Celebrate 'Folk'

Subject: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 09:06 PM

Just dipping my toes in the water here!
I've enjoyed the 'folk scene' for more years than I care to remember but what makes it special to you?
I'm not looking for an over-intelligent debate here about the meaning and history of folk and its interpretation of traditional and non traditional folk.
Definately not. Just your from the heart feelings about what sucked you in to the folk scene in the first place and why you've stayed with it.
What is it that it is so appealing to you year after year and why is it that (in my opinion) it is 'one big family' where you bump into so many good friends and relationships that you have gained festival upon festival around the country?
To me this is something very special that should be celebrated as something very special. Will you raise a glass with me to celebrate the 'folk' experience and say why it is special to you?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 10:39 PM

Well, first up, I'm older than dirt.

I had a nodding acquaintance with folk music, having heard Burl Ives on the radio, heard Susan Reed sing in a movie, and The Weavers on juke boxes before they were blacklisted. That was leading up to the early 1950s.

At university, in 1951-52, I started dating a young woman who was avidly interested in folk music. She had heard a local singer named Walt Robertson sing at a party (Walt had a television show at the time, and shortly thereafter cut a record for Folkways). Claire was teaching herself to play the guitar and learning songs. It looked like fun, and I could sing a bit, so I bought a cheap guitar and had her teach me a few chords.

Shortly thereafter, she and I attended a concert that Walt Robertson sang. It was in a restaurant near the university—seated mayby 75 people. That evening, Walt sang for about two or two and a half hours, some songs I was familiar with, but most I had never heard before. During that couple of hours, he wove many stories in song and evoked all kinds of images new to me. I was totally enthralled. So were most of the others in the audience. During that evening, I caught the same bug that Claire had caught a few months before.

I wanted to do what Walt did.

I redoubled my efforts, learned songs—and read up on their backgrounds. I practiced assiduously on the guitar. I met Walt, and through him, I met a few other people who were also interested in folk music. I began singing at parties. Then a few years later, I began getting hired to sing at other events. And in 1959, having developed a reputation as being somewhat of a ballad scholar as well as a singer, I was asked to do a series of television shows on my local educational channel (now a PBS affiliate). This, in turn, led to singing in clubs and coffeehouses, doing concerts, more television. . . .    I began making my living that way, and thoroughly enjoying it.

It is immensely satisfying to spend an evening entertaining people by doing something you enjoy doing, something you would do for free. And then being paid to do it.

Why folk songs? Because, in addition to the poetic and musical appeal of the songs themselves, they each have a history. They have substance. You dig into the background of a particular song, where it came from, who sang it, and why it exists at all, and you will learn aspects of history and of life in general that you might not learn any other way.

The songs have roots.

In addition to all this, I've met a whole bunch of very talented people, some famous, many not so famous, who share my interest. And among them, I've found a lot of lifelong friends.

And that's just for openers.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 10:51 PM

I've never wanted to listen to, or play, much else. My parents used to let us stay up late on Saturday nights to hear The Midnight Special on Chicago's WFMT. I started out liking the Bill Cosby routines they would play, but stayed for the music. I could never understand performers who would play folk venues, but put down the music. I've never had a problem telling people who asked what kind of music I played that I played folk music.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 12:45 PM

Thanks Don and Phil. Like you I was kind of weaned on folk music and have never felt the need to apologise for the fact.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 12:49 PM

Because the songs are amazing.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 01:16 PM

I like folkish songs more than other types of music becaue they have a tale to tell, heart-felt emotions to express, poetry to put with music. Folk songs have meant much to people whether they were riggin' sail or slammin' a nine-pound hammer. The majority of my influences came out of the 'folk tradition' and to this day the majority of my influences are still in the folk tradition.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 01:35 PM

In the late 60's early 70's I spent a lot of time singing in Folk Club...sadly the voice (and consequently the confidence,) have waned and I now write songs..mostly in the Traditional style. If anyone finds them whenI am gone...perhaps I could become the famous ANON!!!!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 01:38 PM

I was born in 1957, just a few months before "Tom Dooley" hit the charts.   Growing up during the folk revival, the music was all around me - we sang the songs in school and I remember my dad loved to listen to radio. He would listen to all kinds of stations and I heard all kinds of music.   How many people can of my age can thank their father for listening to the Doors on the radio? It seems that these songs were always part of my soundtrack.

When I really started to sit up and take notes was during my high school years in the mid-70's.   I really started to LISTEN to the music that I was hearing. My best friend Bob was a huge Simon & Garfunkel and Dylan fan, so those songs were always on the 8-Track in his beat up VW.   I soon found the circle growing larger, and I became interested in the roots of these artists. It led me to learn more about the folk revival and the traditions - and I've never looked back since!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 01:45 PM

And with that said, I have little else to add of any cogency to this thread (or this site for that matter).

Keep well. And keep the traditions--new or old--alive.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 10:34 AM

Thanks for dropping by Peace and it's good to hear from fellow 'folkies' from across the pond. I just wonder how the folk experience compares between the UK and the USA. Any offers?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 11:28 AM

Back in the 1950s at primary school, looking back, the songs I enjoyed most, were what, I later discovered, to be 'folk'. Then in the 60s whilst everyone else at school was 'into' the Stones etc I was drawn to Peter Paul & Mary,& Bob Dylan. But it was hearing Joan Baez singing on the BBC, and discovering that what she sang was originally a British ballad, that 'changed my life'! We had our own folk tradition in Britain, what a discovery! Folk music, to my mind, is the finest, and purest, achievment of 'the common man', telling their stories, their loves, hates, deaths etc. As to what is 'folk'?
Wellit's hard to discribe, but you KNOW it when you hear it.   Sailoron

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 11:46 AM

Firstly, I've always loved history, myth and tradition.

Secondly, it was something I could participate in. Even as a shy lad of 15 I was made to feel welcome at the local folk club and my early attempts at performing were greeted with praise, help and advice – even from up and coming 'stars' like the Watersons.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 11:49 AM

A SINGER IN THE STREET

A SINGER in the street to-day,
    He sings a song; and as I hear
I dream and wander far away,
    And still his song is in my ear.

Snatches of dim forgotten things
    Are in it; such as throb and glow
In nameless poets and their rhymes,
    For simple hearers long ago.

That was their art; they died unknown,
    Not caring, if they left behind
A single snatch, a tender tone,
    To linger with their fellow kind.

And this they did, like birds that pipe,
    By lonely stream or misty hill,
A chord or two, but full and ripe,
    Then seem forever to be still.

But not the notes that are so sweet,
    They live and shift as sunshine slips;
Till here to-day within the street
    They rest upon a singer's lips.

Alexander Anderson (1845-1909)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Willa
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 01:30 PM

What a great thread! Hope no one drops in to carp. Much of what you have all said applies to me. I only discovered very late in life that much of the music I'd heard sung when I was a child and loved was 'folk music'; busy making up for lost time now, visiting folk clubs and festivals.
Yes, Soldier boy, it feels like 'one big famil' to me too! (occasional quarrels included, as in most families)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 07:40 PM

Thanks everyone for your heart felt messages.

Seems to me that folk music and all that it entails is something very special to us.

Once bitten you are bitten for life and it really means something special to us.

Like Sailor Ron has said the true essence of folk music "is hard to describe but you KNOW it when you hear it". How true that is.

It seems to seep into your soul and warms the heart with love and understanding of real and lasting 'culture'. And then you meet many like-minded people who all feel the same way and in many cases become friends and extended 'family' for life.

Sorry to go all poetic and soppy on you but that is how I and most others contributing to this thread feel about it.

Surely this warm glow and satisfaction we all feel about the folk scene and its songs,meanings,atmosphere and comraderie should be celebrated and not derided or apologised for.

After all, we are mere mortals and anything that warms the heart, stimulates mixed emotions and stirs the mind makes our lives richer and nore satisfying than any amount of material possesions or wealth. Well doesn't it?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 08:02 PM

Well, this IS such a beautiful thread maybe I could add another thing.

I left home at a fairly young age, arrived in New York City and after spending $.15 on a subway token was in Washington Square in the Village with a Framus guitar , the clothes on my back and $.35 in my pocket. People from the folk 'scene' looked out for me and got me work. It was at times a wretched existence, but we tended to watch out for each other and together we got through some times that I think would have 'beaten' other people. There was community, compassion and always, there was music.

Listening to words of songs by people like Pat Sky or Charlie Chin, John Sebastian or Fred Neil, Bob Gibson or Lonnie Johnson--man, I got one-on-one tips and criticisms from those folks. Lonnie Johnson himself told me how to do stage introductions; Pat Sky told me how to pace sets; Bob Gibson 'showed' me some chord changes that only he ever did before. Tell me, how can it get better than that?

Good writers and stage performers share what they have learned, and I have never seen that more clearly than in the folk world.

Today (meaning over the past six months), Ron Bankley has been the driving force behind a CD we have almost completed. He and many other people were encouraging. They ALL come out of the 'folk' world, and not a day goes by I don't thank this universe for people like them.

Soldier boy said it more eloquently than I ever could.

"After all, we are mere mortals and anything that warms the heart, stimulates mixed emotions and stirs the mind makes our lives richer and nore satisfying than any amount of material possesions or wealth. Well doesn't it?"

Yeah, man, I hear that.

Yeah, man, I hear that!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 08:21 PM

I'm still up and should be in bed ... just wanted to say a big thanks to 'Peace'. Your comments so well describe the back-up and support folkies receive from fellow folkies. You really can't put a price on can you. God bless you and all who sing with you.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 11:25 AM

I would agree with all that has been said. I've always been interested in history, but not the political kind; it's the REAl history that gets me; how people did things; how they dressed, how they made their furniture, what they ate, how they travelled - and why, how they worked, their love lives, and their deaths. All this is represnted in folk songs. It's real life; we know people -'ordinary' people - who lived two or three centuries ago, because their stories have come down to us. And, as others have said, the people who play folk music are generally approachable, helpful people. The ones who do it for a living are not in this for stardom; they are just 'ordinary' people too, doing this for a living instead of digging for coal or making suits or building houses. And unlike many involved in other kinds of music, they are happy to share what they know, because they are passionate about it. I love the fact that the folk world is so inclusive - the audience is as much a part of it as the singers, and the amateurs as much a part as the professionals. At least, this is how it used to be; sadly, I think things are changing in this respect. I remember Nic Jones, back in about 1979, going on for his second spot, after the floor singers, saying "the floor spots are always my favourite part of a folk club; you never know whether your next singer id going to be brilliant or bloody awful". I'm pretty sure this was Nic; my apoplogies to him and whoever it was if I've mis-attributed it. The point is that your singer might be bloody awful, but was still entitled to a hearing, and someone of Nic's stature would still listen. We were all one big, tolerant and supportive family. As I said, I think this is changing. Other threads here have included a lot of snide comments about both the professionals and the amateurs, indicating something of an estrangement which I think helps none of us. Can we mend the rift before all the things we've talked about here become merely a rosy memory?
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 11:59 AM

I agree that this is a really nice thread. Unlike other tpes of music that I like, folk music is something that I live. By this I mean the experiences and emotions in the songs, and also the folk 'scene' - the people, performing yourself and listening to other do so, the festivals, the folk clubs, just sitting around at home or at parties having a singaround with friends. Before she got into folk music, mrsleveller thought it was all a bit 'twee' but now she's been sucked into it she's amazed at just how fantastic it is.

After over 40 years I love it more than ever - both the tradition and the innovation. What's more, my 8-year old daughter is as enthusiastic as I am.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 12:21 PM

Celebate folk? What like priests and nuns and things?

Oh, CelebRate Folk! Gotcha.

My daughters round about summed it up when they made the 'transition' from Goth Rock to Folk in their late teens. Having been to many concerts and festivals where the main band spent 30 minutes on stage, were neither approachable or friendly and, in the main, were vastly overpriced they had enough. They now see the 'big names' in 90 minute+ concerts and chat to them later. They mingle with people at the local folk club who are talented enough to perform their own big concerts. They have started to join in sessions themselves. And all on a budget that they don't need to take a mortgage on.

Trouble it's it's addictive. In the best possible way:-)

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:11 AM

Although I've been on the fringes for the last 10 years with involvement in Morris Dancing, its only in the last year or so that I have been going to festivals, listening to music, going to sessions etc. I am in my mid twenties and was previously into a fairly wide range of music, and went to a fair few mainstream festivals. For me, folk music seems to have a lot more depth, both in the music itself and the community around the music. By comparison, a lot of the music I used to listen to is, to be honest, boring. The comment Dave P makes is spot on - being able to rub shoulders with so many people who are involved with the music professionally or as part of a hobby makes it feel so much more accessible and ... errr ... wholesome? (I am so bored of go see band, band play tracks like CD, band leave, I leave)

I am guilty of previously harbouring a lot of misconceptions about the scene, and shied away from getting more involved at a younger age, probably cos it aint cool. Its great to go to the likes of Towersey Festival and see so many people of all ages having a great time.
I also love being part of and contributing to an evolving tradition, not just for the sake of keeping it alive, but because I enjoy it. My girlfriend described the folk scene as a big club that noone really knows about, but its pretty exciting to be part of.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: bankley
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 09:05 AM

I've found out long ago that folk music is more on a human scale than most other genres... old Country excepted... there's something about one person (or a small group) singing, playing, telling stories, making jokes, commenting on social conditions, that spans the centuries and bridges cultural divides. Of course, initially, I came to it through recordings.... there wasn't a huge gap between what Cash was saying and the young Baez and Dylan. No surprise that Johnny and Bob became life long friends. The first time that I ever saw and heard a 'folk-singer' hold a room for two or more hours was in the late 60's in Montreal. A young local, fresh out of the Village in NYC. I'm sure that a lot of the tips and advice that he rec'd from his contemporaries there had helped shape his style. There was a 'buzz' around him, and I don't mean chemical. It had a profound effect on me and in turn shaped my perspective on many levels.... I was in an experimental blues band at the time, that was good enough to play the same place on occasion, even if we shook the walls with drums and old Les Paul guitars. The owners would complain, tell the drummer to join the carpenter's union, but we'd be invited back anyway... it was all in good fun...

A couple of years later, I got to make friends and play music with that young troubador and many of the talented people in that 'scene'.
I became a better writer, player and human being through this close and supportive association. We had fun, too. So now, decades later, I've been handed the opportunity to throw some of the support back his way, mostly through making a 'recording'.... Full Circle, in a sense. A wonderful thing...

one more reason to celebrate Folk..

Oh yeah, that 'folk-singer's' name was and is...... Bruce Murdoch

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Guest SuzieQ
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 09:20 AM

Having been brought up on Big Bands and Skiffle and then introduced to punk and new wave through my big brothers, it took a long time for me to get to folk music (via every other genre you can think of!) but it's the songs and the friendliness of clubs/venues and performers that makes it special for me and my family.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 09:31 AM

I forgot to mention the free food at one session I go to, a great reason to celebrate folk!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: jacqui.c
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 09:33 AM

The songs that we learned to sing at school I later found to be Folk songs, although, at the time, they were just one of the best parts of a school day. I would listen to the music of the Spinners (UK) and Steeleye Span in my 20s, but life got in the way of getting further involved.

I decided to learn to play guitar and a circuitous route via classes brought me to a folk club just after splitting from my husband. For the first time in my life I found somewhere where I could feel a sense of belonging and a music that I could get involved in, not just listen to. To me Folk music has the advantage of having substance than most other popular music and of being easier to join in with than the more substantial classical music. The kick I get from hearing a whole room full of people harmonising a chorus just can't be beaten.

I've found that there are a lot of similarities between the UK and the USA folk scene, both in the music and the people. I think that there is a greater spirit of camaraderie amongst folkies because we are out there making our own music, not just sitting back listening to a performer on stage all the time. I love the fact that there is still so much good music out there that I have yet to hear and learn.

The writers of folk songs give us more of an insight into our social history and, IMHO, that can only lead to a better understanding of where we are now. The music has a real soul.

However, I am very biased as this music has led to my remarriage and, through that, the chance to become even more involved in the Folk world than was previously the case.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Bee
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 09:43 AM

For me it's been the 'folk' aspect of the music: this is music that might be composed by anyone with something to say, a story to tell, an emotion to express. These are songs anyone who can carry a tune can learn to sing, with or without accompaniment. They can be sung plain and simple, or decorated to the extent of the singer's ability and creativity.

Like Don Firth says, this music has roots: the brand-newest, just written yesterday folk song rests on the knowledge of how and why such songs have been written before. There is a continuity of human behaviour, human emotion, human events, recorded in folk songs, from the four hundred year old ballad to the newest crafted story-song.

Besides that, most of it sounds pretty good as well. ;-)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 04:34 PM

Very much the hipsters of the late 1950's/1960's.

All that thing that seemed to happen in New York around that time. It just seemed unbelievably hip and chic to a kid hearing and reading about it in rural Lincolnshire.

Peter Paul and mary - there was no one who looked and dressed like that in my world. No one who sounded like Bob Dylan. It seemed a better fashioned response to a world that might conflagrate in nuclear destruction any minute.

And at this stage - a big atraction was that they were young - not much older tan myself but making a better fist of life.

later on my family moved to devon and I saw lots of other folk artists - Brits for the main part. i always liked folk music - contemporary or trad.

But the first artist that inspired me to think - maybe I could do something like that, was Derek Brimstone. He's still my main man as far as folk music is concerned. he may do traditional, or blues or hillbilly, or even pop and contemporary songwriters - but he always related it to THIS LIFE that we are all leading. The songs were never museum pieces and ancient artefacts in his skillful hands.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 06:51 PM

Excellent thread.

As a kid reading The Opies Lore & Language of School Children started me off, then as a teenager obsessively twiddling the wireless knobs to get bits of mostly American folk, Then discovering The Watersons who ran my local club. That blew my mind and got me hooked for life!
Then my own family songs, and going out to do field recordings and finding unrecorded material. Becoming part of this amazing community. Discovering the Child ballads, the dancing, the drama, playing squeeze boxes..........Meeting hundreds of wonderful, like-minded people.

And now retired taking the music into schools and the wider community.
Helping to set up websites. Writing books.........

What a life!
Steve

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:07 PM

Just wanted to thank you folks for all your very positive,heart felt and personal contributions.

When starting this thread I expected to receive some of the usual negative carping from certain individuals who seem to flit from thread to thread to disrupt civilised concourse with their venom and poison. But non of that! Praise be.

That is reason enough to celebrate and goes a long way to restore my faith in human nature.

You contributions have been excellent and paint a very personal and colourful view of why you celebrate the many facets of 'Folk' and why we very rightly love it so much.

There is so much to celebrate about 'folk' so keep the good vibes flowing.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:28 PM

The 'folk' world was something else. I recall Mike Porco giving me a suede jacket because I had no jacket to wear and it was gettin' to be winter. He also hired me at $50/week to be the MC at Gerde's Folk City--can't recall the year, but I do recall that $50 was a fair amount of money back then. I was mediocre as a stage performer, but thanks to that experience I was able to meet many great folkies, and they were always willing to show me stuff on guitar or talk about performance and stage 'presence'. And Joe Marra of the Night Owl Cafe let me wash pots and pans about twice a week for $10 and all the tuna fish sandwiches I could eat. They were wonderful people. It was in the Night Owl that I saw the biggest freakin' cockroach in the entire City of New York. NO exaggerration/egzageration/exageration bull, it was at least three inches long. I was gonna swat it, but I figured that any creature that was able to live as long as it obviously had didn't need some snot-nosed kid ending its life. I later mentioned to Joe that the cockroach was there and he said he knew.

And some wonderful folks who never did let the lights and audiences' praise get to them. People like Jesse Colin Young--as nice and unassuming a person as y'ad ever want to meet. And a GREAT musician. Pat Sky who may be one of the funniest people anyone ever ever met--but also a person who taught me what songwriting really is. He was magic to see on stage and quite humble about being one of the best songwriters to come down the pike.

I think y'all are aware that Mark Ross frequents this forum. He is another songwriter who paid his dues and held his ground. The way he is today in terms of beliefs about the dignity of all people and the dignity of all labour--he was like that when he was just a kid in that folk scene. A man of true convictions and openness grew out of a kid with true convictions and openness.

As for Ron Bankley: I can't say enough about what a wonderful guy he is. As a musician? Plain and simple: WOW. Actually brings a few tears to my eyes when I consider that I have a friend like him.

Anyway, Soldier Boy, you have a great thread here. And thank you for your kind words.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:41 PM

I just keep how incrdibly lucky your students have been to have met such an interesting guy, Bruce. You must have brought SO much to the table when you became a teacher.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 07:45 PM

Leaving that part of my life in 12 days. But thank you for your kind words, Al. (FYI, you and George and Alan and Brendan were coming up in my next post. Gotta get for now. Dang, there are SO many people I have good things to say about that I expect I'll do fifty more posts and not run out of good people from the 'folk' scene.)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Polite Guest
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 03:55 AM

Folk music is honesty. It is the hand of good people from the past, reaching out to good people of the present, as they extend theirs out to the future. That is what all of you are doing. It's a relay, without a race, the baton being placed firmly in the hands of the next generation.

It is the music of human emotion. The music of 'us' as a species, the 'ingredients' of mankind. If we were invaded from outer space, it would be our folk music that would explain who we are, to those who wanted to discover.



Right now I'm listening to Bruce Murdoch on the 'Singer Songwriter Project' CD, along with Pat Sky, David Blue/Cohen and Richard Farina.

"...Leaving that part of my life in 12 days..."

In 12 days time, 'the world' gets you and your music back, and will be all the richer for it. Let's hope you now get time to write your autobiography sometime soon. Put me down for a copy, please, along with your new CD.

Welcome back, Bruce, and welcome home.

We've missed you.




Rompin' Rovin' Days - by Bruce Murdoch

Hey I've been a rambler all my rompin' rovin' days
A railway boy with nothin' for to do
My people waved farewell somewhere's down the road
For hobos, friend, are only passin' through

I've seen every city from San Marcos in the south
To the concrete fenced in walls of New York town
Everywhere I go my name nobody wants to know
And their talking seems to stop when I'm around

And all in my life I've been quickly cast aside
Though my handshake never meant less than your own
If there's any which way for to fully understand
Then tell me 'cos I'd surely like to know

For every mile I road a freight train, I walked a city block
Gazing through the windows at the goods I couldn't buy
But the thing that hurts me most is when I'm wanderin' alone
And no-one cares enough to ask me why

I've been a rambler all my rompin' rovin' days
A railway boy with nothin' for to do
My people waved farewell somewhere's down the road
For hobos, friend, are only passin' through

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 02:33 PM

Thank you for your kind words; however, this thread is not about me, nor do I wish it to be. (As a btw, that is one of two albums whereon I wish my songs would just disappear.)

One day I received a CD in the mail from a brilliant singer/songwriter who frequents this place. He has the rare ability to cut to the heart of matters and he did so BIG TIME on his CD entitled "Life's Eyes." Many moons ago when I was in the 'pits of despair' he sent e-mails and messages to me with his insights and his humour. He was kind enough to listen to a few songs I was considering for a CD and his encouragement was at once sincere and heart-lifting. To say I like the man would be a severe understatement. George Papavgeris is an individual I would really like to meet. Hope that happens someday. (BTW, George, I will get that review of "Life's Eyes" done this week. It's a beautiful work of art all the way from the songs and the delivery to the 'liner notes' and the art work.) George's site.

Another person who means a great deal to me as a person, friend and musician is Big Al Whittle--known on Mudcat as Wee Little Drummer. He exemplifies a kind of courage there seems not to be enough of in this world. In many correspondences back and forth I have come to see a great sense of humour in him, a sharp mind and an ability to write that makes me feel like a 'novice in a nunnery'. To this day I don't know how he got so 'involved' in characters from the American west--frontier days--but he did and his songs as a result are excellent, both as songs and as insights into the history of the times. Al, I can never thank you sufficiently for your encouragement to me during some really hard times. I know this post will get you all embarrassed, so allow me to say this: Suck it up, Buttercup! (That was me being sensitive and tender.) Al's Site.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Mark Ross
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 03:44 PM

Thanks, Bruce for the kind words. You were a great inspiration to me 40 years ago. Unfortunately, I kept trying to hit the high notes the way you could, and those notes were, for a second baritone, were damn near impossible!

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,wld
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 07:37 PM

You know Bruce - unlike you I was a rotten teacher- really crap.

Unlike ou I hadn't a lot of life experiences when I started. After about two years got my first graded post in another school - teaching reading in a secondary school in the inner ring of Birmingham. It was a very disadvantaged school with over a third of the 11 year olds having a reading age of seven years and less.

I thought I had the secret of teaching reading. And for the first three months I went home and worked every evening from six til eleven - maikng worksheets to go with these Australian reading books.
there were no computers in those days - so at half term I borrowed a large print typewriter. Working the whole seven days of my half term, 12 hours a day, I managed to type out these worksheets - 12 a day.

And then I presented my magnum opus to the children. And they hated it. They voted with their feet and stopped coming to school in many cases - it was so boring!

Finally someone on the staff was selected to speak to me. And say, Alan - if the kids have pissed off - there's no education going on!

And of course it broke my heart. however it was a good experience and taught me stuff about myself, although I'm not sure I ever picked myself up as a teacher.

Above all years later, it taught me to recognise something about folk music. When I saw all the empty clubs in the 1970's - I realised I was the lucky one. Because someone had spoke to me. So many of the folksingers nowadays - don't get it. Nobody has ever said to them, when the folk have pissed off - there's no folkmusic going on.

love

al

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jun 08 - 07:47 PM

I had good years teaching and rotten years. Highs and lows. So please don't be putting yourself down. I have seen and been both sides of the good teacher/bad teacher equation. It's never as cut and dried as we or anyone else makes it out to be. I am very happy to be leaving the profession. It's time. I will welcome a job that involves no days that are 12-14 hours, no weekends, no 'extra-curricular' stuff. I will not miss the summer break because all it ever meant was a recoup time to rebuild the energy to do it all again for another year. The only thing I will miss is the students. But they will have other teachers and go on to have good lives, and after all is said and done, that's what we want for them.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 15 Jun 08 - 08:19 PM

Apart from people who infect threads with their negativity and caustic comments the second worse type are those that apparently come on to a thread in all sweet innocence and then proceed to take it over. Namely 'Peace' and his 'fan' club.
I am sorry to say this but it is usually our friends from across the pond in the great US of A who for some apparently god-given reason, think that the universe revolves around them and them only. Sorry to sound bitter folks but I have seen it time after time on Mudcat threads. So instead of 'Celebrate Folk' let's 'Celebrate Peace' and make the world a better place!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 08 - 08:29 PM

Sorry you feel that way. It is not something I wanted to have happen. I am off this thread. And Soldier Boy, kindly go get fucked.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Jun 08 - 10:13 PM

I picked up a 'free' magazine today in a bookshop that refused to stock my album cos I wasn't on one of your tossy little labels - full of you boring tosssers. The english folk revival and their totally boring spawn. I'm sorry if you resent the fact that cyberspace is not another area where you reign supreme.

we agree you own the british media, bbc2 specials, every folk magazine and radio station, folk festival in england.

Maybe its you who has got the attitude problem.

Bruce Murdoch's achievements speak for themselves.

None of you gits could write a memorable song like he has, as long as you had a hole in your arse.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Jun 08 - 10:51 PM

Soldier boy, you had a great thread going. I found the comments & memories that posters shared both interesting and informative. But where in the world did your 15 Jun 08 - 08:19 PM post come from??
Imo, that comment was unexpected, uncalled for, and totally unwarrented.

I don't belong to any fan club. But I know great songs when I hear them, and I've heard a lot of great songs from Bruce Murdoch/Peace. Hopefully, I'll hear many more great songs that Bruce has written or will write and sing and play. And hopefully, I'll hear many other great songs that are written, sung, and played by other people who post on Mudcat regardless of which side of the pond they live.

Hopefully, this thread isn't ruined. But I fear it is, because of no one else but you, Soldier Boy.

What a shame!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Polite Guest
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 03:11 AM

From soldierboy:

"When starting this thread I expected to receive some of the usual negative carping from certain individuals who seem to flit from thread to thread to disrupt civilised concourse with their venom and poison. But non of that! Praise be."

What a great shame you didn't read your own words, before you posted one of the most venomous, poisonous and uncivilised posts I have yet seen on Mudcat.

I agree with everything Al has posted above. To me, there is something 'rotten' within the English folk world, it runs through the very heart of it, leaving a trail of poison and vindictiveness. This is aimed particularly at people who appear to be well liked and respected by others, but who 'outside' the magic circle. It is what keeps the English folk world where it is. It is what causes many in here, who are not from England, to stare open mouthed in horror, at comments such as those above, in 'soldierboys' last post.
Praise be, we have the US and Canadian posters in here who so often make reading about the folk world much more uplifting, with their open-minded attitudes and friendly comments. My apologies to Peace for daring to mention his name on such a narrow-minded thread. I had no idea it had been started by someone with such an outlook.

From 'soldierboy'

"Sorry to sound bitter.."

You sound, and I would say, *are* incredibly bitter. May you find a way to rid yourself of such feelings. An excellent way to start, perhaps, would be by apologising for that highly unpleasant message above, but that is entirely up to you, for I realise that would take guts.

Thanks to Al, Bruce, Don and all the others though, for their interesting and informative comments. It is those comments that the celebration of folk is really about, comments which talk of support, great memories, humour, empathy and friendship.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 04:12 AM

When I read the 'Cat last night
As drunk as I could be
I thought I saw a peaceful thread
Where flaming ought to be
Come here, my wife
My pretty wife
Explain this thing to me
What are those rude and angry words
Where sweet words ought to be?

You silly fool, you drunken fool
Can't you plainly see?
It's nothing but a load of tripe
My mother sent to me
I've been around this website
A thousand times or more
But rage because it gets too nice
I never saw before

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 04:40 AM

Ah, bollocks to that. Let's not keelhaul Soldier Boy for a momentary - and uncharacteristic - lapse. It's not like the rest of us are angels anyway. Swallow hard and move on.

My guess is that few owe to folk as much as I do. Not only did I meet her at my first folk club, but falling in love with the songs helped my English tremendously (I was 20 and had only learned English 1 year before that). And even more, by being interested in the stories and events the songs mentioned, I started to get into the culture behind them, becoming "anglisized" I suppose.

A while later, I got my first and second jobs partly because of my (by then) good knowledge of English. And I got some of the best breaks at work for the same reason.

But even more important: through the years of growing up and growing older, folk music has been there in many guises, to cheer me up or help celebrate, to keep my feet on the ground when worldly success threatened, to help me express feelings through the songs of others. And when I came to my own "crunch" at 48, once more it gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself and gave me a new lease of life.

So I will always be grateful to James, Paul & Simon, Martin, June, Eric, Maddy, Dave-Ron-Ken, Jeremy, Johnny, heck I could be listing names till the cows come home. You can fill the surnames in, you know who they are.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 04:41 AM

Sugarlumps - Bonnie, the opening expletive is general, NOT aimed at your post!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 04:56 AM

I've always been attracted to folk music to listen to but what makes it special to me is the participation side and that within that side, it can cater for all abilities (although not necessarily in every event).

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Polite Guest
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 05:12 AM

Good words, Bonnie.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: TheSnail
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 05:40 AM

Perhaps Soldier boy could have expressed himeself a little more temperately but his frustration that his Celebrate 'Folk' thread had been turned into a mutual admiration society and a first draft for Bruce Murdoch's autobiography is understandable.

It's sad how quickly the masks came off and a few people who clearly don't share the same warm and friendly folk scene that I know took the opportunity give vent to their twisted views.

Hang in there, Soldier boy; there is a lot to celebrate in folk.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Polite Guest
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 06:25 AM

From The Snail:

"Perhaps Soldier boy could have expressed himeself a little more temperately but his frustration that his Celebrate 'Folk' thread had been turned into a mutual admiration society and a first draft for Bruce Murdoch's autobiography is understandable..."

Sorry, I disagree, with all due respect.

It would have been better if 'soldierboy' had said nothing at all, and sat back to read a few, but interesting messages, between two posters who obviously have a great deal of respect for one another, both as musicians and as people, whilst hearing of another musician, George, that is. THAT is what the folk world is about. The thread was *not* going off-course, in fact it was demonstrating exactly why the good part of the folk world IS what it is.

But then, in my opinion, down came the bad side, and a highly unnecessary, unpleasant comment was put down, to be followed by yet another from 'The Snail'

I need to make this clear, for him/her and for anyone else who is now using this thread for their personal likes/dislikes.

As far as any mention of any autobiography goes, that was my idea entirely. So, let me expand it. There are *many* people in here whose life stories I would love to read about, Bruce is simply one of them, George is another. I've read many 'snippets' of George's life, but would love to read the whole story. I always make a point of reading their posts, for they are not only excellent songwriters, but excellent writers. There are many other people in here who are also capable of writing their memoirs, and they too should seriously think about doing it, before these memories of the folk world are lost forever. It's important to keep memories alive, not only in song.

I sincerely hope that George will not have to now endure the same virulent criticism that Bruce has had thrown at him, purely because I have dared to put my opinion down. If he does, then I apologise to George, unreservedly, for what may lie ahead, as I also apologise to Bruce, for daring to put down my thoughts, which seem to have irrationally incensed some people.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: TheSnail
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 06:58 AM

This thread started off about Celebration, not Celebrity.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Polite Guest
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 07:19 AM

This thread was the perfect illustration of what to celebrate in folk; happiness, warmth, support and friendship. People who have been in the folk world for decades, talking to one another, openly, honestly and warmly.

It can still be about that, unless you are determined to make it otherwise, Snail?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: bankley
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 02:17 PM

well, Woodstock turned into Altamount fairly fast...

I came to the 'Cafe' less than a year ago, looking for someone I hadn't heard about in many years... was glad that we reconnected and were able to expand on it. Also 'met' some other interesting people who I probably wouldn't have heard of otherwise. There's a lot of talent floating around. There's also a minefield full of opinions. As Dirty Harry Callahan once said "Opinions are like assholes....everybody has one"..... it all comes down to the music.. the back stories are a bonus.. and when we get to hear them, well, I count my blessings...
so, anybody wanna jam ?????    let's see what you got !

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 04:34 PM

When it comes to celebrating folk music, I want to give props to two great ladies:

Odetta


and

Ella Jenkins

**

Here's an excerpt from Odetta's Wikipedia page:
"Odetta (born December 31, 1930) is an African-American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement." Her musical repertoire consists largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and '60s, she was a formative influence on dozens of artists, inlcuding Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Janis Joplin."

-snip-

Here are some excerpts from Ella Jenkin's Wikipedia pageL
"Ella Jenkins (born August 6, 1924) is an American folk singer. Dubbed "The First Lady of the Children's Folk Song" by the Wisconsin State Journal, Jenkins has been a leading performer of children's music for fifty years"...

As a recording artist, Jenkins has gained extensive recognition. Her recordings have received Parents' Choice awards and GRAMMY nominations in the category of Best Musical Album for Children. In 2004, she was recognized with a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award...

Through her songs, she hopes to develop greater intercultural understanding and rhythmic-consciousness, and to help people discover the joy of singing and communicating through active participation in songs.

Her repertoire includes nursery rhymes, holiday songs, bilingual songs, African-American folk songs, international songs, rhythmic chants, and original songs. Drawing from cultures all over the world, Jenkins sings in many languages, exposing her audiences to diverse cultures and promoting greater cultural awareness".

-snip-

I've not had the good fortune and pleasure of ever meeting or seeing either of these artists perform. But these two women "introduced me" to folk music, I'm fortunate to know them through their music, and I'm thankful that they have done so much to keep these genres of folk music alive.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 04:58 PM

I also want to recognize and praise another beautiful woman-Miriam Makeba

I was introduced to African music as a result of listening to Miriam Makeba's records. I almost saw Miriam Makeba perform live waay back in 1967 or 1968. I attended college near New York City, and was lucky to be adopted into the family of another female student in that school who was from Brooklyn. I went with that student and her mother to a nightclub to hear Miriam Makeba sing. This was the very first time I had ever been in a nightclub {I remember ordering a mixed drink and I recall worrying that it might be against my religion to drink it}. Unfortunately, Miriam Makeba didn't perform that evening because she was ill. Makeba's "stand in" was her then husband Hugh Masekela
perform. And what a wonderful experience that was!

**

Here's some information about Miriam Makeba:
Makeba, Miriam (1932- ), South African jazz and folk singer, born Zensile Makeba, the first black South African musician to gain international fame.

"Born into a Xhosa family in Prospect township, Johannesburg, Makeba sang in her school choir at the Methodist-sponsored Kilmerton Training School in Pretoria. She toured with the Black Manhattan Brothers (1954-1957), and appeared in Lionel Rogosin's anti-apartheid film documentary Come Back Africa (1958). The jazz musical King Kong (1959), which traced the career of a black boxing champion who is not allowed to fight white opponents, took Makeba to London and New York (where she lived in exile after 1960). With the help of Harry Belafonte, Makeba began to sing solo concerts, blending traditional folk songs (the best known being "Qogothwane", or "The Click Song", which draws heavily on the percussive sounds of the Xhosa language) and jazzy pop. She sang at President Kennedy's Madison Square Garden birthday celebrations and testified against apartheid at the United Nations General Assembly of 1964. Makeba married and separated from the trumpeter Hugh Masekela in the 1960s; she was forced out of the United States and Europe when she married the radical black leader Stokeley Carmichael, moving to Guinea with him in 1969. In 1982, Makeba and Masekela appeared in a reunion concert in Botswana, and five years later she rejoined Masekela for Paul Simon's Graceland tour. Finally, after more than 30 years in exile, Makeba returned to South Africa in the 1990s. Her last worldwide tour before her retirement was announced in 2005"...

-snip-

Is this folk music? You better believe it is!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 05:39 PM

Azisi,

It is my good fortune to have known Odetta and Ella as good friends for many years.
I had the pleasure of chatting with Miriam MaKeba when she played in Chicago prior to
her marriage to Stokeley Carmicheal.

Odetta and Ella embody the tradition of folk music as does Pete Seeger. They have always been concerned with communication, not just for ego or money but to reach people in
a meaningful and heartfelt way. MaKeba when I met her was a highly socially aware
person, intelligent and insightful about social conditions in America and her own country.

These women are the real folksingers in that they represent the positive social values
of our country on many levels. I am a firm advocate that a folk singer must have a
sense of societal awareness in order to reach audiences in a unique way. Folk singers
are journalists that tell the story of history's aspirations. I am of the opinion that
folk music may not ignore the plight of the working-class, dispossessed and underprivileged in our country. When it becomes an image-selling performance, it lies
to the audience. Ultimately, the audience will reject this specious approach.

It has been my proud privilege to have been inspired by knowing these women,
Odetta and Ella as good friends, and Miriam in a meeting at the Gate of Horn in Chicago.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 05:47 PM

Frank, I envy you!

And I agree 100% with your comments!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 05:57 PM

Azizi,

Don't envy me please. Remember, we are all important in this field because folk
music isn't just about the "star system". These ladies are brilliant but we can't
deify them to the exclusion of our own participation in this process.

You are just as important.

Frank

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 07:01 PM

I am tentatively, nervously and ashamedly poking my head over the parapet.

I am so sorry for my extremely negative and caustic last input on this thread.

I apologise unreservedly to all I have upset and especially to Peace(Bruce). All I can say as a very poor defence is that I was in a very pissed off mood for other reasons and very unfortunately vented my spleen here against Peace and his buddies who did not deserve it.

Yes I was frankly annoyed that the thread I had started appeared to have been taken over by a few people who appeared to have totally monopolised the thread , and because of this, felt it had totally lost its way. But I should not have taken my bad mood out on them.

I did a very stupid thing and infected my own thread with the sort of poisonous and hurtful comments that I usually detest from others.
I think it's called shooting oneself in ones foot!

I realise that I have deeply insulted and suprised our 'folk' bretheren across the pond and for this I am especially ashamed. I am not anti American/Canadien. I really am not,but realise that I will find it very hard to convince you of that now.

Thank you George Papavgeris and The Snail for coming to my defence. I don't dererve it but I really appreciate your comments.

Polite Guest, thankyou also for your comments and hopefully I have gone some way to show that I have the guts (and the balls) to apologise.

Thank you also to Bonnie Shaljean for your brilliant ditty and interpretation of the 'I'm drunk' song. This went a long way to diffuse the situation and show me the error of my ways.

When I started this thread the last thing I wanted to do was to ruin it. But sometimes a dark demon doth consume fair reason and lead the innocent tongue to spit its bile and venom when so unwarrented and so marr and spoil its best intent. Alak and woe such malcontent and if it pleaseth you forgive such erring of my ways.

I am now going to make myself less obvious and distinct and hope that you can help to heal the rift that I have caused and that you will find a way to continue to post to this thread to Celebrate 'Folk'.

Thank you.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Tangledwood
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 07:22 PM

"hopefully I have gone some way to show that I have the guts (and the balls) to apologise"

I believe that you have. Well done!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 07:36 PM

Guts, elan and verve. Thank you Soldier Boy. I apologize for my remarks to you and really do hope we can move on from here. It ain't often I take back a perfectly good expletive, but I do now. Thank you, both for the post and the message.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 07:47 PM

> I am now going to make myself less obvious and distinct

No, don't do that at all - stay around

> and hope that you can help to heal the rift

You already have done that

<({[ ]})>   The hieroglyphic is meant to be a group hug, but unfortunately it looks more like a concertina on acid

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 07:52 PM

Second what Bonnie said. And never having taken acid I will just be guessing that <({[ ]})> is a representation of the space craft that took me on a flight back in 1966. How you knew that is beyond me. Gotta go. Thanks again, Soldier Boy. Yer a good man. Night all.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 07:56 PM

Wow. Thanks Peace. We can only go forward now all that shit is behind us. Sorry again. Very bad off moment. The demons have left me and I'm now feeling a warm glow thanks to you. Let's Celebrate Folk. It deserves it.
It's beautiful.
It's really beautiful.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 08:16 PM

Thanks Bonnie Shaljean. I will stay around if others don't object.
So let's see what happens.
We do all get possessed by demons some time.In my case not too often at all but when I do I really do. Does that make sense?
Please help me to bring back the comraderie and feel-good factor to this thread in the desperate hope that I have not killed it.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: bobad
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 09:26 PM

Soldier boy, please fill out the FORM

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 09:27 PM

There's always one . . . .

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 17 Jun 08 - 05:24 AM

I meant that the CONCERTINA was on acid! (Sort of like "...the piano's been drinkin'...")

As for why I love folk, it started out being - quite simply - the music itself. From as far back as I can remember I was always just drawn to it, to the sound of it and to the meanings in the songs - which awakened me to a world beyond the tightly constrained modern-suburban one I had to live in (and as a child feared I would never escape from). Because this music was not mainstream-commercial, it meant I had to seek it out and look beyond the ubiquitous, inescapable Top 40; and having to find a different path and make the effort to follow it through its twists and turns was in itself enriching, and made me grow in ways I would not otherwise have. Even when I was a teenager, and you had to like rock 'n' roll or die (and wear certain things or ditto, and hang out in certain places or ditto), pop music just didn't speak to me. Folk did, and classical did - and does, to this day. I hate to tell you exactly how popular a popular song has to be before I've even heard it.

Later, when I got out into the world and had some freedom and more choices, the reason also expanded to the people itself - warm, sensitive, interesting, fun: they make the best friends in the world, and stay with you for life. You always have an open channel of communication that doesn't wither with time.

I don't usually do this, but I'm going to quote from a post I wrote some time ago in another thread, because it helps express what I mean. The topic concerned folk artists in the 50s and 60s, and various names had cropped up:

I liked (still like) Richard Dyer-Bennet too, and learned a lot from following his songs and their origins. In high school that sort of thing was definitely infra-dig, but then so was I. It was great to have a whole secret-world alternative to the law of the teen jungle, which is what my music and books were to me. So I'll always be grateful to the old folk "troubadours".

Elsewhere, "Murrbob" (as a Guest) wrote: Now, I can stand before my college biology class and talk about Woody and Huntington Disease. Then, when at best, only two student out of 60 say they have ever heard of him, I can run to my office, bring back my guitar and do a couple of Woody (or Pete, or Bobby Burns) for the group. No one should graduate from college without knowing something about folk music!

[Me again] Amen. That's the sort of thing that brings learning to life, and - to use my favourite new word, bequeathed to the world by The Simpsons - embiggens us.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Polite Guest
Date: 17 Jun 08 - 05:34 AM

"Polite Guest, thankyou also for your comments and hopefully I have gone some way to show that I have the guts (and the balls) to apologise."

Come over here, and have a big hug and a kiss! ((xx))

That has to be the most wonderful apology I have ever seen, and I think you've gained far more friends from it than you have lost. In fact, I'd say you've reclaimed *every* friend, and not lost one. Well done you! xx

There is always a silver lining and I think this has displayed, perhaps more than anything, why the folk world should be celebrated, because it's a world that cares, which contains many people of humility and honour, who have guts and courage.

You have my utmost respect, Soldier Boy.

Take care...xx

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 17 Jun 08 - 07:03 AM

At the risk of being over-analytical, let me add these thoughts to the mix:

1. Because I don't know him, Soldier boy's apology was as unexpected as his statement that was made earlier. Since he apologized to all he upset, and since I was one of the people who was upset, let me say that I also accept his apology. That said, I believe that sometimes the shorter the apology the better. It seems to me that apologies often get muddy when people making them attempt to explain what caused them to say and do whatever necessitated the apology in the first place. 'Nuff said about that.

2. I like to suggest that Bobad's link to a photograph of an apology form may have been a joking attempt to lighten the vibes of this thread, instead of a rejection of Soldier boy's apology. Anyway, that's the way that I interpeted Bobad's post.

3. I'd also like to suggest that the permutations of this thread itself, including its sub-plots and the sidebar conversations, are part of what makes it interesting. In that sense, this thread is like folk songs whose words aren't fixed, but are subject to change because of mishearings, misreadings, misremembering, misinterpretations, or because of purposeful acts of creativity.

And the good thing is that this thread just keeps rollin along.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 17 Jun 08 - 07:17 PM

Polite Guest, you are indeed polite and you have a lovely view on life. Thank you so much for your tender comments. The folk world is indeed a world that cares,and as many of you have shown,has a BIG heart and really should be CELEBRATED.

Like you Azizi I took Bobad's posting with the "Formal Apology" form as a well intentioned attempt to lighten some of the stresses and strains that had hit this site (my fault!) and it tickled me pink. I thought it was great.

And to pick up on some of the other comments posted on this thread I am totally "enbiggened" by your more than generous forgiveness and support and truly trust that this thread will keep "rolling along" to Celebrate 'Folk' and what it is that we all love about it.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 08:03 AM

What I love is (OK, trite comment, but true) is that there are no strangers in Folkdom, only friends I haven't yet met. There are 'Catters whom probably I will never meet, but whom I count among my dear friends (you know who you are, so I'll not embarass you).

I was playing in a third division rock group (that dates me, don't it ?). We did some P P & M numbers on stage, and some of them went down. I was getting more and more interested. Then, October 9th, 1966, at the Navigation, Stockport, I saw Martin Carthy in concert. This was MY "Sam Larner" moment. I sold my bass guitar, bought a nylon-strung guitar, and have loved and played Folk Music since.

It's probably superfluous for me to say that folkies are the truest, most decent people I have ever met - they will go out of their way to do a favour, and move heaven and hell so as not to do a disfavour.

Love to you all.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 10:19 AM

"Yes I was frankly annoyed that the thread I had started appeared to have been taken over by a few people who appeared to have totally monopolised the thread , and because of this, felt it had totally lost its way. But I should not have taken my bad mood out on them."

I think it might have been Mark Twain who said something to the effect that - as a human being, I reserve the right to change my mind.

One of the beautiful aspects, and at the same time one of the detriments, of Mudcat is the fact that we have have a couple of diverse "folk" communities here - U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, and a number of representatives from other countries.

The information I pick up on Mudcat each day would have taken years of research and extensive traveling in earlier years - and I don't think the results would have been as rewarding.   Living in the NYC area, it is wonderful to read comments from people like Mark and Bruce about the folkrevival era in the Village.   To discover similar stories about the scene that was taking place in the UK - then and now - is also thrilling to me.

Yet, I do feel jealous at times. I've noticed posts from the other side of the pond about announcements that so-and-so will be appearing at some local pub in a town that sounds like a fictional name from a Harry Potter book, and then see 239 posts from people who will be attending or heaping praise on the artist that was mentioned.   I see similar announcements about events here in the U.S. and see the post quickly drop off the list without a single response.   I read long threads where our friends in the UK wax poetically about some ancient ballad, and see very few threads that celebrate similar traditions in the U.S.

Sounds like SoldierBoy had a bad day with the now regretted post, but I completely understand the frustration that led to it - and I am so glad that he saw that those feelings were baseless and he came to his senses.

Aziz made a great point - you cannot control all the sidebar topics and conversations.   I've learned that myself. Like any "normal" conversation - the topic will drift where it wants to go. Like a folk song, threads have no "authors" - someone starts with an idea and it evolves as the discussion moves on.

To get back on the original topic, I've been reading a biography of Bascom Lamar Lunsford. The author made some interesting points in the introduction.   Folk music , like politics, has a right and a left - liberal and conservatives.    The conservative side often tries to preserve traditions that represent a slice of society that never truly existed. The liberal side often tries to create change which may not be wanted, or necessary. It is often the middle ground.   Aside from his faults, Lunsford - and others, tried to create a forum where we can all be proud of our traditions and understand that they are part of us. Where it goes from there will be determined by numerous forces of nature, but we have a building block to grow on.   I think Mudcat creates the same.   This is something to celebrate in our contemporary folk community.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 10:39 AM

Ron, you said "One of the beautiful aspects, and at the same time one of the detriments, of Mudcat is the fact that we have have a couple of diverse "folk" communities here..".

No detriment at all, I think. The occasional misunderstandings are definitely worth it, because in this way we all get to hear about good performers or (even better) good songs making waves somewhere else, and the knowledge and the enjoyment slowly spreads. Not to mention learning tricks of the trade from each other, like the house concert concept which has been going in the US and Canada for years, and now is gingerly and carefully taking hold over in the UK as well.

And now and then we meet, too. How else would I have heard Alaska Mike and his songs, Big Mick's lusty voice and passion and that little Apallachian magician the LaPrelle lass?

Vive la difference, I say.

"Larner moment": Hearing the Songwainers one wet and cold October Sunday in a pub in Kettering, Midlands (UK), 1974 it was, I believe.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 10:45 AM

George, I'd like to add that I've discovered your music here on Mudcat! I also recall that this is the first place I heard Harvey Andrews name mentioned. There are some incredible songwriters and singers on both sides that should be "shared".

When I used the word "detriment", my concern is that hard feelings and misconceptions can grow out of the misunderstandings. Some folks only seem to come here for an arguement, but they usually limit their travels on Mudcat to the basement of below the line topics.    For every jerk who comes here just to stir up the muck, there are many more wonderful people who share their experiences and knowledge with those of us who come here to learn.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 10:47 AM

' "Larner moment": Hearing the Songwainers one wet and cold October Sunday in a pub in Kettering, Midlands (UK), 1974 it was, I believe. '

That's a great term for it, George. I'm not sure if I was ever really lucky enough to have a live "Larner Moment", but it's really interesting to hear that yours was the Songwainers. I still don't really get them, despite several tries! Those bendy harmonies work for some people, but I just can't get on with them.

Having said that, I could listen to Peter Bellamy all day, and he's like nails on a chalkboard for some...

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 10:56 AM

Horses for courses eh ;)

Hey George :D Sorry I haven't been down the club much... Lil River has been taking all my time :s don't worry I'll get him up and singing before too long.

I agree with you, I may only occasionally come on here but I learn so many things on here :D

Tunes, songs, sessions etc. Mudcat brings the folk community together which sometimes is explosive but mostly entertaining and educational :D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 11:16 AM

Thanks Ruth, but I borrowed the term from Bryn Pugh's post, cannot claim the kudos. As for the bendy harmonies, I go weak at the knees every time I hear a well-placed discord, and I have sung in a choir that used them quite a bit. As Houston says (the despicable apostate - getyerassdowntheclub! :-)), it is horses for courses of course!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 11:20 AM

Soldier Boy...

The folk scene for me... that is difficult to describe but I think I would have to say that it's my family...

Folk music, song and dance makes all my upset go away and I am just left feeling happy... I love walking away with an added bounce in my step when I hear my friends, family or complete strangers perform with passion and care for what they do.

There is more but I can describe it.

:D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 11:25 AM

I will soon... it's just the other ½ has taken Monday from me to do pilates the insensitive so and so ;)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,LeBron
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 12:51 PM

That's like Soulja Boy sayin' somethin' 'bout Jay-Z

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 12:56 PM

?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Peace
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 01:01 PM

Hey, Soldier Boy. Hope things are well.

Please keep in mind that Guests can use whatever 'nom de plume' they want, say what they want and never have to be held accountable for it. Best thing to do is skip those posts. As in don't bother reading them. It's too bad really, because many are erudite and worth the time. But I've found over the years that membership means you get held to a srricter accountability than Guests. Ain't it grand.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 01:07 PM

Nice one Peace. Thanks for the advice. I think a bit of 'selective reading/responding' is required.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 02:20 PM

Yes, select the spot then kick them in the kiddieberries for all you're worth :-)

No, not really, just feeling devilish today.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 03:48 PM

Soldier boy, Guest Lebron [18 Jun 08 - 12:51 PM] has a sense of humor and apparently keeps current with the goings on in some
hip hop circles.

If you wanna know more about this he-said-then-he-said- stuff, click on this link:

http://www.hiphop-elements.com/article/read/4/22981/1/
Jay-Z Joins LeBron/DeShawn Stevenson Feud
Source: xxlmag.com
Posted on: April 28, 2008 07:53 PDT

Here's an excerpt of that article:

"It's getting personal now. First Deshawn Stevenson of the Washington Wizards called LeBron James "overrated." Then 'Bron 'Bron responded by telling media his responding to Stevenson's comment would be like "Jay-Z responding to Soulja Boy." [meaning Jay-Z is too important to talk with a "one hit wonder" like Soulja Boy]
-snip-

And the drama goes on among hip hip artists and often on Mudcat too.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 03:53 PM

Well alright if you say so

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 03:54 PM

Let me rephrase that: The drama goes on among basketball players and hip hop artists, and often on Mudcat too.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 03:56 PM

And this what to do with celebrating folk, exactly?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 03:59 PM

Well, hip hop has folk roots

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:02 PM

whatever you say.....

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:10 PM

It's not what I say, you can look it up.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:11 PM

... and thanks for dropping by and sharing with us

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:17 PM

err...not my cup of tea, I'm afraid...thanks all the same

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:28 PM

hehehe... have you ever heard of "flight of the conchords"?

The mighty folk comedy duo New Zealand's 'Flight of the Conchords' performing "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros"

:) enjoy

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:42 PM

When you go to a buffet, you are not required to sample all the goodies.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:45 PM

When you go to a buffet, you are not required to sample all the goodies.

The same goes for Mudcat threads.

Thank goodness.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:47 PM

Or Mudcat folks for that matter.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:47 PM

How lost and profound

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:51 PM

If only you guys were in the 'more sessions rudeness' thread yesterday... oh saying that, you probably avoided it like clever people do ;) lol

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:56 PM

I hope you don't think that I was the one being rude. In response to Def Shepard's question about hip hop, I replied that there is a folk connection. Def apparently does not care for the style, and there is no requirement that he should need to. We all have opinions and they are to be respected.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:59 PM

Now, now, don't get you knickers in a knot, all i said was hip hop is not my cup of tea...oh, but wait this is Mudcat, I should have expected the brilliant come backs :-D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 05:01 PM

Def - I sincerely respect that hip hop is not your cup of tea. I'm not a fan either. All I was trying to do was answer your question about the connection.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 05:01 PM

He, now there's an assumption that went wildly off target ...try she..and I'm older than the first fog.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 05:02 PM

My apologies - it must be the lighting :)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 05:15 PM

Speaking of profound, if not lost, when I read the list of available above the line discussions this evening, I noticed that there's a lot of threads that have to do with bodies of water or sailing.

Here's a partial listing-with some judicious placement of titles:

Beware the Fylde Coast's Sands 4 July Fltwood FC

Origins: Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky

Mystic Seaport Sea Music Festival 2008

Sea songs for children

Folklore: Shanteying On Military Ships

Lyr/Chords Req: Drifting Too Far From Shore

Lyr Req: Dan Milner's Row Bullies Row

Lyr Add: Every Good Ship Has a Mainmast (chantey)

Tune Req: Take It Down From the Mast

Lyr Req: We're in the Same Boat, Brother

**

[Also, "We're in the Same Boat, Sister", though that's not the actual title of the song].

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Stringsinger
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 06:38 PM

Hip Hop carries interesting roots in the African-American community. It can be argued
that culturally there may be a connection to the role of the Griot of Africa, a journalist of sorts that carried the story of tribal lineage and reported on current events. That's folk enough for me.

I attribute the rise of Hip Hop to Fela "Anikapalu" Kouti who rapped about the political
conditions of the world. He was persona non grata in his country. His home was burned
and he was vilified for his political songs and raps. (A Victor Jara.)

I celebrate all kinds of folk music from everywhere and refuse to be drawn into a folksnob
discussion of what it is and isn't. Rap has been commercialized but so has country music
and "Mighty Wind" music as well. I celebrate the songs from the people who are under the radar and are known in their community but don't reach the media.

Stringsinger

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 06:53 PM

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko - PM
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:56 PM

I hope you don't think that I was the one being rude. In response to Def Shepard's question about hip hop, I replied that there is a folk connection. Def apparently does not care for the style, and there is no requirement that he should need to. We all have opinions and they are to be respected.

I dont think you were being rude at all... in fact there were a lot of people that I feel were being rude on the other thread and the post:-


Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko - PM
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 04:42 PM

When you go to a buffet, you are not required to sample all the goodies.


Was pure genius :D well it beats horses for courses... can I use that Ron?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 06:58 PM

Only if I can uses horses for courses. Of course, you will need to explain what that means!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 07:07 PM

It's racing term for horses prefer to race on certain racecourses :D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 07:22 PM

Stringsinger, I want to commend you on your well written post [18 Jun 08 - 06:38 PM], particularly your third paragraph. It will come as no suprise to you that I agree with everything you said. But you said it much better than I would have.

**

By the way, I wonder who GUEST,LeBron really is.

Whoever he {or she} is, mad props!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 07:22 PM

'horses for courses' is a saying http://www.google.com/

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 07:25 PM

Azizi - I'm starting to get to a point where I completely ignore posts from GUEST because it really could be anyone.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 07:40 PM

Houston_Diamond, I've read {what I consider to be} interesting,
profound comments from Mudcat guests, and {what I consider to be} not so interesting, off-the-deep-end comments from Mudcat members [and vice versa].

But if you wanna ignore posts from guests, that's your choice.

As we say where I come from, "Different strokes for different folks."

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 07:49 PM

Not to mention that everyone posting as a guests isn't always a guest.

Though that practice is very much discouraged except when it's not-sometimes a Mudcat member might temporarily adopt another name for a witty word plays like I think was the case with Guest LeBron, or when Mudcatters like Little Hawk have developed fictitious characters or when a member has a sensitive personal issue that he or she wants to raise...

Btw, Houston_Diamond, my assumption is that you're new around these parts-is that right>

If so, welcome! Share! Learn! Enjoy! And don't piss in the pool-and if you do, clean up after yourself.

Someone else made up that "Don't pip" saying up-I added that end part. I usually don't talk like that-since I'm such a good girl :o) But I think you get what I'm trying to say...

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 08:02 PM

i've followed and been on here on and off for 3 years so not that new and 25 years of playing with computers, networks and the such like kinda makes me an old hat at this.

I know what you are saying but in all fairness anyone can pose as someone else and it's really easy for anyone and I mean anyone to come on these forums and just be a nuisance as a GUEST can be anyone.

I have also been in the folk world since year dot and know a large quantity of people on here... I don't piss in pools cos I dont like it, I equally dislike other people pissing in the pool and causing others discomfort.

I get what you are saying but my sister came on yesterday and no-one knew it was her... she told me how she tried to resist shit stirring and when you see what happened you can see how easy it is to upset people.

I never use a pseudo name cos I am happy with who I am and am prepared to apologise... and anyway I like my name :D

I am learning all the time but I also teach...

I care about everyone here and if I ask people to take caution it's because I care... I know you are a nice girl and I want to keep it that way... do you get what I'm trying to say?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 08:47 PM

Houston_Diamond, my apologies for not recognizing your name since I arrived at Mudcat about the same time that you did.

I was being facetious when I said "I'm a good girl". I should have said I'm a good woman.

:o)

I don't understand or agree with all you said, but I'm alright with that. And that's as philosophical as I'm gonna get tonight.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 08:58 PM

Tush tush and good grief charlie Brown!
Lots of quick -fire and shooting off at the hip here.
Me thinks too much mental sparring and not enough heart searching about what 'Folk' really means to you.
You are not required to sample all the goodies at the buffet ( thanks Ron) and if you did you would probably be sick.
Horses for courses/ different strokes for different folks - it all means the same to me.
At the end of the day we are all different with hugely different tastes and the 'roots of 'folk' are so diverse that you will never get a consensus of opinion. Never.
So let's just agree to disagree.
And does it really matter if people posting here are Guests or Members? Surely not. We are all equal aren't we? And we enjoy(Thank God) the freedom of speech. This is not some kind of elite private members club.
Nuff said.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Neil D
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 11:27 PM

Thanks for the link to Flight of the Conchords Houston Diamond. Those guys are great, "The Top Folk Parodists in all of New Zealand". "Jenny" and "Issues" are also gems.
   Now here is some real Folk/Rap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIvFg5fXUM

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 06:12 AM

lol... Cheers Soldier Boy :D

I think folk is the most diverse genre on the planet and crosses over to so many genres. In fact almost every genre on the planet has roots to folk music.

I really think that reggae songs have a very close relation with traditional folk songs such as Peter Tosh performing 'Stop the Train' and Marley, Tosh and Wailer performing 'Keep on Moving'.

But that's just my opinion :)

Thanks for that Neil... that's quality, Peter Gabriel loves folk - he sings on the 'Rise Above' and 'When I'm Falling' tracks with Afrocelts doesn't he?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 06:19 AM

Neil... that has Eliza Carthy singing on that track eh?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 06:29 AM

My first experience of Flight of the Conchords was a CD about their tour of England, heard it for the first time last weekend. It is pure gold!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 08:32 AM

Neil D, thanks for posting that YouTube video link. I found it both aurally and visually powerful.

Here's the summary that was posted by the video's featured poet
BenjaminZephaniah:

"A re-telling of the traditional folk tale Tam Lyn. Part of a project with Peter Gabriel called The Imagined Village."

-snip-

I'm not sure if Houston_Diamond was stating a fact or a question-is that Eliza Carthy singing on that video?

**

Btw, that BenjaminZephaniah video reminded me of will. i. am's Yes We Can video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yq0tMYPDJQ
and of Election08's video of Senator John McCain's words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs&feature=related john.he.is.

I think that it's great that contemporary folk artists
see value in both traditional and contemporary production techniques & material.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,dillie the oast ouse opper
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 08:43 AM

Folk to me, is everything, it's how my mum and step dad met when I was three. he moved in when i was 4, and has stuck about ever since (21 years in fact - and counting....)
My parents met through the morris side my dad had founded and my mum subsequently became a musician and dancer of...i've been dancing sine I was three. The thought of not having something so major like Folk and festivals (especially towersey)and the morris in my life and not having had it as a large part of my childhood/early adulthood doesn't bear thinking about.
there would have been no:
1) going on a bear hunt with geoff higgingbottom aged three
2) getting toffee apple and ice cream all over my morris kit (and quite a bit of beer since then!)
3) No meeting up with people at festivals year in, year out, having no clue of what they did for a living, where they lived, but knowing they sang that amazing song, or played the melodeon so well etc etc
4) no chez nous noodles. (and that would be bad)
5) no waking up in tents, cold, damp but totally happy that you had to now go and queue for the shower in a field full of sheep poo.
6) no amazing concerts (demon barbers at Towersey, Eliza, Bellowhead at Broadstairs
7) listening to Johnny Silvo records and dancing to morris on around the front room with my dad and brother
8) whiling away evenings in music sessions and dancing at beautiful locations around the country when my peers were on street corners drinking white lightning and getting ASBOs, or watching eastenders with a meal of turkey twizzlers in front of them.


I could go on and on and on, but I just wanted to say that in light of all the negativity around young people and folk and everything that has happened on this forum recently. Folk for me, is home. It is everything. And people young and old feel that way, and always will, it permeates lives, and as such will long remain a living tradition long after the Jay-Z's and Linkin Parks of this world are confined to pop history. Simple as that really.

Charlotte (Dillie) xxxx

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 09:20 AM

it was a question Azizi;

I went to http://imaginedvillage.com/ and it has Eliza as one of the artists and it sounds a lot like her :D

Nice one Dillie... dunno about Chez Nous food though... not my sort of thing but then I was brought up in the day that Johnnie Collins used to make the food and his Chilli con Carne was out of this world (Especially after the hurricane of Towersey in 85... think it was called Charley?!?)

:D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,dillie the oast ouse opper
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 09:23 AM

Ah yes...johnny collin's food was always top notch....my dad loves the chilli at the vegetarian tent too, he went there for tacos once with his best mate dave and my mum wouldnt let him sleep in the tent! ha ha!!
He was flammable!

I started going to Towersey in 86....and stanford in the vale (does anyone remember that festival? does it still run??)
I got stuck in a stile in a field there once trying to escape from the labrador that was bigger than I was....I was bout 6 i think!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 09:40 AM

I kinda thought the video was more like Radioheads - No Surprises @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqsyXdj_p_I

I recognise the name Stanford in the Vale but I was shipped to so many festivals when I was growing up... I remember one in the woods somewhere called Tanners Hatch festival... that was funny because me and a friend (can't remember who it was now) walked of, found a pub, had a load to drink, got lost on the way back and when we got back they'd sent a search party out for us... I think I was only around 12 lol

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,dillie the oast ouse opper
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 09:44 AM

I fell in the stream (if thats what you could call it) at the three horsehoes at towersey twice in the space of an hour aged about 7, and then my dad got really angry.

later that afternoon, after one (or should that be eight) too many, he himself fell in the ditch walking back to the campsite. My mum gave me permission to tell him off!!!

he he :0)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 09:49 AM

OMG... didn't realise Tanners Hatch was still was going :s

http://www.tannersmusic.co.uk/

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 09:53 AM

I was pushed in the stream at the 3 horseshoes when I was around 11 and cut my hand open (cos health and safety wasn't that bigger thing back in the day). This guy who drove this weird jeep drove me back to the campsite (there was only one back then) where the St. Johns sewed me up... I was back down the pub ½hour later.

I've seen a lot of folkies asleep in that ditch over the years lol ;)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 10:02 AM

Yes indeed HD that is Eliza's beautiful backing vocal on the Tam Lyn Retold track. It's her playing fiddle as well. And yes Peter Gabriel does do some songs with Afro Celt Sound System, whose Simon Emmerson was instrumental in getting The Imagined Village project together. "When You're Falling" is one of my favorite songs. I have an MP3 player loaded up with a lot of ACSS and Dohl Foundation (as well as Boozoo Chavis, Clifton Chenier, Buena Vista Social Club, new swing, etc.). All up tempo stuff for walking. When that song comes on I find myself getting odd looks from other towpath travellers because I'm belting out the chorus at the top of my lungs. That's the problem with ear buds, I can't hear how badly I sing. :^).
   I've been intrigued by ACSS for several years now. I read somewhere that nearly all American Musical forms originate out of a blending of West African rhythms and the melodies and narrative aspects of the music of Ireland, Scotland and England. Afro Celt and now The imagined Village seem like they are blending these same ingredients with entirely fresh and refreshing results.
   That is why I celebrate 'Folk'. It's roots go back to the beginning of humanity, to the lullabies Mothers soothed their babes to sleep with and the hunting songs of our ancestors. And yet it can be open as well to fresh new interpretations and multi-cultural influences. It tells the story of folk in a way that all the history books can never quite capture.
   Azizi, thanks for the You-Tube links. Of course I have seen "Yes We Can" video before but the other one was a new one on me.
                                              Neil

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 10:08 AM

Sorry, "When You're Falling" silly me... I have the DVD video of that track... pretty mental... the guy just keeps on falling non stop.

I love Afrocelts even the remix stuff absolute quality. Thanks for that Neil, am gonna have to get The Imagined Village album now :s (I'll have to wait till I have £10 :( )

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 10:12 AM

When You're Falling video on youtube

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 10:54 AM

When I first stumbled on The Imagined Village on You-tube while looking for Eliza Carthy videos I was stunned. I hope they do more stuff.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 11:21 AM

same here... they're quality :D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Colin Randall
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 11:26 AM

Overlooking the occasional spat, the core of this thread strikes a particular chord with me, since I have spent much of my career in newspapers trying to persuade editors to use reviews, previews and features about folk. (I have just succeeded in getting my new employers in Abu Dhabi to run a whole page on what is folk, and which performers I recommend, on the flimsy basis of a Paul Simon CD review.
Read it here if you're interested

But over the years, I have endured daughters on car journeys exclaiming: "Oh no, not dad's diddly-dee music again." Colleagues and friends have sneered at my tastes. Burglars have ignored my record collection. I also recognise that lots of people who like the music are quite happy for it to remain marginalised, as if too much popularity equals unwelcome impurity. I have certainly been guilty of such feelings myself, but 40 years after attending a folk club for the first time, there is no other music I'd rather listen to or write about.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 12:12 PM

Colin, you rascal, you had me giggling uncontrollably (and to my team, inexplicably) at work, with your "Burglars have ignored my record collection" line...

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 12:18 PM

Colin, massive thanks for that really great article. As it happens my daufghter and I performed Sound of Silence, last year, at a gig, just to do something different. After we'd finished the set, two young people came up to us and asked if Paul Simon was a new singer/composer? I mean what could I say? I simply directed them to their local record shop. :-D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 12:24 PM

Echo that - cracking article, Colin, and the personal honesty especially engaging.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 12:30 PM

I also recognise that lots of people who like the music are quite happy for it to remain marginalised, as if too much popularity equals unwelcome impurity.

Here we go again...

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 01:24 PM

Nothing to "here we go again" about, Colin R is simply making an observation, and very good one at that.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 01:58 PM

Colin R, great writing!

If you aren't able to repost the entire article, would you please excerpt some of it for the sake of future readers of this thread?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 02:07 PM

To go back about the hurricane at Towersey I remembered earlier... it was 1986 not 1985 and it was called hurricane Charley.

I was 13 and it was the oddest experience I can remember at a festival. All the tents except a few had been blown down and all the marquees had been blown down too, it was eerily quiet. My dad took us over to Johnny's unit where he was with his son with a huge pot of chilli, it tasted so nice :D

After that I think I could put up with any weather at festivals and I have got soaked at most of em lol.

Good songs, tunes, company and beer make up a part of the greatness of folk whether at a club or festival.

I have had years at Sidmouth and Towersey where the festival only took place on one site and even though it was a nice and pleasant environment plus the feeling of exclusivity I am happy to see it the festivals expand. There is so much talent to be had and folk is a huge genre with enough material to go round.

I agree with you in everything you said Colin, there are an awful lot of people that would be happy to keep it exclusive but I know that they don't mind it growing either. Keeping up a tradition is what makes folk so great because you can't recreate the feelings of live music no matter how great the sound system... it's the atmosphere that makes it great. :)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 02:13 PM

PS I love the article btw.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 02:13 PM

The word Colin used was marginalised not exclusive and there's a bloody big difference in the meaning of thos words.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 02:24 PM

Marginalize is to apply limits - exclusive is to make it limited not that much difference!!!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 02:29 PM

There's enough, Houston - exclusive means absolutely no trespassers. Anyway, Colins use of the word was spot on from his perspective, and the perspective of several others. No need to call him out for it, I think.

Singers' night, Monday!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 02:29 PM

It's something I've read suggested about others but my observation of the current trend runs like this.

If someone finds a folk song that is popular sounds like a pop song or find it bland and say so, they will find others say it is because they dislike the idea of folk (or folk artists) being popular.

If someone says they don't really think a popular artist represents the best they have heard in folk, they will find others say it is because they dislike the idea of folk (or folk artists) being popular.

And so it goes on.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 02:43 PM

I really dont understand?!?

I said "I agree with you in everything you said Colin, there are an awful lot of people that would be happy to keep it exclusive but I know that they don't mind it growing either."

In other words, spot on Colin, a lot of people would like it to be marginalized!

What's the problem?

I know syntax isn't my strong point and perhaps that is making the semantics of my sentences difficult to understand but I'm agreeing with everyone?!?

I will try my best to be there Monday George, the little one and the gf make it difficult :s

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 03:34 PM

No worries, Houston, I know your heart is in the right place!
Jon, all that says to me is "different strokes for different folks". You know, "potayto-potahto". And so it goes, indeed; I think it's great that we don't all agree on everything, it would be boring.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 07:24 PM

I wish I felt that way about it George. I might make a mess of it but I'll try to explain my comment.

If I was to rephrase one of HD's comment as:

"There are an awful lot of people that would be happy to keep it marginalised but I know that they don't mind it growing either."

I have a statement I agree with.

I can't think of anyone I know who objects to the idea of folk becoming more popular but I know a few (and count me in) who are quite happy with their own "folk worlds". As an example I'd love everyone to find the joys of participating in sessions as I do to but it's not going to break my heart if it remains a minority interest.

My difficulty comes in when people attach motives to the comments of others, and these motives currently appear to me at worst to include irrational dislikes of popularity.

Up to a point. I can perhaps see Colin's point about "purity" but not because of popularity. A problem I have with some material is that the only way I might become aware falls into the "folk" category is because I read someone calls it "folk". That can and will go on as "folk" and any "horses" are long bolted but,personally, I prefer to be doing the stuff that I can connect with the material I've learned and enjoy. So yes in that respect I'd rather be marginalised than popular and I can be.

Matters do seem to me to go further than that though. At one time it did seem to me to be fashionable to dislike the Dubliners, etc. but it felt to me (if I can phrase this in any way) more because they were "common", in a way rather than successful.

I'm actually "guilty" of loving the Dubliners, The Corries, The Clancey Brothers and Tommy Makem and The Spinners, surely some of the most popular folk groups, yet I can still find myself "against an artist for being too popular" if I dare say something along the lines of "I wouldn't call this folk", or even, if it's a major artist "I simply don't like it".

I may be a touch paraniod on this but I feel the more groups are "championed" by "folk media" and awards are promoted, the harder it is going to be to express ones own feelings without reading somewhere why we (of course wrongly for some reason we ourselves don't know) think what we think.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 08:05 PM

Yawn!!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 08:11 PM

Go to bed then.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 08:12 PM

OK

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 08:36 PM

I will try to elaborate on what I was trying to say and hopefully you can see what George was trying to say.

I personally love every aspect of folk, from the popular down to the most obscure and I would love everyone to feel the same, but in truth I know it's not like that and thankfully that is true otherwise Colin would have no records left in his record collection.

If it helps there isn't anyone in the folk world that wishes the genre they are extremely passionate about to be exclusive. It is the one genre where most people agree on things...

IMHO most people I know and are friends with are extremely friendly in the folk world and they would welcome everyone. In fact I would risk saying in excess of 95% are that friendly, around 2% would like it their way and would not entertain conversing about any other genre of music or allow those into their folk world (not exclusivity - marginality) and around 3% are puritans, only allowing the live acoustic aspect of the genre and only then passed down through generations.

2% in the folk world isn't a lot is it?!

It isn't my view to see it 'marginalized'. Folk is for everyone and if they like it then they have a glimpse into my world and I personally would say they are privileged to have something that makes them happy because life is too short to be unhappy, don't you think?

If a folk song has become popular then that is a great achievement for the artist because they touch the most people and made a lot of people happy...

The Corrs did a great set of folk songs and I think their version of Peggy Gordon is brilliant and an old friend of mine was rightly awarded a BBC2 folk award. But I know that these people were not trying to win a popularity contest by producing great tunes that everyone wanted... they played stuff they are passionate about just like Elvis and so many other great artists... What I can't stand is the manufactured pop that numbs the mind and I cant understand why it makes people happy but it does so I tolerate it (to a point)

What I am trying to get at is that all things in the world is made up of our own subjective aspect on the world and most of us here has the common love of folk music and/or dance.

To conclude, Majority of folk lovers are very welcoming but there are a small percentage that are 'quite happy for it to remain marginalised, as if too much popularity equals unwelcome impurity' and   thankfully a very small percentage that would like it to be 'exclusive'.

I just want people to be happy, obviously I have touched a nerve that we all want everyone in the folk world to be kind, warm and welcoming, and believe me I want the same but experience has told me that it isn't so and I am sorry for sharing the experience.

Thank you again for your post Colin... the article kinda reminded me of the Folk Britannia programmes on BBC4, if you get a chance I would recommend it :D

Thanks George for being such a great songwriter, performer and a great friend :D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 09:08 PM

to lighten the mood nicely played? :D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 09:33 PM

I enjoyed it, thanks.

Last try tongight of getting this one I like and found on Youtube a few days ago to post.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 10:04 PM

Beautiful Jon,

Dunno about you but I would love to have been there to hear it live. But still puts a smile on my face :D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 19 Jun 08 - 10:06 PM

oops, forgot to say thank you :D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 10:38 AM

I think the main worry of the folk-becoming-less-marginalised issue is not one of attitudes but big business. Once anything gets too popular, somebody can - and will - try to sell it. When there's money to be made, it attracts exploiters and the competitive demands of the commercial marketplace kick in. The profit motive will always mean playing it safe and pandering to the lowest-common-denominator element so that you can shift product. In other words, everything that folk is NOT about. It's the equivalent of your favourite secluded nature-reserve turning into a tourist attraction (with a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin hot spot). It pollutes and dilutes the real thing.

And when folk is "successful" it's by way of becoming a fad for awhile, getting hyped (or plasticated) out of all proportion, then fading away. And the artists left behind on the beach when the tide has gone out again, taking their big-time careers with it, are inevitably labelled has-beens, though they're no more out of date than they ever were. It's a distorting frame of reference, and it can do damage.

I don't know why certain cultural forms appeal to the mass mind and others don't - perhaps it's the fact that folk, by definition, reaches out across time and place into so many different worlds, while expressing meanings universal to us all. Maybe the mainstream audience simply finds it too obscure, too much work, too disconnected from their everyday life of computers and mobiles and commuter traffic. Too Other.      

The very thing that draws me to it is just this ability to transcend the here and now, which is so often drenched in anxiety or plain dreary. This may underlie both folk's abiding strength and its segregation.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Tangledwood
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 06:06 PM

"I think the main worry of the folk-becoming-less-marginalised issue is not one of attitudes but big business. Once anything gets too popular, somebody can - and will - try to sell it. When there's money to be made, it attracts exploiters and the competitive demands of the commercial marketplace kick in."


There's certainly something in that Bonnie. There are numerous examples of recordings or shows omitting verses of longer songs in order to fit into a commercially required time slot.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Tangledwood
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 06:15 PM

I should expand on that thought. My singing partner wanted to learn "The Cocks are Crowing" after hearing it at a resort show and buying the show's CD. Not knowing it myself I searched the internet and found what I guess is more or less a traditional version with at least twice as many verses as the show. They would have been lost to us if relying on the commercial version.

Of topic - when searching for Cocks are Crowing the ever-helpful Google asked "did you mean to search for cows are crowing"? Later I searched for "midi Cocks are Crowing" so Google offered "mini cows are crowing".

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 06:55 PM

Wow!. That's weird.

Just come on back to this thread and loads of postings have been deleted/scrubbed/exterminated. How cool is that! Because they were strange to say the least and had really monopolised this thread.

I have no idea how Mudcat works or wether it has some kind of Mudcat police to patrol sites and zap the bad guys. But it must have to have got rid of those irksome over intellectualised individuals. I am not certain about their names but one was Houston something or other.

I did sort of suspect that two in particular 'contributors' were taking the p..s on this thread and that whilst they were on the thread the speed of loading the thread had crawled to snail pace.

To me this is so odd - a bit like a X FILES or an OUTER LIMITS experience. Is it me going bananas or can someone explain what has happened here. An official statement from the Mudcat officiado would be nice. I really want to know!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 07:05 PM

Houston something or other.

Seems to have changed his name to "The Problem". This change (one a user can make) will show on all his member posts.

I've not noticed any deletions in this thread.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 08:10 PM

But it must have to have got rid of those irksome over intellectualised individuals. I am not certain about their names but one was Houston something or other.
-Soldier Boy

Soldier Boy. I believe that Houston_Diamond added a lot of interesting comments to this thread. I don't think that he was irksome or over-intellectualising on this thread. I regret that Houston changed his name to "The Problem". I suppose he had his reasons, but I still am saddened by his name change.

Soldier boy, you wrote in your 18 Jun 08 - 08:58 PM "Lots of quick -fire and shooting off at the hip here. Me thinks too much mental sparring and not enough heart searching about what 'Folk' really means to you...At the end of the day we are all different with hugely different tastes and the 'roots of 'folk' are so diverse that you will never get a consensus of opinion. Never. So let's just agree to disagree"

I didn't agree with you that what other people and I were doing was "mental sparring". I call it "discussing". Be that as it may, it's too bad that you didn't read the rest of your post and follow your own suggestion to "agree to disagree".

Perhaps you're disappointed that this thread didn't turn out the way you wanted it to be. Well, I'm disappointed that you couldn't just let this thread flow but felt you had to once again speak badly about one of this discussion's participants.

I said it before, and I'll say it again- what a shame.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 20 Jun 08 - 10:09 PM

I agree with Azizi. Come back Houston Diamond, the man with the best name on Mudcat... You're not a problem, your a star!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Neil D
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 01:02 AM

mad props! Azizi. I agree entireley with you and Ewan Spawned a Monster. HD seemed quite knowledgable and enthusiastic about folk music and had good taste(similar to mine! ;^). I enjoyed his stories about festivals he'd been to over the years. If the point of this thread was to share your celebration of 'Folk', then he was doing it as well as anybody.
                                           Neil

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Colin Randall
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 01:43 AM

In response to Azizi's request, here is my article from the Abu Dhabi paper (The National) here, in the first of two chunks. This is the main piece. There was also a sidebar on artists I recommended (sorry Guest Jon, but I am am not sure what offence is committed by "championing" people I like), and I will copy & paste that here in a minute.
I have had such interesting feedback that I will also put the whole lot up on my site Salut! Live (which, incidentally, passes the strictest unpopularity test known to folk except on the odd occasion when I alert Mudcatters & others to articles I think may be of interest).



No song and dance, please

Colin Randall


As shocks to the system go, it ranked with Oliver Twist standing up in the workhouse canteen to ask for more. Between maudlin Irish ballads and defiant songs of miners' struggles, a young man with a guitar approached the makeshift stage of a smoke-filled folk club in northern England and announced that he was about to sing Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence.

You're going to do what? The club organiser's face dropped like a stone. Regulars frowned. Other musicians looked on in disbelief. A song straight out of the pop charts, sung in a folk club! Whatever next? Bingo in the interval, the national anthem to close the night?

Lovers of folk music, and for some reason this seems to apply especially to British folk fans, are inverted snobs. I know this, because I am one. Indeed I was, nearly four decades ago, that organiser. Yes, it annoys us no end to think of the contempt or, worse still, the silence that our music receives from the mainstream media. But one of the few things certain to irritate us even more is having it brought to wider public attention, as when something sounding vaguely folky enters the charts or attracts a pop music awards nomination.

One of the bright young heroines of English folk, Kate Rusby, kept an entirely straight face when she told me a few years ago how pleased she was that not too many people liked what she did. "I've never minded it being a minority music," she said. "It's like a rare diamond; if everyone looks at it, it might seem less special. I like it that people have to look that bit harder for it."

Reflections on a lifetime of being mocked for my musical tastes, coupled with the guilty thought that I quietly welcome this disdain, came to mind as I slipped a new greatest hits compilation by Paul Simon, one half of the offending duo, into the car stereo. Here, for all my earlier disapproval, was a seriously good artist, a man with wit, a storyteller's flair and integrity to add to a great ear for melody, and lyrical impact. If parts of the double CD, The Essential Paul Simon, now sound a little dated, that is because some of the songs – Mother and Child Reunion, for example, and Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard – are 36 years old. In any case, this does not rob them of quality, and Graceland feels as vibrant today as it did in 1986.

Some of Simon's much more recent output has less appeal, but that is a common complaint among older listeners rediscovering performers who produced towering work so many years ago. On any assessment, the 36 tracks offer a splendid introduction to fresh ears, while the deluxe edition's bonuses of old video clips and television appearances may win over established fans familiar with the discography.

But is it folk music? Probably not. But then, the genre has always been notoriously hard to define – unless you happened to be Louis Armstrong, to whom all music was folk since he "ain't never heard no horse sing a song".

Ian Anderson, the editor of a British magazine called Folk Roots, changed its name to fRoots (pronounced eff-roots) after tiring of being bombarded with albums and publicity material about every other American singer-songwriter who had ever possessed an acoustic guitar and was now being passed off as "folk". Rather unsatisfactorily, the front cover slogan now describes what we should expect to find inside as "local music from out there". Yet Anderson is not remotely a purist.

Back in the late 1960s, I frequented one folk club that frowned on anything that did not meet the strictest folk test of having been passed down "by the oral tradition" from one generation to another. An Irish refinement of this rigid approach was to refuse to accept as traditional any music not played on a single instrument (which most certainly did not include guitar) or sung unaccompanied.

These days, most people who have a special affection for folk are more flexible. Kate Rusby still sings what she calls her "castle knocking-down" ballads plucked from ancient songbooks, but also writes a lot of her own material. Years after Bob Dylan was pelted with coins by fans furious that he had gone electric, folk festivals happily present loud folk rock (and, sometimes, out-and-out rock). Scottish and Irish traditional bands mix pipes, flute, accordion, percussion and all manner of strings – fiddle, guitar, banjo, mandolin, bouzouki and bass – and still call themselves traditional. Some adventurous souls add brass sections; the really intrepid, Jim Moray more successfully than most, apply computer wizardry to old songs and are rewarded with cool, if ghastly descriptions of their music such as nu-folk and folktronica. "Whatever you call it – and we don't bother – the scene is really healthy," says Anderson, whose magazine has just celebrated its 300th edition in 29 years. "But by the time we changed our name, folk had become a devalued term. We knew what we wanted to cover, and that broadly was anything from anywhere that had some roots in tradition, and it could be very old, or very new."

Paul Simon, he is quite sure, is not a folk singer, although he was clearly inspired as a young man by such pillars of the English folk establishment as Martin Carthy as much as by 1950s rock 'n' roll. "Along the way, he then discovered roots influences – South African and Brazilian, for example – and has shown himself to be a questing musician delving into a lot of what we actually cover, putting him in the same mould as someone like Elvis Costello."

And there is ample evidence on The Essential Paul Simon of the exotic themes that have enriched Simon's work since he and Art Garfunkel went their separate ways, give or take occasional reunions. What you will not find is any trace of Sounds of Silence, I Am a Rock and Homeward Bound, leaving the pedantic former folk club organiser who once deplored them ever so slightly disappointed.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Colin Randall
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 01:45 AM

...and this is the sidebar


Kate Rusby

Although the pint-sized Yorkshirewoman sings folk music "for people who don't like folk", her repertoire draws heavily on traditional British balladry, and her own songs sound as if they might have been written hundreds of years ago. On stage, the girlish delivery and homely patter appeal to many, but infuriate some. Awkward Annie, the most recent album, captures Rusby nearly at her best, though I retain a soft spot for her 1995 debut as part of an enchanting duo (Kate Rusby and Kathryn Roberts).
Sharon Shannon

How do you make an accordion an instrument of joy? Place it in the hands of someone like Sharon Shannon, a farmer's daughter from the west of Ireland who plays like a dream, with as much invention and flair as I have encountered in any musician, and smiles warmly as she does so. Shannon also commands a respect among fellow musicians that crosses boundaries of style and nationality. The Galway Girl: the Best of Sharon Shannon, just received, is a stunning compilation with walk-on parts for Jackson Browne, Steve Earle and, on a gorgeous version of Astor Piazzolla's Libertango, the late Kirsty MacColl.
Leon Rosselson

A passionately anti-Zionist London Jew, Rosselson writes about politics, from assorted left-wing causes to support for the Palestinians, and also about people and relationships. He cannot sing for toffee, and is doubtless heartily sick of me saying so, and has a way of getting up people's noses. But I would not be without the sharp, funny, challenging and beautifully crafted songs he has been creating for 40 years. Some of the better ones, including his powerful account of the massacre of Deir Yassin, appear on Turning Silence Into Song. And that voice somehow fits the songs like a glove.
Karine Polwart

One of the brainiest women in folk, Polwart has packed a lot into her thirtysomething years. She has a first in philosophy and a Masters in philosophical inquiry, taught primary schoolchildren and worked in domestic and child abuse. After acclaimed spells with Malinky and the Battlefield Band, she burst free to reinvent herself as an award-winning songwriter. Her solo albums are not remotely easily listening, but get better on each hearing. Scribbled in Chalk and This Earthly Spell prove the point.
Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span

Take your pick between the ­giants or, according to taste, dinosaurs of folk-rock. Steeleye preferred the tag "English electric folk" but for most listeners, the format is the same: folk with a rock band's rhythm and punch. Both relied disproportionately in their heydays on strong female voices, Maddy Prior in Steeleye and the late Sandy Denny in Fairport. Long Lankin, from Steeleye's Spanning the Years, has an absent nobleman, gruesome murders and summary executions to go with the glorious melody and arrangement, while Fairport will never improve on Liege and Lief, from 1969. Folk-rock's most influential album, digitally remastered and reissued last year, remains a masterpiece.
Woody Guthrie

Some graduates of the 1960s American folk boom – notably Dylan, Baez, and, on the pop-folk margins, Peter, Paul and Mary – need no introduction to mainstream listeners. The more adventurous may find it rewarding to explore the work of Woody Guthrie, who was singing out for the downtrodden and dispossessed long before the others knew of their existence. The repertoire is as vast as it is political, and most people have probably heard at least one version of his signature song, This Land Is Your Land, but I rather took to a late 1980s restoration of his Columbia River Collection, a set of classics prosaically commissioned by power authorities to mark the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dam-building projects half a century earlier.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 06:08 AM

There was also a sidebar on artists I recommended (sorry Guest Jon, but I am am not sure what offence is committed by "championing" people I like), and I will copy & paste that here in a minute.

What the hell are you going on about?

I have no problem with ypu or anyone else mentioning artists they like. If they are mentioned in a discussion thread, I do expect to be able to offer my opions without reading why I really hold those views. From your side bar:

Kate Rusby. I can listen happily to her singing but I don't consider her to be a great singer. I don't object to her popularity but I don't understand it. That I don't rate her voice especially highly is not something I decided I must do because she is popular but because in my (admittedly subjective) opinion, I don't find as strong as other singers I've heard. Surely I'm allowed this view for my own reasons?

Sharon Shannon. Popularity or otherwise, I think she is a superb musician.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 06:08 AM

missed my name above.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Colin Randall
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 07:44 AM

Jon

I was responding to this, from your earlier comment:

"......I may be a touch paraniod on this but I feel the more groups are "championed" by "folk media" and awards are promoted, the harder it is going to be to express ones own feelings without reading somewhere why we (of course wrongly for some reason we ourselves don't know) think what we think."


   Since you had specifically mentioned me, I read your conclusion quoted above as including me in the "folk media" description and criticising my arguments, Both of which you are perfectly entitled to do, just as I am entitled to reply. But if I misinterpreted the comment, I am happy to apologise

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 08:13 AM

OK, Colin, I'll try to clarify what I meant.

I'm feeling that when others pass their negative opinions in open Internet discussion and where these artists are popular with the folk media, "dissenters" are likely to be put down for disliking an artist for being too popular.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 08:15 AM

Why does anyone have to apologise for expressing their opinions, in the media or out of it?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 08:21 AM

Cross-posted with Jon, whose last message I didn't see until now. But the internet is part of the media. I fail to see the differentiation, and don't believe that you should be allowed to say what you think Here, but not There. Free speech, and all that... ?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 08:31 AM

Jon,
if I understand right, you say that anyone criticising a "popular" performer might be summarily put down for their opinion...

Well, in open discussion that risk always exists, you can't legislate for it, but neither should one hold back their opinion trying to second-guess how others might respond. Courage of one's convictions and all that. And anyone criticising the opinions of others (which is different from "dissenting") by lumping them into an easy-to-ridicule category in the end is shooting themselves in the foot.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 08:34 AM

George, I'm saying (paraniod or otherwise) I'm feeling there is gradually building up folk media pressure to like certain artists or be disliking them because you dislike the idea of popularity.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 08:48 AM

My confusion in my last posting was obviously caused by Houston Diamond having a sudden name change to 'The Problem' - that together with coming onto the thread after sinking 6 or 7 pints of strong ale down at the pub did't help! Sorry about that.

Didn't know you could just change your identity on Mudcat like that and that it would show on all previous member posts and am confused why anyone would wish to do that.

Azizi, sorry to offend you again but may I politely refer you to my original request when I opened this thread :

"I'm not looking for an over-intelligent debate here about the meaning and history of folk and its interpretation of traditional and non traditional folk.
Definately not. Just your from the heart feelings about what sucked you into the folk scene in the first place and why you've stayed with it.."

Too often I have found that too much heavy intellectualised debate on mudcat threads just gets lost in its own cleverness and ends up completely tied in knots.
It also puts other people off from posting to the thread because they feel that they will be shot down in flames by a barrage of long words or unable to share the same intellectual and moral high ground.
The result is that such discourse tends to monopolise the thread and strays far from the original intent of its instigator.

That's all I am saying. Just a plea to get back to the roots of the thread and lighten up its content and its atmosphere.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 08:57 AM

Sorry for the confusion Soldier Boy, was just changing my name to reflect my festival name :D

I have a high-vis at festivals when I'm working that says Houston AKA the Problem, as in, Houston, we have a problem! I always say "yep, that's me" cos I'm kinda tired of hearing it. 34 years of being Houston has taken its toll ;) lol

I was thinking of putting up Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" video link but I think this link is much better, Bobby McFerrin creating audience participation - sorry it's not folk!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:01 AM

I don't feel that pressure from the media, or indeed from anyone else, Jon. As for being paranoid, you know what they say: "just because you are paranoid, it doesn't mean they are not out to get you!". So, you may be right, and I am just thick-skinned.

There are fads from time to time, and some of them might catch people's (and the media's) imagination, sure. And in doing so they might divert attention from our own interests. So be it - their loss, in my book. I concentrate on winning people over one by one, not en masse. Inefficient perhaps, but I find it very rewarding to see an individual's eyes open with appreciation. I think it is also more honest - you know that they are now on your side because you won them over, not because of some fad.

Would I like to perform in front of thousands of adoring young fans who would all sell the shirt off their back to buy my CD and pay exorbitant ticket prices to cover my sky-rocketing fees? Sure I would - for the money. But not for the personal satisfaction that I touched them, I could not entirely trust their adoration to be honest and free from the influence of fashion (though I dare say I would fool myself that it was so, I am only human).

Which is why I can have precisely as much fun performing in front of 5 people as before 500.

Just as well, really!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:08 AM

Thanks Houston Diamond. That explains a lot and I like the 'Houston we have a PROBLEM'link. Straight away it makes me think of the 'Apollo 13' film starring Tom Hanks. Great film. Trouble is every time you post now I will immediately think of THAT film.
Oh well!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:08 AM

So in summary, it is the contextualising of the externalisation of the audience's assimilation of the performed material that assists the artist in the deeper understanding of their reaction.

(Sorry Soldier Boy, that was for your benefit - it's the devil in me! :-D)

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:10 AM

Nice one George. I was half expecting that. Good on ya.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:13 AM

Off to Beverly Folk Festival now. Catch you all later.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:13 AM

Geoerge, re your other points and folk views, I "live" in a different world and while I sometimes will give a song or less often tune as a floor spot. I'm not really sure I enjoy it now...

Usually I'm in (all join in together) tune sessions where we are largely playing for ourselves.

Still in that, you can pick up the good "performance" (I think playing together gives different ones) feelings. It can be nice to look round the room and see a table where say people's feet are tapping or maybe once in a while have someone ask about your instrument or otherwise show in interest in learning the music, etc.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:18 AM

...and that's why we do it, Jon (me included, I am of "your world" too and still go to sessions for the same reasons).

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Houston_Diamond
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:32 AM

The odd about my name is; I was named after my dad 'Hugh Diamond'. Houston (a village near Glasgow) was named after a lord called Hugh. Sam Houston, the original governor of Texas had the City Houston named after him who coincidently got his surname by being named after the village. The Circle Game comes to mind lol ;)

And it all stems from the Anglo-Saxon town naming. Yeah, thanks Apollo 13 for having a problem, I now spend most of my days handing out the contact details of a good psychologist ;) lol. (or fixing their computer)

I love singing and performing and I don't really care if I'm alone when doing it. If I perform in front of people I get judged and I hope that people judge it as pleasant, some even say beautiful. Personally I can't stand my voice when I hear it... it's far too high and I can hear my mistakes on recordings. The fun I have is performing it because it makes me really content and I don't know why that happens. When I can't do it for some reason, after a period of time I get really depressed. Folk is my occupational therapy :D

When I was in my late teens I become very withdrawn and depressed. I got pulled out of it by listening to Bob Marley who made me feel so happy when I sang along, I then learnt loads on the guitar whilst trying to learn folk songs and it all started falling into place. I couldn't give up folk music if I wanted to... It runs deep in my veins and it gets me into trouble sometimes as I cant stop dancing to any music now!...

I work at Wembley Stadium in a VVIP area... 2 weeks ago I was working at the Foo Fighters concert and I had to watch the crowd for safety... I noticed several people spotted me bopping to it and they smiled but I should really have been professional and stayed still... I just cant do it.

I blame folk music but in a very positive way... I love it :D

I'm very nervous about tonight as it's my first gig in the family band at a ceilidh... I love ceilidhs as the atmosphere of people not having a care in the world gets up to dance and wear huge smiles on their faces... it becomes extremely infectious and soon my cheeks hurt with the silly grin exercising muscles that usually lay dormant... I then think to myself "how can anyone criticise this?"

Just a thought :D

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:40 AM

Not gone yet! That's beautiful Houston Diamond.I think you have just summed up exactly how many of us really feel in our hearts about folk. Beautiful!

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 09:41 AM

Well said.
Jim

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 04:29 PM

Going back to Guest Jon's point (sorry Soldier Boy, I'll try not to be too heavy for too long in a thread you're keen to keep "lite"), I believe we all have a right to excercise free speech on the internet, even if our views may be unpalatable to some (such as my mystification about folk clubs!).

But is there not also an argument that the "right" to free speech is complemented by a "responsibility" to use it well? Too often on Mudcat a section of people use their freedom of speech in a gratuitous and offensive manner - some of the stuff on the Rachel Unthank thread springs to mind. Why squander that freedom, that right, on deliberately and unnecessarily being hurtful? It's a far cry from saying you don't like the work of a particular performer and explaining why, which I suspect is the kind of totally acceptable thing you (Jon) are talking about. And it always seems to be the young, up and coming performers who get it in the neck - I don't know why. Maybe the folk scene is a movement that wants to eat its own young...

But, to paraphrase, I'll defend to the death (well maybe not quite that far...) someone's right to talk shite, but I'll still call them an arsehole for doing it.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 Jun 08 - 04:39 PM

To quote Richard Thompson's song Genesis Hall "To see both sides of a quarrel is to judge without hate or alarm" A difficult thing to do, but not impossible.

I like what I like in folk, other people like what they like, sometimes our tastes meet, sometimes they don't. That's just the way it is.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 23 Jun 08 - 06:59 PM

It never fails to amaze me AND delight me that so many young people are now involved in 'Folk'.
At The Beverly Folk Festival this weekend there were heaps of them as artists,morris dancers,mummers,helpers,stall holders and of course in the 'fringe' and the general audience.
The level of skill and talent of these young folk singers/musicians, some as young as 15 or 16, never fails to amaze me.
I might be looking at this with glasses that are overly rose-tinted but it seems to me that more and more young 'uns are getting involved and staying with it year upon year.
If that is the case then the future of folk is in good hands and the future's looking good.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 08:54 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST,dillie the oast ouse opper
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 10:54 AM

I agree with you entirely Solider Boy from a YP perspective, I am young and I think that the state folk was in 10 -15 years ago is unrecognisable from how it is today. We young 'uns love our folk.

I think that folk music is on great shape, and is in a great position to be carried on for generations to come - the young ones are certainly talented (don't count me in that, i'm only a morris dancer), passionate about Folk and the upkeep of the folk tradition, and I also agree that more and more folkies are becoming involved from a young age - and are staying around.

It's great news.

Charlotte x

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 07:37 PM

Thanks Guest dillie. Please don't apologise for the fact that you are a morris dancer. You are an essential ingredient in the cake - mix that is 'folk.' and long may it be so.
All the more reason as a 'young 'un' to celebrate the essence of folkiness.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 02 Jul 08 - 05:53 PM

Does no one else have a reason to celebrate 'Folk' and say why it is so special to you?

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 02 Jul 08 - 07:04 PM

Actually, after tonight's singaround in the Beech, Chorlton, I can think of a lot of reasons to celebrate folk - mainly based on being in a pub side room with a lovely bunch of people who enjoy singing and playing folk songs - and those people prevailing, despite the piped music coming in from next door... and from my particular point of view, gratitude that people are forgiving of rubbish singers such as myself not always being able to carry a tune...

Nice.

And I think, a good reason to do what the thread title suggests we do.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Soldier boy
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 07:13 PM

I agree with you Charlie.In my experience folk people forgive anyone who is willing to have a go and encourage them to keep on having a go. And long may that be so.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 12:01 PM

I celebrate Folk everytime I set off for yet another Folk festival and then celebrate it again when I return from a festival and look back on it. Then I feel a warm glow and a happy, satisfied grin creeps onto my face. I celebrate it with quiet satisfaction.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 06:35 PM

I celebrate it because at Cambridge folk festival, let me see, must have been about '72, I nearly made my first date with Jacqui.

Subject: RE: Celebrate 'Folk'
From: Leadfingers
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 07:35 PM

Can I Celebrate 200 posts as well as Folk ?