I noticed in Ian Anderson’s editorial in the current fRoots (formerly ‘Folk Roots – the long-ago disguising of its origins perhaps ironic in the circumstances) that he despairs at the current audience demographic at folk music shows in England, which he notes has been a long-ticking time bomb.
In short, almost all the punters – even at shows by young performers (‘BBC folk-person-under-30-of-the-year’ awardees et al.) – are in their 60s and beyond. He ends by saying that his last mission will be to try and ‘get young folk musicians their own audience’. It’s a telling phrase. 20 / 30 year old artists in the folk idiom in England have essentially been borrowing, and living off, the early 70s Fairport convention audience for the past 50 years.
I don’t live in England and have only occasionally been at folk music gigs there so I can’t really bring much to the discussion, but from my limited experience Ian’s words ring true. What say others here?
The question isn’t about people saying ‘Oh, I saw young Sophie Swithins at the Toad & Sandcastle folk club last week and she was really good – and only 29!’ – it’s a matter of, being honest, is the active audience (outside of summer festivals) for ‘folk music’ in England pretty much on its last hurrah?
All ‘scenes’ and hobbies have their day – maybe this one’s simply had its day. Has it?
Moose the Mooche says
Folk music in England seemed to be on the bones of it’s arse in the ’80s, and the idea of anyone in their 20s playing or listening to it was laughable in the age of Carol Decker and Bombalurina.
And yet… it still exists.
*sticks finger in ear* Hnyarrrrr….
atcf says
Anyone else follow the Yoko Ono bot on Twitter?
Tweets by yokoonobot
Blue Boy says
I think that’s too pessimistic a view. It’s similar to the ongoing crisis in classical music where people have been worrying that the audience is dying out for around a century – and yet it’s still here. For sure the audience tends to be older, but it’s not exclusively so, particularly for bands like Bellowhead.
I think it’s true that English folk music is less central to the culture than Irish or Scottish folk music. But I’m not entirely convinced that the bright young things of Belfast or Glasgow are flocking to folk concerts or records that much more than their peers in Liverpool or Birmingham. And all the time you have young artists like Bella Hardy or Olivia Chaney I reckon the music will continue and there will be an audience for it
Gatz says
It’s certainly an older audience (I’m 50 and often at the younger end of folk attendees) but audience numbers seem healthy, even if the walking sticks suggest many of the audience are not. I usually see folk acts of the Heidi Talbot size appeal at the Colchester Arts Centre where there are usually quite a few students types too. I don’t think folk has been a big draw for younger audiences in my gig going years. It certainly wasn’t when I started going to that sort of show in my own student days.
It might be a Radio 4 situation, where they panicked about having so few younger listeners until it was pointed out that they never had – Radio 4, and folk, are things which people turn to in mature years. Anyway, when younger musicians did attract a younger crowd the result was Mumford and Sons, and I’m sure Ian Anderson wouldn’t want that on his conscience.
Arthur Cowslip says
Are you talking specifically about England, Colin? The scene here in Scotland seems in pretty rude form. I’m not a folky by any means, but any gig I’ve been to of a folky bent seems well attended by all ages.
Arthur Cowslip says
Sorry just re read your post properly instead of skimming it! You are talking specifically about England.
Kaisfatdad says
Along with Bellowhead and the other artists mentioned, there are also artists or projects with a strong folk element which attract a younger audience. Tunng’s folktronica, the Decembrists’ Offa Rex project, and let’s not forget AW darlings, the Unthanks.
NigelT says
I think the folky audience certainly includes plenty of older people, but it certainly isn’t exclusively so. I cover Sidmouth Folk Week for the radio here in East Devon, and can tell you that Sidmouth is full of people of all age groups, perhaps surprisingly so given the very traditional nature of that event. We also have open mic nights and folk clubs in pubs down here with plenty of younger performers and audiences. Perhaps folk/roots/acoustic music actually appeals to the widest of audiences…?
Alias says
fRoots has hardly helped attract young people to the genre. If you are a young English folk musician (and the same applies to “world music”) my advice would be to not touch either label with a barge pole.
mikethep says
For what it’s worth I get most of my information about new English folk/roots/whatever acts from Acoustic Guitar magazine than I ever did from fRoots, which seems to have a much more global focus.
retropath2 says
It’s a conundrum, right enough, but, in fairness, most live music audiences are ancient, at least in a hall/venue. This is true of folk/blues/jazz/country and even dear old rock. The last concert I frequented was King King, archetypal Free-style (SWIDT!?) blues-rock. The average age was still older than the band, generally oldish blokes and their “chicks”, say 50 – 60.
But, switch to a festival setting and the age ratio plummets, with youngsters bopping to geriatrics, rather than the usual other way round at concerts.
My next few gigs are all folk: False Lights, the Jim Moray folk-rockers, followed by Spiro, complex geometric acoustic polyrhythms akin to unplugged sequencers, coupled with Leveret, double squeezebox acoustica and fiddle. Both shows at Lichfield Guildhall, where audiences veer on both the elderly and the polite. I’ll get back to you.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Going to see Spiro and Leveret and Three Cane Whale in a couple of weeks time – can’t wait – the usual St. Georges crowd is usually fairly superannuated (Jam and Jerusalem with a CD collection) with smatterings of the hip and the lost. Don’t expect that will change any time soon.
Colin H says
As Nigel and Retro have suggested (and as I hinted in the OP), I think festivals are a separate ecosystem – they’re much more a wider social event, a distinctive entity. For younger punters they’re cool/acceptable in a way that, I feel sure, going to a folk club or an arts centre folk performer’s gig very likely isn’t.
In the same way that pantomime is essentially the surviving lifeboat from Music Hall, I suspect the likes of Sidmouth, Cambridge, whatever all the rest are in England, will be the lasting lifeboats from the folk club world – which is in essence a child of the 60s (yes, I know there were a dozen or so in the 50s).
How people performing something more or less in the folk music bracket make a living the rest of the year is up to them. I imagine it will become a part-time thing for many (more so than at present). From knowing a number of pro Irish musicians, the ‘Celtic music’ world is distinctly different to the English folky artist’s world – there are typically weekend raids from Ireland to events in mainland Europe (Spain, France, Denmark, Germany…) throughout the year – events that are specifically for Irish/’Celtic’ music – and a load of festivals during the summer (which is really the only overlap with English artists, at English festivals). I doubt it works the other way.
retropath2 says
I generally agree, but what is your take on non-folk musics and the dearth of youngsters at shows of any sort? I exclude youngster youngster shows: stuff I know nowt about, like Arianna Grande, which attracts kids plus parents. Has the “tour” in sit-down venues died? Or is it about to? Even nominally dance acts like Alabama 3 and Faithless are a 40+ audience, which is, at least, given the performers, age appropriate.
Kaisfatdad says
Young people are still going out to gigs, often by young artists. First Aid Kit gigs here are no longer cheap but they sell out fast. They would not be out of place at a folk festival.
And then there’s the electronic dancey stuff like Tove Lo which pulls great crowds.
fentonsteve says
Exactly this. The core of the Cambridge folk club are elderly (I’m 48 but consider myself one of the youngsters) but young performers attract a young audience to a fairly grotty pub on the outskirts of town.
My 14-y-o regularly goes to see a local 15-y-o folky uke player who wins awards all over Europe. Talented little swine!
Diddley Farquar says
Cambridge folk club in mysterious failure to appeal to youth shock!
fentonsteve says
Well, yes, but many of them will have been taken as kids to the Cambridge Folk Festival. Years ago I saw Jim Moray, Katherine Williams, Kate Rusby et al at the Folk Club and – in my late twenties/ early thirties – felt old.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Alabama 3 are always on the lookout for likely death-mask customers in the front rows.
davebigpicture says
He was on Radio 4 the other day, talking about death masks.
Moose the Mooche says
I saw this in Updates and assumed you were talking about Joe Grundy.
Mike_H says
Folkies are always pessimists. Perhaps it’s something to do with all the drownings and murders (in the songs).
In the ’60s it was presumed dead but survived. In the ’80s likewise. It has it’s ups and downs but the sheer tenacity of the artists usually prevails in the end.
Nobody in their right mind would consider it as a means to becoming rich, mind you. Most English folkies will continue to make their livings from other things.
It has occasional short bursts of being trendy with certain sections of Der Yoof, but generally it’s always been an older demographic that goes to see folk artists. But that older demographic keeps regenerating. Today’s 50-60 year old audiences were teens in the ’60s. Their predecessors were teens in the ’50s. Just enough of today’s folk-ignoring younger generation will be in the folk clubs/at Cropredy/at the Cambridge festival in another 30 years time, I reckon.
The music pub in Colindale that I often frequent has a weekly folk club that’s well-enough attended for the licensees to keep it going. They have both local and visiting performers turning up every week and enough punters of a decent age range applauding and buying beer. The headliners get paid (a pittance but they also get fed which is a reasonable consideration) the others do it because they want to play the music.
People who want to play music to other people will always find a way. Whether their audience like it or not.
Skirky says
If you don’t mind, I might appropriate that last paragraph as a mission statement.
Mike_H says
Appropriate away.
Pessoa says
Last summer I went to my local county summer show and found, alongside the Queen tribute acts and Essex soul divas, a surprising number of young amateur acoustic singer-songwriter acts on the smaller music stage. Not claiming it’s the authentic English folk tradition, but as long as there are guitars, violins, and people who want to sing, there will be something like that. And no matter what else happens to the music industry, I suspect people will go to a pub or somewhere similar to hear people play. What sort of artistic legacy emerges from that scene is, I concede, another question.
Kaisfatdad says
A touch of cross-thread fertilization now.
This week I’ve been thinking about labels which made me curious about Bellowhead. For much of their career they were on Westpark, a German label with an impressive roster of “successful” folk acts: Oysterband, Värtinnä, Garmarna, Chumbawumba, Hedningar etc. one thing all these acts have in common is they put on a great live show. Bellowhead, who were probably pretty unknown to the young Danish audience, went down a storm at Roskilde.
Maybe we should’ve thinking about the folky acts and audience in a broader, trans-national way?
SteveT says
Folk music by and large is too dreary for the youngsters. Those that are trying to trail blaze new folk for example Lau and the Unthanks are having a modicum of success because of a fresh approach. Steeleye Span were the same in the 70’s – I remember and was at several of their sell out tours and this was before All around my hat. By its nature it’s easy for folk to be classed as an art form stuck in mediaeval traditions – it doesn’t need to be. There is non more punk than Eliza Carthy for example. However part of the problem is that the purists won’t accept change which is why the Unthanks as one example will move away from the genre altogether. When Becky and Rachel stop the clog dancing the purists will totally turn against them.
Kaisfatdad says
There is a lot of truth in what you say, Steve. I am definitely a fan of the non dreary folk innovators.
This Canadian duo, (reminiscent of the Kit?) were on DuCool’s best of 2017. They dip into folk traditions and old songs without being dusty and dull.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Not entirely true Stevie baby. When was the last time you went to a decent Bluegrass Festival? More startling young players than you can shake a banjo at. More impresssive neophyte beards than you can catch in the strings of an autoharp. And the clog dancers are a real draw, especially by about 3 in the morning when the fire-pit is glowing and everyone is outside about six pints of Old Picker.
SteveT says
You are probably right Vulpes. However with the exception of Bela Fleck and perhaps Alison Krauss Bluegrass is a corner of folk that I just can’t get on with.
Kaisfatdad says
Very true Vulpes. And as further evidence, here are the magnificent Punch Brothers, who could not be dull and dreary if they tried.
Ooops! Wandering a little away from English folk there, but the point is acoustic music can be as lively and youthful as any other genre.
Colin H says
Yes, but Fatz, as I said in the OP… the focus is not on ‘hey, look at this whizzo young folky artist – the scene is alive and well!’ – rather, it is: okay, how old are the people in the seats facing him?
Kaisfatdad says
When I saw the Punch Brothers, it was a young, lively audience, but it was at Roskilde so I will perhaps be told that it does not count. But a large tent full of very happy punters, who went away keen to hear more, has to count for something!
Maybe the solution is for “folk artists” to tour with bands that attract a younger audience…You will get a whole variety of bums of different ages and sizes on seats
Punch Brothers and First Aid Kid
Spiro and Lykke Li
Richard Thompson and Slipknot
It’s a win win situation!!
Gatz says
Maybe not. Richard Thompson once booked The Pogues as a support act because they were the new up-and-coming sensation. Unfortunately he booked them for a show on their own turf in Irish north London, and played his own set to a chant of ‘Who the fuck is Richard Thompson?’
Kaisfatdad says
Poor Dick! Normally I think he would manage better. I saw him support Crowded House which worked rather well. I do not think he has toured with Britney Spears which is a shame….
Sounds to me as though there were several AWers in that particular audience.
Colin H says
I think (folk) festivals are a different thing, Fatz (yes, it’s in the OP again! sorry…) – it’s a social thing, a seasonal thing, and to a fair extent ‘folk music’ is only a part of their USP. Indeed, several of the bigger ‘folk’ festivals in Britain have very much broadened their scope music-wise/artist-wise. Some might say watered down, but I think it’s a winning idea – very few people think in ‘tribal’ terms musically these days. Well, certainly, it’s not as delineated as it once was. So throwing a lot of folk, jazz, rock, world, etc together on bills – or at least on stages within a festival context – seems a winning idea.
duco01 says
Re: Yoko’s 18 February tweet “Life is too short for a bad bic pen.”
She’s right, you know.
Vincent says
To the extent that folk music has become the province of dreary strummers preaching socialism (I almost slit my wrists to escape a Dick Gaughan concert, and Mr Bragg alienates more than he enthuses), it hasn’t exactly helped itself. Folk music is like blues or country; full of sex, violence, working people wanting a brief escape into pleasure and fun from a hard life. Bands that play to these truths give the genre life; the Pogues greatly helped the revival of Irish music and culture. I rather approve of Blackbeard’s Tea Party:
Kaisfatdad says
I enjoyed that Tea Party clip. And was interested to see they even play ceilidhs.
http://www.blackbeardsteaparty.com/ceilidhs/
Nothing dull and dreary about those! The Scots seem to be far more at home dancing to traditional music than the English.
fentonsteve says
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned on here before, probably pre-drupal, I had a university pal from the Wicklow mountains. My first experience of Ireland was an early 1990s Saturday night in Dublin, thanks to 99p Ryanair flights.
We arrived at the Dublin nightclub at 11pm, after an evening spent dissolving a pizza in several pints of the black stuff. Girls on the dancefloor, lads at the bar staring into their pints – so far, so much like Blighty. I hit the dancefloor, obviously, being the token crazy foreigner (and half-cut).
At midnight the DJ stopped and a live ceilidh band, all in their late-teens/early-twenties, came on stage. And the place went absolutely mental. Even the blokes hit the dancefloor. It was one of the best nights of my life.
Can you imagine a trad folk band in an English nightclub? All those pints would be aimed at the stage, for starters.
Moose the Mooche says
At 44 I’m still pre-drupal, thankfully.
SteveT says
@Vincent the irony is that folk music is full of sex but is the least sexy of all genres.
Its the old adage ‘Oral sex isn’t talking about it’.
Vincent says
Is that what they mean by “rude peasants”, or does it mean they were sticking up two fingers and mooning?
Moose the Mooche says
They lived in rude shelters, which are ordinary shelters with words like “Bum” and “Winky” written on the walls.
Artery says
I was at the Kitchen Garden in Brum to see Pete Atkin last night. Great show by Pete and almost full. Average audience age about 60 I’d guess, but Pete was last a cult in 1973. However, James Yorkston at same venue was a much younger audience as I recall. 30 odd anyway. The Kitchen Garden and Red Lion in Brum are both thriving. Folk clubs have lower overheads than dedicated rock clubs as they just book a pub function room for peanuts on an as needed basis. The booking agents for UK solo acts use Folk Clubs but the agencies who book tours for US acts seem to go for slightly bigger venues. For example I have seen Kylie Walker and Elvis Perkins at the Hare And Hounds just 50 yards up the road from the Kitchen Garden. Anyway, point is I think that Folk Clubs will survive just fine. The Big Comfy Bookshop here in Coventry holds about 40 people and hosts occasional folk nights with people like Kathryn Williams and Keith James. Seems to do OK and generally younger audience I think.
One good thing about these venues is they allow once bigger acts to still perform. I remember seeing Richard Thomson, Roy Harper and Richie Havens in tiny rooms. Roy and Richard survived these low points to become bigger draws again.
I also think that there are some hugely talented UK folk artists around. Jim Moray, Olivia Chaney and Lisa Knapp for example.
bigstevie says
I too, was out at a folk club last night. Stirling Folk Club, to see Andy Chung (the kilted Chinaman from Kirkcaldy). Just less than 30 in the audience, and I was the youngest by miles, and I’m 59.
My pal has been running it for the last 3 years, and he’s said he won’t flog a dead horse. It’s not dead yet but it is dying. He asked me once to go to the university with him to promote the club and try to get younger folks interested but that’s never happened. I sometimes play at open mic nights in Stirling where some of the uni kids go, and I’ve told him he would be wasting his time. These kids are interested in bevvying, dancing and sex. They’re certainly not interested in old foggies singing about Wallace bled etc. Of course, they probably will get interested, but much much later.
SteveT says
Kitchen Garden Café is a fine venue and would love to know if it makes money – seen many fine shows there including a splendid Chris Difford solo show. Oddly the recent Zara McFarlane show was booked with the Kitchen Garden Café but moved to the Hare and Hounds yet the Hare and Hounds does its own bookings. Either way they are both an invaluable part of the Birmingham Music scene and they should be cherished.
Regardless of act I think the Kitchen Garden Café almost has the same audience for every show – at least it seems that way. The Hare and Hounds is a little more cutting edge and the Folk Scene is quite a small part of their target audience.
retropath2 says
My chum Andy is one of the main bookers for KGC. I think they switch over to the H&H if they expect more than the 80 odd capacity for KGC. Likewise H&H use a stack of different promoters.
Talking of Brum venues, I have good news for fans of the Rural Alberta Advantage,who cropped up in 3 or 4 AW best of year lists for 2017. They play the newly refurbished Castle and Falcon on the Moseley Road, which used to be the late lamented Ceol Castle, on 16/3/18
http://castleandfalcon.com
Colin H says
Lots of interesting opinions here. I think what’s coming across – and I agree – is that if young people want to make acoustic-based music and play to people they’ll by and large find a way to do that and that if owners of premises like bookshops want to create funky platforms for such, it will probably work. (I know a bookshop in Belfast that has occasional gigs with touring troubadours, not tainted by the baggage of being a folk club or whatever.) But I think the idea of the old-school English folk club is probably on its last legs. Though – as with everything – there will, I’m sure, be a few very notable exceptions to that. I know of one pro acoustic performer who is determined to weed these out of their touring itinerary simply because every time, year in year out, many of them – run by generally lovely people – will give myriad excuses like ‘Wrong kind of snow on the pavements…’ etc. for the fact that only 6 people turned up this time. Again.
hubert rawlinson says
Last time I was at a folk club it was still run as it was in the seventies when I started going.
Floor singers, then main act, interval with raffle, more floor singers then main act.
If you didn’t drive then you had to rush off for the last bus and miss most of the person or band you’d gone to see.
Moose the Mooche says
If it was the seventies you’d be driving home, pissed or not.
Colin H says
I went to one of those in South-West England with a troubadour pal (who was the main guest) a year or so back – several floor singers, main act for half an hour, break/raffle, several floor singers, main act for half an hour. It was an anthropologial experience. You could see why it had largely died out and yet, nobly, it was giving a platform to local amateur acts to do their thing and get what that brings – experience, feedback, confidence etc. Of the seven or eight floor acts, a 50-something whimsical poet was good and an acapella mixed quartet – like a different-accented Watersons – from some town up the coast were stunning.
Bizarrely, the stunning visiting floor act got to do one song while several truly awful 60-something guys with out of tune guitars had tested our patience with two or three each. Worst of all, the ‘house band’, a pension-age husbands/wives quartet – all lovely people, I’ve no doubt – had performed several songs in both sets and none of their instruments were in tune. It was extraordinary, to me, that plainly no one in the act had noticed this – and maybe they hadn’t noticed it for decades. Maybe no one in the club had noticed either, or they had all been too polite (for the past 50 years) to mention it. Really, it was a fascinating experience. I pitied my troubadour pal though, having to thank X, Y, and Z for their great performances and at the same time having an unnecessary couple of hours added on to their day before the drive home.
Vulpes Vulpes says
You should have gone to Folk On The Moor at the Westward Inn at Lee Mill just outside of Plymouth, Colin. Floorsingers, yes. Shaky tuning, wobbly voices, yes, frequently. Stunning local floor acts that leave you wondering why they aren’t famous? In spades some nights. Main visiting act one song only? No chance. A full gig after the indulged torturers and decent amateurs have let off steam.
*crosses fingers that it wasn’t there that Colin went, and it’s all gone to pants since my last visit about 5 years ago*
Colin H says
I think you may have misunderstood, Vulp – the (excellent) visiting act that got one song wasn’t the booked, professional guest (2x half hours/40s mins) but a visiting floor singing act, an act that had driven in from a town 30 miles away specifically to do a turn rather than being an act from the locale.
I don’t want to be too specific, but the place I’m talking about wasn’t in Plymouth, but it wasn’t too far from Truro.
Vulpes Vulpes says
*winks and taps side of nose*
bigstevie says
I’m a member of 2 folk clubs, and they’re run on a similar basis to what you say, except, in general, ours only have 1 floor spot. Sometimes it’s a decent act passing through, and they don’t have a gig, so they do a freebie in the hope of getting a full gig later. Sometimes(usually) it’s someone from the club. Some are better than the main act, some are dire! They get 15 minutes(3 songs) at the start of each set.
The raffle is the lifeblood of a folk club. Take last night(and I’m generalizing here, as I have no idea of the accounts). 25 paying customers at 8 quid each is 200 quid. My guess is the duo last night charged about that. The raffle probably drew 50 quid, and after 20 quid rent, it leaves a small amount for club expenses.
The lovely people who run the club, and they are lovely, are all volunteers. They get to choose the acts, and the floor spots. Sometimes (often), both are dire, but they do the work so they get to choose.
I like to think folk clubs are about the ‘folk’ and not folk music. I’ve met tons of smashing folks there who go just to hear others in the club sing and play. Often they’re not bothered about main acts and only go to session nights where only the members play.
Sometimes though, after 3 acapella songs with 12 verses, and 2 folks reading witticisms from an iPad, I wonder ‘what the fuck am I doing here?’.
Colin H says
I’m sure you’re right Steve – I’m sure the social aspect is a big part of many folk clubs. N Ireland has had almost no experience of folk clubs similiar to the English model. Belfast had one, late 70s to late 80s, run essentially by a good man who had run clubs in Scotland and England in the glory days and had relocated to Belfast – but music in Ireland is a wilder sort of beast. The idea of hundreds of committees in towns and villages around Ireland organising folk clubs a la England/Scotland in the 60s and 70s is just alien – it wouldn’t have worked. Ireland is an anomaly in the sense that it has a very thin spread of ‘grass roots’ (ie non concert venue) places where live music can happen – a few pubs here and there, in no way a ready made circuit. In terms of traditional music, it happens more as ‘sessions’ in odd bars – core players might be paid for a weekly turn by the publican and others will drift in and out according to curious etiquette of sorts, but it is by no means a conventional ‘entertainment’. People in the bar can listen in if they want, and the session will have been advertised as happening at a certain time, but the players will pay no attention to the non-players listening (or not) and will take 20-minute breaks to chat among each other if they want to between one tune and the next. No one will make announcements about titles of things. It’s like you’ve wandered into a rehearsal by some unamplified band and they’re studiously ignoring the fact that you’re there. It’s a very weird situation, to be honest. it’s very difficult for visiting folky/troubadour type artists to get a foothold in Ireland in terms of stringing a few meaningful dates together – there’s a few arts centres that do something musical once a month (if you want to book a year in advance), and two or three genuinely worthwhile, commercially oriented music pubs in Dublin and Galway and Belfast… But Irish trad people playing professionally make their livings playing outside of Ireland.
Geoffbs7 says
I love that phrase – ‘it was an anthropological experience’.
I’ve had that experience.
bigstevie says
That’s exactly what last night was like. I left (probably) 15 minutes early at 22.40 as I had a half hour drive, and it’s a school night.
Reply to hubert.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Glad you made that clear.
retropath2 says
The Raffle is till the king at Lichfield Arts, which doubles as a jazz club and anyone else/any other genre they can afford. First prize a ticket for next time, 2nd prize 2 tickets. Even when they hire the cathedral, for bigger shows: Oyster Band, Fairport , they still have the raffle. And, thank the, um, lord, the bar. (Great venue, mind)
thecheshirecat says
That reminds me of Martin Simpson’s definition of folk music – “Music that accompanies a raffle”.
Any road up, when I started going to my local folk club, attendance was such that you could often fit in a third song, now sometimes there’s only time for one. We are thriving, and I am certainly not the youngest there any more.
And out in the wider world, it feels like anything but folk dying on its feet. Plenty of gigs, too many festivals, not enough nights of the week. The average age of the audience seems to have little bearing on the health of the scene.
If we apply the same concern at ageing audiences to other genres, then we might as well write off the classical repertoire too. Oh, and racquet sports, and, of course, this site.
Kaisfatdad says
Nice to see you here, Cheshire! It feels like it’s been a while but maybe I have just not been paying attention.
retropath2 says
Yay, at last! Come and bolster the folkie demographic, Mr C.
Have some Spiro!
thecheshirecat says
Shit. Did I go and say that out loud?
Colin H says
Interesting perspective, Chesh – so maybe Ian Anderson’s got it all wrong? Or at least, maybe his experience doesn’t hold for the whole of England?
retropath2 says
Reading all these jottings leaves me with but one conclusion: with the AW demographic loaded, as we know it is, toward the top, we are the problem, not the solution. AW trumpets the excellence of, say, Leveret and Spiro, with tickets available etc. AWistas roll up and the average age of the audience doubles.
Colin H says
You’re saying, really, it’s all Foxy’s fault – the whole darned thing? Hmmm… you might be right… 🙂
Vulpes Vulpes says
*burns spare tickets, considers disguise for own and wife’s attendance*
retropath2 says
He he, worry not, old pal, I’m taking my zimmer aong to see them in March.
Kaisfatdad says
I really enjoyed Colin’s hilarious description of the “anthropological” visit to that folk club, not to mention the other accounts of evenings at this most British of institutions. It could have been a sketch from the League of Gentlemen.
Unchanged and reliably out of tune since the days of Rambling Syd Rumpo!
Kaisfatdad says
I was curious about how long the great English folk club has existed. They began post WW2. The skiffle movement gave them their heyday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_club
Colin H says
Not so. The peak for folk clubs was in the middle 60s during what was frequently described in Melody Maker as ‘the folk boom’. From memory, there were believed to be over 600 folk clubs across England – and in some areas, like Manchester, it was posible for artists to literally do a tour of the city – several dates at different clubs every night of the week. In Scotland, some popular local artists, like Hamish Imlach and Archie Fisher, barely ever needed to go south of the border, despite having national record deals.
There was only a handful of folk music venues pre-1960 – outposts around Britain. Without reading the wikipedia thing, these included Ewan MacColl’s Ballads & Blues in London, the Campbells club in Birmingham, the Spinners club in Liverpool, one in Glasgow, the Topic in Bradford, the Troubadour in Earl’s Court and one or two others.
Folk was actually ‘cool’ in the mid 60s – I recall (from research, not from being there) one quote at the time that ‘folk is for listening, pop is for dancing’. This is often backed up if one looks at regional newspaper ads for the period – there’ll be columns for Cinema, Cabaret, Jazz, Dancing etc. but the only ‘concerts’ are orchestral events. The likes of the Who et al. will be listed under ‘Dancing’. Folk artists would have their own section in the ads or fall under ‘Jazz’ or something else. Certainly, in Melody Maker in the mid 60s there was a folk music ads section distinct from all other club ads (those club ads having begun as jazz ads but gradually morphing into jazz, blues, rock, pop etc.
There are only a few surviving clips of folk clubs in Britain in the early to mid 60s, and a few I know of aren’t on YouTube currently. Here are the Watersons in 1966 at their ‘Folk Union One’ (from 2:40 on) in Hull in 1966:
And here’s Frankie Armstrong in a folk club in 1983:
NigelT says
Absolutely right Mr. H, and I was there! Folk was hugely popular in the mid 60s through the influence of Dylan, Donovan, Joan Baez and the like, which led to the emergence of artists like Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourne etc, and then bands like Pentangle and Fairport. Paul Simon (with Art) was a huge influence. Les Cousins in London was very popular and a hotbed of talent. Also, before this, in the late 50s/early 60s, there were always folk groups in chunky sweaters on TV, the Springfields, Peter Paul & Mary, the Kingston trio, were on the radio singing what now sounds very commercial and MOR but was introducing audiences to a different kind of music.
Colin H says
The ‘folk boom’, as far as the MM was concerned, began with what they termed ‘Peter, Paul & Mary-mania’ – as the dreary trio arrived in England at the end of 1963. It’s impossible now to appreciate how cutting edge they appeared to be at that time.
Davy Graham had been bubbling underground from the late 50s, a prodigy without yet a genre to fit into, floating around Soho coffee bars and the like. Here he is in Ken Russell’s 1959 ‘Monitor’ film ‘The Guitar Craze’:
And here in the 1963 film ‘The Servant, in a staged Soho restaurant scene – but in keeping with the largely pre-folk club-era gigs he was playing:
Jansch was another prodigy who lucked into finding a place called the Howff in Edinburgh – a very early 60s bohemian place founded by Roy Guest, who went on to become a key figure in agenting in London in the later 60s – in which to develop his artistry. These are accidents of history, really – there was almost nowhere else like the Howff in Britain at that time. When he came down to London to live in 1963 he was already fully developed as an artist. He owed little or nothing to Bob Dylan, despite press assumptions at that time.
mikethep says
If another Mr I-Was-There can chip in at this point, Peter, Paul & Mary were never remotely cutting edge, although they did carry a slight whiff of Greenwich Village about them. Their role in life was to make Dylan songs tolerable to people like my mum.
While there was definitely a folk boom in the 60s, and people like Jansch, Renbourne, Graham et al were hugely popular, there was always a danger that folk clubs would be overwhelmed by beards and fishermen’s sweaters at any moment. I tended to steer clear of them unless they featured proper American blues artists. Champion Jack Dupree was a fixture at the folk club upstairs at the Blue Boar in Southend – I saw him often.
Badlands says
Beards, Fishermans Sweaters and Pint Mugs – and that was just the women !
Kaisfatdad says
It makes a lot of sense that the 60s should have been the golden age for UK folk clubs. Several formidable talents on the rise, not least Paul Simon, who had a sabbatical in London in the mid 60s.
Here’s a marvellous piece by Stuart Penney (remember him!) about Soho folk club Les Cousins that several of you may have read before.
https://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/music/les-cousins-london-folk-music
Reading about those early folk clubs, my thoughts turned to Kingsley Amis and his hilarious novel, Lucky Jim. Just the sort of place Jim Dixon would go to.
I found nothing on that topic, but I did find this excellent piece on Larkin and Amis.
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2012/10/amis-and-larkin-hate-cold-climate
A niche interest? It is indeed.
Colin H says
I have a book with a lot of info on the history of British folk clubs… and there’s a very good oral history on Faber by a chap whose name escapes me at the mo…
On a bit of a tangent, I’ve just noticed that a fellow called Kevin has started a Martin Carthy broadcast archive project, as of December past. Here’s an installment from 1966 – one of a series of shows called ‘Folk Song Cellar’, recorded for the BBC at a made-for-the-purpose ‘folk club’ at Cecil Sharp House in 1966. Most or all of these survive at source (the recent Anne Briggs vinyl EP ‘Four Songs’ 3/4 derives from her appearance on it). This Carthy set comes from different off-air sources, presented by Robin Hall (a popular ‘TV folk singer’ at the time, from appearances on topical news/magazine shows):
NigelT says
Robin Hall and Jimmy MacGregor were on BBC’s ‘Tonight’ show regularly. As I implied above, people like them and the Spinners were a way into folk for many of us.
Colin H says
If you haven’t read Dazzling Stranger, Nigel, I think you’d enjoy it. Robin & Jimmie (who spelt his forname that way and, more weirdly, spelt his surname ‘Macgregor’ – which just looks wrong…) first appeared on ‘Tonight’ singing ‘Football Crazy’ (in 1960, from memory) – a song they had learnt from Irish one-off Seamus Ennis. Seamus only recorded it commercially in 1962 or thereabouts, on a themed various-artists folk album for Decca. Here’s both:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY5RdjDym4o
Jorrox says
Jimmie played on the Seamus Ennis version. The album was A Jug Of Punch on HMV in 1960. A couple of months later Jimmie repeated the same arrangement and put a kilt on the lyrics for his version with Robin. The song was an broadside but I don’t have the source to hand.
https://www.discogs.com/Various-A-Jug-Of-Punch/release/5420909
Kaisfatdad says
As this perceptive obituary explains, due to their TV appearances, Robin Hall and Jimmie MacGregor were household names in the 60s and beyond. The recorded over 20 albums together. Jansch and Renbourne might have been the darlings of curmudgeons-to-be of the AW, but it was Robin and Jimmie that were the celebrities.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituaries-robin-hall-1186804.html
Kaisfatdad says
In his pink suit and cravats, somehow Robin Hall can’t have really fitted in with the folk crowd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY5RdjDym4o
And once the Fairports, Pentangle and their ilk had got into their stride, Hall and his Highland Oats, must have seemed very passé.
Colin H says
It was Hall over bar the shouting…
retropath2 says
More news from Lichfield Arts: they have solved the audience older than the performers conundrum and booked Fairport to play. (Having said, it is still going to be a close shave, judging by the audience for the cumulatively even older Dylan Project recently……..)
chilli ray virus says
I play melodeon for a mixed morris side here in Sydney. Of the twenty or so regular dancers in the side all but 4 are in their twenties or at most early thirties. Some are teenagers or thereabouts and I regularly get invited to 21st birthdays as a result. They are all steeped in folk and know their Watersons, Nic Jones, Albions, Cooper family and the rest. They are exceptional I know but it gives me hope.
https://www.facebook.com/blackjoakmorris/
David Kendal says
Are the teenage dancers known as Morris Minors?
Moose the Mooche says
No-one’s ever seen what they mean, from the age of n-n-n-n-thirteen
retropath2 says
Astonishing and uplifting: unusual to see a morris man under 60 in UK. The only exception seems to be the Moulton side in Northants, who also seem to supply most of the melodeon players to english folk bands of the last 30 years. (And appear on stage as Ashley Hutching’s Morris On live dancing side.)
NigelT says
Hmm…I’m not so sure. Sidmouth Folk Week is very dance oriented (that’s how it started apparently before song was incorporated) and you see loads of young people in Morris groups around the town. I have been to one or two dance sessions as well and they are full of twentysomethings, so this must be going on somewhere the rest of the year..?
Mike_H says
When I (rarely in recent years) see Morris sides perform in our high street (imported, there are no local sides) they are generally a spread of ages between early 20s and mid-50s, the eldest invariably being the ones calling the dances and/or trying to get money from passers-by into a bucket.
minibreakfast says
My sister and her new husband who are in their 30s and 40s are both members of various morris and molly dancing sides, and their ages reflect the membership as a whole.
They got married at Folk East last summer.
Moose the Mooche says
Molly dancing….? Isn’t that something a poverty-stricken young fellow could be reduced to in Georgian London?
minibreakfast says
I think it’s the kind involving black face paint and big sticks.
Moose the Mooche says
You’re my wife now Dave!
Badlands says
I love the music, but can’t stand the people. Most of the clubs in this part of West Midlands/Warwickshire seem to be run by/for a cabal that has been around even before I moved up here in the late 1970s. Frankly I wish they’d piss off. Most of the sessions and also the open-mic sessions seem to be cliques. Once again, basically Local Heroes playing to their mates.
What is killing live folk music is both the demographic, and the holier-than-thou, stick-in-the-mud attitude of the participants. I mainly play electric music these days. Would love to enjoy live acoustic stuff, but it’s so dispiriting.