the wacky world of FOLK revivalists

the IRON LAW OF REVIVALISM  is that the thing being revived in fact never existed

I don’t know how different our Maritime Canada ancestors from a few centuries back really were compared to us  —-but the original revivalists in the Folk movement didn’t help much.

They seemed to indicate that all our Maritime ancestors either went to dances where fast instrumental tunes were silently danced to all night or people sat silently at home and listened to an old fellow slowly sing very long ballads accapella style.

Nothing at all like our current era where people in very different societies all over the world prefer to listen to songs that they can also dance to.

Folk collectors seem to have divided into two groups : those who were mostly interested in the texts of old ballads still surviving among rural people : they often couldn’t be bothered to collect their melodies let alone ask if they ever had a musical accompaniment.

In fact we do know ballad broadsides were generally sold as texts only — but with the explicit instructions that they were to sung to this or that well known hit tune‘s melody and meter.

Well known hit tunes we know were frequently performed with voice and instruments in more theatre like settings.

Other collectors - often ‘sidemen’ performers - set about collecting old instrumental ( aka sidemen’s ) tunes they could add to their personal repertoire and also make available to others of a like mind.

Many of those tunes which today only known as fast instrumental dance tunes, we now realize often began as slightly slower vocal airs.

So in the past as today, many tunes were both danced to and sung to, often together if people could arrange for it.

“Folk Singers” and ‘Trad Musicians” distort this simple fact because these two movements tend to attract ultra extroverts or ultra introverts.

The ultra extroverts love to hold the stage and raise their voices to the rafters : they write new ‘folk’ songs that focus on the words over melody or accompaniment.

The ultra introverts move to the Trad music circles : they bury themselves in large groups of fellow introverts who silently play instrumentals all evening, barely saying a word or even lift their eyes from their fretboards.

(I exaggerate but you get my drift...)

East Coast Music newly composed and played in the Maritimes today usually is capable of being sung and danced to - fair enough. But they often feel this method isn’t fully authentic to our treasured- honoured past.

Bull feathers !

What our “East Coast Music” needs is a heartfelt statement from the trad folk purists that the Maritime music of the past was also ‘sung and danced to’ as well...