been able to see. But then I've seen a lot of other ones I admire, who weren't among the Folk Awards nominees.

I don't go around slagging off artists that I don't like though, because I recognise that it upsets others who do like them. OK, if I genuinely think someone is rubbish then I might say so, but usually it's just that I don't particularly enjoy their choice of material, or their style of singing, or whatever - I can often see why other people like them, it's just that they don't appeal to my personal taste. It doesn't bother me though, because most people are like that (aren't they?).

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 05:13 AM

Think of me as a dissident, who is not influenced by fashion, and remember that in certain totalitarian societies dissidents have often been dealt with by bringing their mental health into question.

The difference between totalitarian society and Mudcat is that both may do that but on Mudcat we don't put you in the Gulag..........yet.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 06:51 AM

"Where there used to be beautiful or stirring songs with great tunes, and great performances, there are now pretentious 'bands' and pseudo rock performers."

And neither of these applies to Tim van Eyken, whose music you're clearly unfamiliar with. So instead of being a bitter little ball of bitterness, why not listen to people like Tim, or Kris Drever, or Jim Causley? No pseudo rock, no pretentiousness, just lovely interpretations of traditional songs.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 08:01 AM

Seems to be a lot of fuss generating because some people like TvE and one person doesn't. Is this a problem?

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Surreysinger
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 08:49 AM

People liking different things isn't a problem - what is a problem was the distinct unpleasantness of Shimrod's first posting. Completely uncalled for IMHO.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 09:39 AM

"I don't go around slagging off artists that I don't like though, because I recognise that it upsets others who do like them."

I would have thought that Mudcatters were made of sterner stuff than that? If someone disagrees with me I don't get 'upset' - I fight back - usually using sweet reason and logic but occasionally, and always regretably (!), using 'street-fighting' tactics (but then none of us is perfect). My original post was not designed to 'upset' but to 'shock'.

You see, I was 'shocked' and 'upset' on hearing the CD referred to above. This was because I had heard good things about Mr van Eyken but it seemed to me that he had moved so far away from folk music that what he was producing was no longer recognisable as such. And none of this would matter very much if he hadn't won a prestigious national folk award.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 09:41 AM

Greg, it was simply clear from his posting that a lack of familiarity with the music wasn't going to stop him having an opinion on it, which seems unfair. And the phrase "The little git will be even smugger now" is completely indefensible when talking about one of the nicest people in this (or any) industry.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Surreysinger
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 09:58 AM

Hear hear Ruth!!!

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 10:26 AM

Can I just echo what Ruth said too - a really nice person.

Dave Eyre
Bookseller to Tim Van Eyken

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 10:34 AM

OK, me too, for the third time . . .
TvE: definitely not a git, emphatically not smug.
Anyone who's ever met him would be incapable of making such an incomprehensible mistake.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: AlexB
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:05 AM

Having had a listen to clips of the tracks I hadn't heard from SLHT (which I should get), it certainly sounded folk to me.

Shimrod, could you perhaps give us a few specific tracks that you thought sounded "not folk"?

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:08 AM

Agreed, Shimrod was a bit acerbic. I think younng Tim came in for a bit of generalised flailing flak aimed in the general direction of changes in the folk scene over the last generation or so: which the poor lad can hardly be personally blamed for.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:21 AM

I think poor Shimrod is regretting the huge linguistic change that has happened in the last thirty years.(Though he can speak fro himself, and I'm sure will do so). He just seemed to be saying what is patently obvious: that Tim's music has been reclassified as "traditional folk" now, but would not have been so in the 60's,say: it would have counted as "revival". Shimrod, I fear, is wasting his anger. That is probably not a bit of toothpaste that can be crammed back in the tube, much as he would like to.
    I don't share Shimrod's biliousness, but I also think it's a pity that absolutely nothing whatever appeared in this section of the nominations that might be described as "traditional" in the old sense, It all seems strikingly reminiscent of the BBC a generation or two back, when they played lots of Benjamin Britten, Percy Grainger, George Butterworth etc reinterpreations of folk material, but virtually none of the original kind of stuff. Which was then, of course, thriving, alive and kicking.
    I love the Eykens. Brittens. McColls and Carthys giving the old style a bit of a pummelling, but I dont forget where the stuff came from: i think Radio 2 has let go of that, though. A pity.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:57 AM

Indeed R2 has let go of that in favour of 'follow through' which means that everything even mildly 'f*lk-tinged' has to be sugar-coated so as not to scare who they imagine are their dumbed down mainstream audience. R3 has not entirely. There are productions such as last Sunday's Music Matters (still on the replayer) and one-off programmes like England In Ribbons, the daylong St Georges's Day collage and Christmas Champions and for this, the network deserves support.

The R2 Award for Best Traditional Track criteria is, after all:

The best performance of any traditional song or tune on CD released during the past 12 months. This is a category designed to recognise the work of people recording traditional material. It is to be a new recording of a traditional song, from any tradition.

It does not say it has to be performed by 'traditional musicians'. Tim van Eyken is a musician performing mainly traditional material. Barleycorn is a new recording of a traditional song which he did not write/rewrite himself from unclear sources real or imagined like another of the nominations in this category, and is therefore a worthy winner. Greg, you can call Tim a revivalist performer (which indeed he is) but an ever-decreasing number of punters would understand nowadays what this meant. He is, however, fully steeped 'in the tradition', having played for Morris for many years, starting I believe with his mother's side who gave him his first melodeon. No, this didn't make him a 'smug git'.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 12:10 PM

Nothing to add to that, really. Apart from asking, Greg, if the awards was for traditional singers as opposed to revivalists singing in the tradition, who the hell would be nominated? True traditional singing died with Fred Jordan, surely.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 12:20 PM

I suppose you could enter the odd traveller still left here and there, but how would you Catch Them If You Can and persuade them into The Brewery?

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 12:26 PM

My Traveller the other night sang Kenny Rogers songs.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 12:30 PM

That one didn't have a Legg to stand on though, did he?

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Surreysinger
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 01:20 PM

"That one didn't have a Legg to stand on though, did he? "
Chuckle, chuckle. Mind you, the Leggs haven't been travelling in many years ... when does a traveller cease to be a traveller, please ? On second thoughts maybe not... leave that question to lie.
Re traditional singers left - bit sweeping to say they died out with Fred Jordan, Ruth - what about the likes of Bob Lewis, who sings songs that he learned from his family (many of which were collected in Sussex by the likes of Lucy Broadwood et al in the 19th century); or the Millens from Kent etc etc?

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 02:28 PM

True traditional singing died with Fred Jordan, surely

Not really Ruth, as an example, we still have Shepherd meets around here where the singers sing traditional songs.

And just 'cos your traveller sang Kenny Rogers one night does not mean he doesn't sing other stuff other nights. A £ to a pinch of snuff he knows "Buttercup Joe". And there are a few singers around here (Sheffield) that learnt their songs orally from their family. Roger Hinchcliffe is still a young man.

Cecil Sharp rushed around at the turn of the century 'cos folk song was dying out. At the amalgamation of the two societies in 1932 it was more or less agreed that there were few folk singers left. Peter Kennedy rushed around with his tape recorder 55 years ago because when he went back to Stanley Slade he found he was dead.

And the carols are traditional - does that make people like me who have learnt them orally as I have a traditional singer?

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 03:03 PM

Is Dave Eyre a traditional singer? Well sort of, yes, probably. In the same way as the Young Coppers are. They sing stuff from the family songbook when they feel like it but it's not a big deal. I learned songs, tunes and dances from trad musicians when at school in Newcastle though I didn't know that was what they were, but back home at my grandfather's in North Yorkshire it was more blurred. He'd played for his local morris side before World War I but when he returned there were no longer enough dancers to make a side. Or a cricket team, for that matter. He remembered the tunes and played them sometimes, though much to the ridicule of the rest of the family. It just wasn't 'fashionable' in the 1950s. This side has recently been revived and they have some of his tunes. Is this traditional? It's a grey area.

Bob Davenport has this story of a Peter Kennedy broadcast featuring a folklore academic who knew the exact date and time when hammer dulcimer playing had died out in these islands. Strange, since Bob had seen one down at Hoxton market that very morning. There are still pockets throughout the land where, when you least expect it, evidence that a tradition still survives will emerge.

A traveller in a Lincolnshire pub may have some as yet undiscovered gems, or he may not. If he makes the Kenny Rogers songs his own, perhaps he'll pass them on orally, or maybe not. Simon Ritchie of the Posh Band is a musician who really does embrace the music of the day and make it into the music of the people. He can do Leonard Cohen, Jimmy Cliff, Bob Dylan, Smokey Robinson, Sex Pistols and the Searchers alongside trad material in a pub with all sorts of racket going on and gain people's attention as he stepdances on the table. A true star who never self-promotes.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 03:05 PM

I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 04:06 PM

Well of course I'd just like to be a singer - shame that the only voice I have has difficulty staying in tune. I can hide in the carols.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 04:30 PM

Ruth Archer: a couple of points. firstly, I dont think that the traditional bits of the awards should be confined to "traditional" singers: who is going to define that? We all know what controversy that sort of thing arouses. No, I think people should vote for whoever they like, the mass vote can define the definitions. I was just disappointed we have the kind of panel that doesn't really vote for anything trad sounding.
    Secondly, you suggest the tradition is dead(with Fred Jordan). Well, even accepting what you say, the panel is perfectly capabale of voting a non-Brit qinner(Chris Thilefor example). There are plenty of traditional singers left in the world(including any amount of non-indigenous culture singers here in Englan, as I work recording them, so I know).
    And anyway, as others have pointed out, the indigenous traditions are by no means dead. I shall probably go to a Shepherds Meet/hunting song competition do in the lakes quite soon. These events chugged along happily before the Great Folk revival, and are still chugging along totally separate from it. Just because you don't see the performers at Cambridge and Celtic Connections, it doesn't mean they don't exist.
I play in a barndance band, as I have since I was a youth. I played with, and learnt from, the old guys, and now I pass it on. I play weddings, birthdays, christenings, funerals, just the same as those before me. Playing the same tunes. No the tradition is not dead. It may look so from Radio 2 perspective, but get out in the north, or the west(of England, that is) and you will find reports of the death of the tradition are greatly exaggerated. Granted, it interacts little with the folk scene(club or festival): but that is the collective choice of the folk scene. With which, obviously, I seriously disagree.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: AlexB
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 04:39 PM

I think people should vote for whoever they like, the mass vote can define the definitions.

Bunnies and all?

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 05:09 PM

It's a wee bit insulting to assume my perspective is based on Cambridge, Celtic Connections and Radio 2, Greg.

Chris Thile is a fantastic musician, but I still find it a weird choice. Why the occasional American nominee? There doesn't seem to be any logic.

I probably wasn't clear enough. I acknowledge that there are still traditions like those you describe, and like Sheffield Carols. I don't know how many "outsiders" will visit and take part in the Shepherd's meet, but certainly Sheffield Carols atracts many visitors from outside the community, which is lovely but also fudamentally alters the nature of the tradition. These traditions also seem to be quite collective in nature, which is also lovely, but we were talking about the folk awards, and singers who might be nominated for a traditional singer's award. Who are the individual living source singers who would be eligible for such an award today?

Happy to be enlightened,

Ruthie

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 05:48 PM

"Shimrod, could you perhaps give us a few specific tracks that you thought sounded "not folk"?"

Sorry, no, because that would mean that I would have to listen to the wretched thing again (oh, noooo!!!!).

On the other hand I'm glad to see that my 'biliousness' seems to have kick-started a proper discussion - as opposed to a Tim van Eyken 'love-in' (and, yes, I'm sure he is a really super person).

Right, I'm off to boil a couple of babies for my supper (Mmmm!! Plump and juicy!).

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 05:51 PM

Mad Alex: nominations(under the current sisyems) are not defined by mass voy=tes. On the albino bunny question(which I have stuck my neck out and complained about) there was no question of a mass vote.I doubt if even one of the voters thought the White Hare was a trad song. What I imagine happened is that a very small number of voters, say five or so, thought it might be a good idea if the White Hare won the trad category, and decided to vote that way. Add that to a handful of fans who voted for their favourite, another five, and there's the ten you need. The votes are spread so thin (350 votes spread over many thousand possible tracks) that it doesn't take many votes to get in the top four.
Ruth Archer: I am very sorry if I gave the impression I thought your horizons were bounded by Cambridge and Celtic Connections. When I said "just because you don't see them at Cambridge " I meant "you" as in "one". None of us see trad performers much on Radio 2, but that doesn't prove they don't exist, that was my point I am saying that the Radio 2 set-up(MH programme and Awards) is moving the scene inexorably away from the British folk teadition, and towards a set of performance styles which are typefied by those who play at those festivals. And no, I dont say Mike Harding and Cambridge don't cover traditional folk music, They do, a lot of it. What I am saying is that every year a bit more trad mat erial is discarded, and replaced with a bit more other stuff. So a scene that was 90% trad-orientated, in say 1960, is being publicly presented now in the media as being 90% contemporary-orientated.

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 06:03 PM

That's interesting, Greg - I was watching the Watersons' film "Travelling for a Living" last weekend, and one of the moments that hit home with me was when someone (perhaps the head of Topic Records?) was explaining to camera why the Watersons were important. He was essentially bemoaning the fact that there were all these singer-songwriter types who were very commercially successful, but saying that their success was undermining the whole folk genre because they had no real notion of or respect for tradition. But that the Watersons were important because they were studying the tradition and immersing themselves in the source recordings as inspiration for their music. And I laughed quite heartily to think that these same arguments that we constantly revisit were already raging 40 years ago...

Subject: RE: BBC Folk Awards - Results (2007)
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 06:14 PM

And I suspect that Greg exaggerates the percentages but I take his point. I use Listen Again and listen to Travelling Folk on Radio Scotland . It is the programme that the MH Show ought to be.

There isn't an award for a traditional singer but I'd go get your coat again if you think someone couldn't be awarded if from the UK.

Include the whole of Scotland there are plenty and with the whole of Northern Ireland a load more. (The Young Musician of the Year Two Years ago was Jarlath Henderson - piper) Include Eire and there are traditional singers without number.

Shepherds meets are by invitation so it is rare that you would get an outsider. Roger Hinchcliffe learnt his songs from his father Frank Hinchcliffe. (Who appeared with Phil Tanner etc on the Century of Song EFDSS record). Does some Fred Jordan stuff too.

But the best place to look for traditional singers would be the Veteran Catalogue or Kyloe Records.

Loads of the singers there are still alive.