Posted on 12/05/2001 5:42:52 PM PST by dighton
A MINISTER whose job is to promote culture and the arts is facing the music today after insulting the county most associated with England’s centuries-old folk music tradition.
Kim Howells, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said the idea of listening to Somerset folk singers was his idea of hell. His remark followed a question about restrictions on the numbers of musicians permitted to play together in licensed premises.
Somerset played a leading part in English folk music through out the last century, beginning with the work of Cecil Sharp, founder of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Later the tradition continued with bands such as The Wurzels, the Western Country Dance Band and the Yetties.
Sharp spent most of his career in Somerset researching the origins of its folk music. He rediscovered much of the area’s traditional music that was played in the 17th and 18th centuries, which was already on the verge of being lost and forgotten in the early 1900s.
He first watched Morris men perform in the county in 1895 and shortly afterwards began his life’s work collecting and documenting the dances. Bands such as Roots Quartet continue to play Sharp’s songs to audiences across the county and have recently produced a CD of music he collected.
Wally Dent, agent for The Wurzels, said: “It’s disgusting that someone in such a role as Dr Howells should make such inappropriate and ill-informed remarks. I suggest he spends a little more time around this area and learns about its musical traditions.”
Martin Carthy, the guitarist and singer regarded as one of the most influential figures in English folk music, whose admirers are said to include Bob Dylan, said: “Musicians have a tough enough time without a prat like that.” Hamish Birchall, a folk drummer, said: “If that’s a joke, it’s a very bad joke, particularly coming from a culture minister.”
Somerset is also the home to music festivals such as Glastonbury, while P.J. Harvey, who was last week voted the greatest female rock and pop artist all time, is the daughter of a Dorset farmer.
Ian Smith, organiser of the Musicians’ Union’s folk, roots and traditional music section, said he believed that the folk and acoustic world has never been bigger.
In the Commons exchange David Heath, Liberal Democrat MP for Somerton and Frome, said: “Is it not ridiculous that, in the unlikely event of Michael Jackson and Madonna teaming up to do a gig down the local pub, they could do so, yet three people singing Somerset folk songs would not be able to do so?” It is a criminal offence for more than two to play together in pubs and restaurants, which means that a quiet jazz piano trio or a string quartet are barred while karaoke or discos are permitted.
Dr Howells was quick to respond to Mr Heath: “For a simple urban boy such as me, the idea of listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell,” he said.
Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.
I won't even ask...
I personally cannot stand bluegrass music or the American 'folk' music or any 'folk' music.
Different strokes, I guess.
Bob Dylan, after going electric at Newport.
William Hogarth, The Enraged Musician, 1741.
(Brings to mind a story I was once told about a large concert venue. Supposedly there are two doors in the back where the talent enters - one is marked MUSICIANS and the other DRUMMERS).
I'll second that. (It did mine.)
It comes from the word 'violer' which means 'to fiddle'.
Classic violinists once laughed at fiddlers because they would hold
their violins under their chins, instead of the more accepted way, on the shoulder.
At first I thought that it was because the place is so small, but there's another place down the street barely half their size who appears to have no band member limit (then again they've been known to sell beer to high-school-age kids) I don't get it.
IIRC, it's some sort of stupid union work law ... if you want to have more than two people, you have to pay for a more expensive business license, or guarantee an obscene amount of money to the musicians, or something like that.
Whoa, slow down a little there.
I absolutely love some of the lyrics I have heard in various types of folk music. It is life in a nutshell. And there are some very good harmonies. I just don't like the 'vibe', if you will.
And before you accuse anyone of being 'bought and paid for by multinational corporations surfing waves of manufactured popularity', let me tell you that the music in my head is the best music in the world. (No I'm not smoking weed right now, either.)
Sometimes I isolate myself from the media and popular music so I can clear my head out for the 'original?' music that comes to me.
Folk music to me is kind of like 'dance music' of today, I can appreciate where it is coming from, but I'm not going to go and buy the CDs.
(Thomas) Hardy's love of the musical folk of Dorset is beautifully illustrated by this quote from 'Under The Greenwood Tree':
Your brass man is a rafting dog, well and good,
Your reed man is dab hand at stirring ye, well and good,
Your drum man is a rare bowel shaker, good again,
But I don't care who hears me say it
Nothing can spake to your heart with the sweetness of a man of strings
Er, a "rare bowel shaker"? Maybe they should look elsewhere for inspiration.
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