OK Folk

[cloughie]

As this is my 20,000th posting (OK I don’t claim it will be any better than the last 19999 over the last 10 years) I thought I would make it the start of a new thread.
Folk music has been loved and not so loved by many over the years. It has been purveyed in many forms, begged, stolen, borrowed, sanitised, arranged, played and sung.
So do you love it or not - and what form of it do you prefer.

[gradus]

Its one of those musics that I listen to when something happens to catch my ear on the radio or tv say, a bit like C and W. American folk inspired or related artists - Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell etc are however long-term favourites. Folk derived classical music also has me in its clutches though as long as it isn't settings of English songs sung by constricted throat English tenors.

[antongould]

Always liked folk music since polytechnic days ….. pretty much any type of folk music ….. Ralph McTell was an early favourite but I suppose Simon and Garfunkel would be my all time top act …. in fact I probably prefer S&G to S alone …….

[DracoM]

The Watersons.............YES!!

[Serial_Apologist]

When it comes down to categorical imperatives [sic], the "loss" to jazz of the bass player Danny Thompson was regarded with considerable sadness by many in the jazz community who had seen him as Britain's rightful heir to the title of The English Mingus, based on his contributions to homegrown jazz in the late 1960s; yet his input to the more adventurous ends of the folk music spectrum, witness John Martyn, Pentangle, Nick Drake, Dando Shaft and later collabs with Richard Thompson (no relation) have always creatively borne that jazz belief in spontaneity in the moment, and in the 1980s he formed a folk (of many nations)-inspired group called Whatever, explaining to mystified audiences that whenever asked what sort of music he intended bringing to their venues, he would reply "whatever you decide to call it".

Whatever originally comprised the guitarist Bernie Holland - who had left Ian Carr's early Fusion band Nucleus for less jazz rocky climes - and the one-time John Dankworth saxophonist Tony Roberts - now living in the Merseyside area - playing soprano sax, flutes and whistles of various provenance alongside his mellifluous tenor. They were eventually joined by the guitarist John Etheridge, who had started out in hippy psychedelic outfits before joining Soft Machine as previous incumbent Alan Holdsworth's near soundalike, before later working with Michael Garrick, and with Stephane Grappelli in a Django Reinhardt role; and additionally by tenor and soprano saxophonist and sometime border pipes performer Paul Dunmall, who had previously worked with Alice Coltrane and was currently in a high energy quartet with free jazz pianist Keith Tippett called Mujician. The resulting high energy outlowings, powered above all by Dunmall's late Coltrane energy and Etheridge's shredded sheets of sound, outraged some audience members, several of whose Shetland cardigan-clad brigaders I heard leaving the Thekla barge in Bristol ca. 1992 muttering "We thought this was supposed to be a folk band, for folk's sakes!!!" Keith Tippett, himself in that particular audience, was heard to cry, "Well if this is folk music, then the music MY band plays is folk music"!

[gurnemanz]

Here's a list of a few favourites from LP/CD purchases and concerts going back to late 60s: Incredible String Band, Pentangle, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny on her own, Richard and Linda Thompson, Richard on his own. We've seen Richard twice live. He's almost exactly the same age as me. Steeleye Span, Judy Collins. (I'm not counting Dylan or Joni Mitchell). Peter Bellamy. Ivor Cutler. Martin Carthy (also with Dave Swarbrick on violin). John Renbourn. Chieftains. Pogues. Planxty. June Tabor. Kirsty MacColl.
Latterly: Kathryn Williams. Karine Polwart. Kate Rusby. Bellowhead. Rachel Unthank.

[johncorrigan]

There is a sense in the folk music of Britain and Ireland of what the great Scottish folklorist and collector, Hamish Henderson called 'The Carrying Stream' - that people will sing the old songs in new voices, borne on the carrying stream. In this way, as with the blues in the United States, it has encouraged people to go and look where those songs came from. Young people in Scotland, certainly, are exploring the past searching for that sense of identity, and that also seems to be happening in Ireland with wonderful performers like Lankum and Radie Peat as well as Lisa O'Neil giving old songs those new voices. Celtic Connections, the Glasgow's Winter Music Festival in January, has, I believe, had a major impact on the growth of folk music in Scotland, encouraging that continuing search for the roots of Celtic Music, whatever that is.

I enjoy a lot of folk music from all round the world, but one of my favourites is Englishman Chris Wood, and especially his attempts to write new folk songs - folk protest songs that reflect life as it is in the 21st century - songs like 'Hollow Point' or 'Spitfire', for example are powerful pieces of work. Folk music is very much alive and though it has suffered during the pandemic, because musicians love to get together, it will emerge stronger, in my opinion.

[HighlandDougie]

Glad to see the great Norma Waterson mentioned upthread but best of all must surely be Shirley Collins - a unique talent (if such things mattered, she, of all deserving recipients, ought to be a Dame).