Entertainment For Lively Minds
BBC Folk Awards
Anyone else just listened to this on Radio 2?
I thought James Taylor was on top form and whatever that lifetime acheivement award means I can't think of anyone more deserving. But Judy Collins reminded me once again what a totally pointless cover of Both Sides Now hers is.
A couple of other points. Mike Harding used to be a 'comedy folk singer' or so all the second hand vinyl in cardboard boxes at car boot sales seem to suggest. Well he seems like a lovely bloke - in fact he nicked my hat once backstage at a folk festival and I felt quite honoured - but I don't think I've ever heard him tell a joke during his entire time as folk overlord of the BBC.
Also somebody making a speech was saying how broad folk has become and how wonderful that is. Well, actually no it isn't, and personally speaking I think it's about time it stopped. Eliza Carthy's nominated album is not a folk album - that doesn't bother me, she can do what she likes, but there are plenty of very skilled traditional musicians out there who have lost out on a nomination and all the help that can bring a struggling artist just because the folk mafia have decided she has to be there because of who her parents are. Also, Jim Moray, Imagined Village, Simon Emmerson, et al - I have no issue with electronica or hip hop beats - but it always sounds rubbish when tacked onto the side of a folk song. Always. And the only reason no-one ever points it out is because they don't want to be shouted down as a fusty old traditionalist. I like real ale and morris dancing and songs about Jacobite rebellions - but maybe that's not cool enough for the BBC sponsored folk scene anymore.
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both sides now in khmer
the band dengue fever is based in LA and do covers of khmer pop songs as well as originals with a khmer slant. The lead singer is a cambodian whose father was an icon of cambodian music before the khmer rouge got to him.
any way, for an interesting version of both siodes now check out the soundtrack to the excellent Matt Dillon directed movie city of ghosts. In face the soundtrack is pretty interesting in total
both sides now in khmer
the band dengue fever is based in LA and do covers of khmer pop songs as well as originals with a khmer slant. The lead so=inger is a cambodian whoise father was an icon of cambodian music before the khmer rouge got to him.
any way for an interesting version of both siodes now check out the soundtrack to the excellent MattDillon directed movie city of ghosts. In face the soundtrack is pretty interesting in total
Judy Collins
I have to disagree, as her version of Both Sides Now is the one that most people will know and is remarkably fine. I didn't hear her on Folk Awards, and it may be her voice is showing signs of age, but your opinion, sir, is frankly tosh.
Sorry but this is the only version worth listening to
As a card carrying folkie
.....may I confirm that your opinion(s) is (are) tosh. The "Not folk" chimaera breathes again. Feck me backwards, Niks,what, pray is? So you are ruling out, I presume, the whole canon of 60s/70s folk-rock, cos they clearly ain't kosher. And the suggestion that Eliza Carthy is purely nepotism is more than a little ridiculous I feel.
(P.S. Morris dancing was largely "invented" in the early 20th century as an approximation of how people believed ancient traditions may have done things, in other words, as a true folk art it is as authentic as, well, James Taylor, actually)
I think the broad church approach is great: folk festivals are worth going to because of the range of interpretation, not despite it.
I lost my card in the beer tent
Eliza Carthy has made some fine folk albums over the years on her own, with the Ratcatchers, with Salsa Celtica and with her folks, however her latest album Dreams Of Breathing Underwater is not a folk album. It really isn't, however broadly you choose to define folk. It's only in the nominations because of who she is. What really rubs it in for me is that it's a terrible album, really bad, and it has no place on any award nomination list.
Fairport and Steeleye Span's updating of folk was in keeping with the music. But the electronicy bits of Jim Moray and the Imagined Village don't, they sound naff. They sound like a desperate attempt to update the music for the hip and callow youth. Leige and Leif, however, sounds like a natural and organic progression built on a deep love of traditional music.
I often feel that in their desire to be modern, urgent and apealling the folk scene (and in particular those charged with promoting it in the broadcast media) are quick to let their quality control slip at the slightest sign of a DJ turntable or futuristic sounding computerised blip.
And while I care very little when it originated (someone could have invented it last week and I would still be out in my village come Plough Monday every year having a wahle of a time) I have to take issue with your dismissal of Morris dancing as a modern invention. The word Morris derives from Moorish and relates to the Moors who were driven out of 15th Century Spain. Here's a woodcut of Shakespearean actor Will Kemp Morris dancing from London to Norwich in the 16th Century, note hankies and bells.
Bampton Morris in the Cotswolds claim to have a history stretching back 600 years - although a lot of real ale has been drunk in that time so there's no knowing really.
Yes but no but etc etc
Claims are indeed that. I didn't say there wasn't dancing of a possibly similar sort, possibly with similar tunes and possibly (o just so possibly) of "moorish" origin. However the current "tradition" is arguably all 2 to Cecil Sharp and his like minded archiving and collectivising and adapting colleagues and contempories. I suppose it doesn't really matter, after all, my introduction to it all was Morris On, from which I then moved on to Plain Capers, befor eventually joining a (now defunct) side for 10 years or so.
I haven't heard Ms. Carthys latest, but I like most of her earlier stuff, including her first 2 allegedly non-folk solo LPs and the supposedly experimental stuff, Red. Ialso like the stuff with her Ma and Pa, let alone their solo and collective stuff. But I also like Jim Moray, Afro-Celt Sound System etc, I think they satisfy my interpretation of the idiom and are no more shocking, surly, than were perceived Fairport and Steeleye back when they first plugged in.
Sod it, I'm sure we will continue to disagree, but I will see if I can find something to bolster my feel of the electro-beats as folk validity, either now on You-tube, or tonight, on spotify as warned.
Success, here's a good bit of earlier Jim
Nice song
But then the hippity hoppity sampling elements are minimal.
This on the other hand is terrible.
God you're right on that one!
Bought Low Culture last week and have to say it is all, XTC cover included, dull dull dull, with 2 songs, the above rapping travesty being one, being so dire I expunged them from any trip to the i-pod. (The other song I couldn't hack, interstingly, was the plodding version of Cuckos Nest, suggesting too much reveration for the superlative Morris On version. Disappointing, because Jim Morays earlier recorded version of it, with the Oyster Band, is not bad at all)
I much prefer his earlier work.
Sorry I disagree
I quote:
"Fairport and Steeleye Span's updating of folk was in keeping with the music. But the electronicy bits of Jim Moray and the I Imagined Village don't, they sound naff. They sound like a desperate attempt to update the music for the hip and callow youth."
But that's exactly what Steeye and Fairport were for the callow youth of an earlier age. I still like to listen to both those bands and others of that ilk like Oysterband. But you can't arbitarily decide that such bands continue in the folk tradition but projects like the Imagined Village don't. You may prefer one to the other but both have their place and both are firmly based on "traditional" nusic.
And on Eliza Carthy, I haven't heard the new album so you may be right in saying it's not folk. But, while who her parents are may have helped get her started, she's certainly done enough since then to be considered on her own merits (which are many) and not face charges of nepotism.
Imagined Village
I agree with much of the above but I love this record. I think the fusion (or whatever it's called) works a treat. Try listening to it purely as a piece of music and not a "folk' one. For me it works very well indeed. " 'ouses 'ouses 'ouses" innit?