British Folk (and Revival)

I love electricity too.

But don't you think that some great art can come out of romanticism?

This comment speaks volumes about your ignorance. You will miss out on some good stuff if this continues to be your attitude.

A lot of the people you disparage (probably without having listened to them properly) as 'whiskery old geezers' from the 'turn of the century' (which century?) are AMAZING singers. It's a shame that you won't be open-minded enough to find that out.

Of course there is a lot of great music and a lot of great singers nowadays too. But not in the field of 'folk' music or 'new folk' music.

I apologise. It's just that appreciating, say, Fairport or Steeleye Span etc but then not appreciating the source singers from whom they got a lot of their material... well, that just don't add up to me.

Can you recommend some titles on CD? ie pre-1960s revival?

First, it really comes down to a question of taste, and for me, music is all about the arrangement. Ed (of this parish) recently copied me a bunch of Nu Folk - mainly Bellowhead and John & John. Predictably, I enjoyed the Bellowhead a great deal more, even though it covered a lot of the same material, (same songs in a couple of incidences) because I just enjoyed listened to an 11 piece band with multiple harmonies more than I enjoyed listening to just two blokes, with more limited arrangements.

But that brings back to the notion of "authenticity" and which is more "authentic" - listening to some "turn of the century crackly voiced bloke on an old record" and field recordings or listening to more modern people reinterpreting or "romanticising" it.

Well, folk has *always* been a participatory artform. It's not just about one bloke with a guitar, it's about everyone down the pub, or on the village green, or wherever, getting together to sing songs they all know. The second point I wanted to make is that folk has always been about co-opting traditional songs, changing them to suit your conditions or your needs - every person who performs a song adds something of their own to it. That's what the folk tradition is. Not slavishly recreating whatever someone else used to do.

Anyway, that's just my 2p. I should get my dad in here to comment further because he knows what he's talking about more than I do.

With regard to the vocal qualities of some of the old singers - the important thing was the songs they sang, not the singers... and anyway, I'd rather listen to an unpolished singer than some Radio Two-friendly 'folk' singer like... won't name any names.

Also, the only way to avoid refashioning the past (in the mistaken belief that you're doing something 'new' - i.e. Espers, Tunng, etc) -is to be aware of the past.

Exactly. So is it really necessary to listen to unaccompanied field-recordings?

Of course you don't HAVE TO listen to anything.

Were they really "aware" of that? Or were they just people who weren't very good singers?

I'm not a folk expert, but to my ears thier version of that song sounds very much like thier own. They claim to have lifted it right off of Jansch who lifted it right off of Clive Palmer. When you read interviews with those guys, they seem pretty deep into the traditions and roots off all sorts of music, espescially British folk. I'm going to listen to it now!

The problem I have is that this is like the Lomax blues recordings, where Lomax seemed to purposefully seek out amateurs and field-hands and whatever thru some notion that they were more "authentic" - adn in doing so produced a distorted picture of what was actually going on. Actually expression or "chops" play a pretty big part in living folk traditions

Definitely... take, for example, Roscoe Holcomb. Technically dazzling banjo playing. And Jeannie Robertson could have been an opera singer! I love them both - but not necessarily for their technical abilities - but for their abilities to make me feel things.

The best singers/musicians make it sound effortless, as the above-mentioned do. They're technically accomplished but not show-offy.

I've never really liked show-offs in any sphere.