What is folk?
Piers Cawley
>
> ma> Seriously, though, if "folk music" = "music", why do we feel the
> ma> need for the adjective?
> -
> Because you wind up being right about _music._ It's hard to
> distinguish. What's distinctive is folk SONG, ie the words. From the
> little I know of your interests, I think you would agree. There is a
> uniqueness & commonness in folk song that is _not_ in common with Urban
> or Country song. This simply reflects the culture from which it
> springs.
Urban music not folk? Abby, you surprise me. Just because 'urban' folk
music doesn't come from the traditional 'rural' regions where C.
Sharpe collected doesn't mean it is any less valid as folk music. May
I commend AL Lloyd's rather splendid work "Come All You Bold Miners"
to you, or the Topic _Iron Muse_ set (now out on Topic/Special
Delivery CD and well worth 14UKP of anyone's money.)
The songs that came out of the mills (Poverty Knock, The Doffin
Mistress) and mines (Miner's Lifeguard, The Durham Lockout, etc..)
differ from the rural tradition in that they are far more 'political'
in their outlook. In the feudal setup that persisted on the average
farm for hundreds of years nobody in their right mind would be caught
singing a song that overtly criticised the farmer, he was far to
likely to hear it, whereas a mill/mine owner couldn't keep tabs on
what every single one of his workers was doing.
Because of this politicization of urban folksong I'd suggest that the
modern(ish) 'protest' style of folk song springs owes far more to the
industrial tradition than it does to the rural one. I often find that
a good rule of thumb as to a song's 'traditionalness', especially if
it's rural, is whether or not the song is one of complaint. If it is
then it's almost certainly not traditional :)
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| Piers Cawley, 2 Widford Park Place, Chelmsford, ESSEX, CM2 8TB. |
| pdca...@iest.demon.co.uk pdca...@cix.compulink.co.uk |
| Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, there lived a . . . |
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