HI L L IN SUNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PRODUCTION NOTE

University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign Library

Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007.

umber 24 March 20, 1965

D.K. WILGUS TO SPEAK HERE APRIL FIRST -. 4

APR 19Seminar Chairman April Appelquist has announced the Campus Folksong. ub's

irst public folklore lecture for 1965. D.K. Wilgus, from UCLA's CenterP ietetudy of Comparative Folklore and Mythology, will appear on the Urbana campus onhursday evening, April 1, as a guest of the Club and the Humanities Division.

is topic is: "The Commercialization of Folk Music," (100 Gregory Hall, 8 p.m.).

Professor Wilgus is known as a leading academic student of hillbilly music.

is interest dates from his undergraduate days at Ohio State, from which he

raduated in 1949. He was one of the first folklorists to realize that hillbilly

usic is a legitimate part of folksong tradition, and he has built his reputation

n his profound understanding of southern Appalachian musical styles. It is

nteresting to note that from 1950 to 1960 Dr. Wilgus was on the faculty of

estern Kentucky State College, an institution well situated geographically to

erve as a point for collecting so much of the music on which modern Americancholars depend. An interest in hillbilly music implies an interest in commercial

ecordings, so it is no mystery why Wilgus is reputed to own one of the finest

lollections of such discs in existence.

Professor Wilgus also serves the cause of traditional music studies in many

)ther ways, such as holding numerous posts in the American Folklore Society. He

,s presently the record-review editor of the Journal of American Folklore. Clubembers realize the help he has given this organization through his critiques

>f our recordings. He is the treasurer of the John Edwards Memorial Foundation

aid a former editor of the Kentucky Folklore Record. Undergraduate students in

)articular are fans of Dr. Wilgus, because of the ease of manner and the clarity

if thought which he brings to his lectures and discussions. At the same time,

•is reputation as a singer and instrumentalist renders him authoritative on

roblems of style which cannot be handled adequately through research alone.

CURRENT MARCH EVENTS

March 25, 8 PM, University Forum, The Auditorium

ALAN LOMAX, "FOLKSONG AROUND THE WORLD"

March 21, 8 PM, Club Membership Concert, 141 Commerce

DBRAY* BROTHERS BLUEGRASS CONCERT

THE CAMPUS FOLKSONG CLUB presents

oUeo rassQOOWITH THEOGO

- - m

- - - -

U (C)- I.)

- - - a - -

DUTIES141 COMMERCE BUILDlNG~Saturday© March 27@~8pm

members free * new members welcome

ROBERT PETE WILLIAMS

The word "sad" is a hard one to define. It can stand for any one of a dozenother adjectives, such as unfortunate, unjust, pathetic, tragic, dreary, etc., andeach one of these words can be used to describe whole complexes of involved mentaland psychic states. It comes as no surprise, then, when we discover that mostpeople think that the blues are "sad" and that, because they are "sad" many peoplestay away from blues and blues artists; these people feel that listening to theblues will make them come away from their concert feeling rotten.

Robert Pete Williams is an excellent place for the listener to start overcomingthis semantic hurdle. For his blues, and the blues-related tales and songs withwhich he supplements his performances, are not "sad" in any depressing sense. Hetakes situations which are "sad" and renders them almost maddeningly delectable bya combination of musical and narrative techniques which prove him to be a masterof the blues idiom. The most patent technique is Williams' talent for keeping upa running tension between form and content. His guitar work is a haunting,dirge-like succession of beats and drones, but above this he imposes his voice andhis words, which are wry, satiric, chuckling, and, like almost all blues, full ofpuns and allusions. This contrast between what is and what ought to be keeps thelistener involved with the music and the musician. It makes listening an importantand compelling experience.

Tension and contrast dominate Williams' work at every step. His most personalachievement is his beat and his droning discords--repetitive yet always new. Itis an achievement of a high order when a performer can take a very basic set ofpatterns and repeat them almost endlessly and alter them very sparingly, yet derivefrom them a vast set of musical impressions and then convey these impressionssuccessfully to his audience. The last is the acid test of Williams' talent.Merely using the tension between "sad" guitar picking and humorous word is not avictory in itself; it is a device. The catalyst needed is art--in the hands of acapable artists. Williams proved that he is just the artist who can get away with it.

Williams' talent did not escape the 200 or so Club members who listened to himon the 12th of February. It did not escape those 80 members who joined the Clubat the door to hear him. He achieved a rare victory in communicating with hisaudience. There is, I would suspect, some definite material now available for ablues-appreciation movement in Urbana. Some of the members of the audience weremoved to tears by Williams' performance. Yet all of them were moved to laughterby his rendition of "The Ugly Blues," the lament of a man who looks in the mirrorand finds that he cannot stand himself. An artist who can cover such a range ofemotions has surely carved himself an empire in the world of music, and Williamscan now stand assuredly as lord of his own special fief.

That territory which he occupies and commands is a little world of the down-and-out man who not only has not lost the ability to laugh, but who has elevatedthat talent into his number-one weapon and who has set it to music besides.Williams' in this respect reminds me of those Scottish bawdy ballads which take abeautiful, haunting melody and scale--and then mix it with an earthy, unabashedlysexual story told in clear-cut descriptive terms or in wit-stricken puns of almostdevastating power: you open with a refined and delicate motif that suggest no-bility at every note--then, suddenly, you're rolling in the hay playing slap-and-tickle with the upstairs maid and calling all the players and all the moves bytheir proper names. The contrast leads to a great and satisfying demolition.

Williams has all the tools of the Compleat Blues Singer--the shadowy past ofpoverty, color, discrimination, crime, sexual misadventure, and artistic sensitivity.But he adds something more--real creative and interpretive artistic power. He joinshis voice, his guitar, his glands, and produces art that immediately grips anaudience and compels it to participate. It is for this that he will be rememberedby our Club, and it is his talent which will ultimately lead to the interest inblues which our Club has for so long tried to cultivate.

-- F. K. Plous, Jr.

SONGS FROM SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS AND POPULARSONGS OF SHAKESPEARE'S TIME

(Tom Kines, ed., N.Y.: Oak Publications, 1964, 4p2.b5)

Songs From Shakespeare's Plays and Popular Songs of Shakespeare's Time isa songbook which can tempt even the most frugal of folksingers. Many of us havelearned the wisdom of not buying songbooks, because they often contain not freshairs but pages of overworked popular folksongs. The collection worth our moneyseems rare.

This new book is both a relief and a fancy--for several reasons. The songsare full of delight and flavor and are not widely known; they constitute afascinating reminder of the age of Shakespeare; the authenticity of the songs isguarded by care in presentation; and the book is of convenient and useful size.One of the most beautiful songs included is Thomas Ford's "Since first I sawyour face," from the year 1607, a love song with an elegantly simple melody andperfect lyrics.

Editor Tom Kines has written a thoughtful introduction, explaining his aimsand procedures in the selection of the songs. He suggests that the reader trythe tunes with their harmonies as given, in order to acquire a taste for theharmonies of Shakespeare's time. The suggestion is an intelligent and tastefulapproach toward full appreciation of any type of music from outside our immediateculture, and it establishes Mr. Kines as a wise and dedicated patron of theaesthetic in music.

With this book you will find your love of folk music easing you into a loveof Shakespeare and the Shakespearean age.

--John C. Munday, Jr.

ROBERT PETE WILLIAMS' "JESSE JAMES"

On the weekend of February 12-1l, I visited the University of Illinois tohear a concert by Robert Pete Williams. It was a good concert; I had never heardhim tell stories before, and I liked the way he laughed. I stayed with ArchieGreen and his family, and on Saturday Robert Pet and two boys from the U. of I.came for lunch. After lunch Robert Pete played a couple of songs for Mrs. Green,as she had not been able to go to the concert: among them was a new one we hadnever heard called "Jesse James." It was a blues song, but it told fragments ofa story too. Archie called it a blues-ballad.

Jesse James, in the song, is "the baddest man that I know." Archie askedRobert Pete later in Hitler wasn't "badder," but Robert Pete made a distinctionbetween war men and bad men. When asked why he wrote the song, he said that hewas just thinking about bad men. He named several outlaws besides Jesse James--Sam Bass, John Dillenger--but said that Jesse James just seemed to be the best oneto write a song about. Robert Pete described to us how he felt; he was sittingalone, just thinking about bad men and particularly Jesse James, so he began topick out chords on his guitar and to sing about it, to get it off his mind. "Oooh,Jesse James; Oooh, he's the baddest man that I know." It sounded like a real bluesbeginning, as he began singing "Oooh" and then adding words.

Apparently he learned of Jesse James' life almost entirely from a movie he sawsome years before he wrote the song, though he had heard of the outlaw as a childfrom his father. He described several scenes from the movie very vividly, actingthem out as he told the story. He told us how Jesse James shot his mother byac1ciden tr + YCin to kill aman who w.Tlafs fi hC i wh hi bT.rToher From tbTn -n -La, 4" J .Lt. o ... *. 4,. *V IS'S WV .he4 5n o.n

Jesse and his brother became outlaws. The way in which Jesse died seemed to impressWilliams very much, and he showed us in detail what happened. Jesse was hanging apicture of his mother above the mantle--here Robert Pete picked up a magazine witha picture on the cover, looked at it lovingly, and placed it on the wall above thefireplace, then took it down to look at it again. He held it delicately; hismovements were almost feminine as he showed us how much Jesse loved this memory.Jesse wanted to hang it high on the wall, so he stood on a stool--and Robert Petereached up, standing on his toes, to show us how high. A friend of Jesse's wanted

to shoot him and appeared in the doorway behind him with a gun. The friend's handwhich held the gun was shaking so hard that he had to steady it with the otherbefore he could shoot--Robert Pete acted this out also, his face taut and deter-

mined, yet doubtful and frightened at the same time.

Robert Pete was rather bitter about Jesse's friend shooting the outlaw. After

singing the song once more he told us how he could get one of Archie's friends to

beat up Archie if the friend were bribed. As another example of how your friends

can do you wrong, he told us how Governor Huey Long (Robert Pete comes fromLouisana), was killed by one of his friends. Long had even taken precautions to

have only his friends near him.

We taped "Jesse James" and a conversation with Williams just before he left.

I thought the song and its origin were interesting, particularly as Robert Pete

had never heard the traditional outlaw ballad. His own song was old in style--blues--but modern in development since it stemmed from a recent movie.

--Margie KirkhamIndiana University

"Jesse James" transcribed by Bruce Hector from a tape by John Schmidt, 2/13/65.

Oh, that bad man Jesse James,He's that baddest man I know,That bad man, bad man Jesse James.Oh Jesse James, he's the baddest man that I know.

Ohh, Jesse James,He's the baddest man I know,That bad man, that bad man Jesse James.

Oh, he killed him a manAnd robbed a passenger train,That bad man Jesse James.

Oh, why he took to bad,Jesse's mother got killedBy low-down railroad man,Causing poor Jesse James to get bad.

Ooh, he got rough,Poor Jesse James, Frank too.Well, he got the gunAnd to the forest did he to,Jesse James, Jesse James,Oh, bad Jesse James...Jesse James.

Oh, then they traced himTrying to run poor Jesse James down.Jesse James...Jesse James.

Oh, its lots of people think that poor Jesse's dead,But you just can't ever tell 'bout that bad man Jesse James.Well, they never did captureThat bad man Jesse James.

Well, after everything settled Jesse James came out.Oh, went to some of his friends house,Looking at his mother's picture upon the mantle piece,That bad man Jesse James.

Hmmm, then I saw one of his own dear friendsTaking poor Jesse James life.Jesse James...Jesse James

A fascinating element in folksong scholarship is the realization that our own freshdiscoveries are frequently based on earlier research and formulation. I learnedthe term blues-ballad from D.K. Wilgus some five years ago on a field trip toCelina, Tennessee, while he was searching for several local murder ballads "lost"in a Negro-Indian mountain colony. In Sing Out (January, 1965, page 65) Wilgusindicated his surprise on finding that he had not coined the term, but that it hadappeared in print as early as 1925: Dorothy Scarborough, On the Trail of NegroFolksongs, Harvard University Press. Miss Scarborough attributed "blues" balladto W.C. Handy in his identification of "Loveless Love--Careless Love" (page 266).Can any reader of Autoharp find earlier usages of blues-ballad?

-- Archie Green

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE RISE IN POPULARITYOF FOLK MUSIC IN BRITAIN

The article below is the revised text of a paper presented at a Campus FolksongClub Seminar on April 25, 1964. The seminar involved taped examples whichillustrated the talk. A tape of the talk and its musical examples is depositedin our Club tape collection. Brian Goodey, the author of this paper, is agraduate of the University of Nottingham and is at present an assistant in theDepartment of Geography at Indiana University.

In adopting this title I hope to make it clear that statements to followare not only a personal view but are also unsupported by the written word or byreference to other persons. My experience on the fringe of folk music hasspanned the last eight years and coincides approximately with the period whichhas come to be known as the "revival". My introduction to folk music stemsfrom skiffle which is, itself, a product of an earlier revival--that of NewOrleans Jazz. In 1961, Ewan MacColl wrote:

It is sometimes easy to forget that the popular revival offolksong in Britain is little more than ten years old. Evenbefore this, of course, there were enthusiasts committed tothe task of winning popular recognition for traditional musicand folksong. It was the skiffle movement, however, whichfinally broke down the barrier of public indifference and, asa result, we are now witnessing an intensive bout of popularmusic-making, the like of which has not been seen in theseislands since Elizabethan times. 1

Skiffle and the Traditional Jazz Revival

Skiffle provides a convenient starting point for a discussion which willindicate some of the themes of songs, singers, clubs, and recordings in Britain.One recording, Lonnie Donegan's Rock Island Line is usually assumed to be thebeginning of the "skiffle era" and though there were groups singing in Londonjazz club intermissions prior to its release, this recording probably deservesthe pioneer status. Tony Donegan (the name "Lonnie" was, I believe.. borrowedfrom Lonnie Johnson) was banjoist with Chris Barber's Jazz Band and a skifflesession was included in a 1953 Royal Festival Hall Concert given by this group-As I recollect, Digging My Potatoes, Rock Island Line, and John Henry were thethree numbers performed by a group consisting of guitar, bass, and washboardwith the addition of piano on one number. The Glasgwegian-Tennessee accentheard hardly did justice to the Negro material used, nevertheless a remake ofRock Island Line was produced in the Decca studio and it was this take whichprecipitated the first major "fad" in British popular music.

Traditional jazz, later abbreviated to "trad", or as the purists wouldhave it, "New Orleans Jazz", had become very popular in the late forties andearly fifties, and while modern jazz was late to be accepted there had been aroyally patronized traditional jazz concert at the Festival Hall in 1951 aspart of the Festival of Britain celebrations. 2 The bands performing were a

fair cross-section of the jazz revival.3 Front-lines generally comprised atrumpet, trombone, and clarinet backed by a banjo, bass and drums, with theaddition of the piano or the duplication of front line instruments on somenumbers. At this time material was derived largely from recordings availablefrom America and hence was limited to early jazz numbers, standards, or theoccasional "copycat" performance of Bunk Johnson or George Lewis material.hFeatures outlined above appeared in the skiffle phase of the folk music revival.To succeed, groups simply had to consist of two or three--"three chord trick"guitarists, a tub bass, and washboard. Such a line-up became sacred, andthough seldom the instrumentation of major recording groups, any deviation fromthis norm was regarded as heretical. The same was true of material. Theamateur or semi-professional group slavishly copied records released by theprofessionals or of the better-known American singers such as Leadbelly andBroonzy. One feature of the skiffle phase which was not repeated in the jazzrevival was the fact that skiffle was uniquely British--the closest parallelsto the sound in America were the recent jug-bands which, themselves bore littleresemblance to the early jug or washboard groups.

Skiffle Groups

Skiffle was possibly the first musical style to receive immediate attentionfrom the large British recording companies--a dance called the "Creep" wasvery popular in the early fifties but was spread via the dance halls ratherthan by records. Although this development came in the days when the 78 rpmshellac disc was still the standard teenage purchase, a large market emergedafter the style had been exposed on the BBC's5 "Skiffle Club" and "Guitar Club"radio programmes, and later on the TV's "pop" package, "Six Five Special".Exposure led to a snowball effect with groups forming at schools and at youthand factory clubs--there was no shortage of work with clubs in urban suburbsopening specially to house them.

These Clubs attempted to copy the enforced poverty of the early jazzclubs and stimulated the coffee bar atmosphere which has persisted throughlater turns of teenage musical fancy. Most of the groups should not be includedin any credit we are to give to skiffle in creating urban interest in the folk--song. Many amateurs were so derivative as to be ignorant of the fact thatnumbers performed ever originated in America. Many, performers, too, were solelyinterested in commercial propositions and introduced fancy garb and electricalequipment as the public taste appeared to dictate. Such "playing to the crowd"was to occur later in the jazz revival; for example, the bowler-hatted "Mr.Acker" Bilk was once a George Lewis devotee. Perhaps the most important groupsin spreading American material were those which were formed within jazz bands--notably those of Ken Colyer and Chris Barber.

The jazz band skiffle intermission died much more slowly than did thecommercial groups who relied on the whims of the mass teenage market ratherthan the jazz appreciator. When Donegan broke from Barber to form his owngroup, Barber replaced him with Johnny Duncan who came from Tennessee. Duncanplayed acceptable mandoline and introduced the white element into a stylewhich had used mainly Negro material. Duncan's high pitched voice in suchnumbers as Mama Ain't Dead and Linin' the Track was not appreciated by audiencesto whom the supposedly essential Negro sound of revival jazz--and hence ofskiffle music--was most important. Johnny Duncan, although they did not realizeit at the time, was for many an introduction to bluegrass style; he had a

background of Appalachian sacred and dance music, the influences of which werelater to appear in his "Bluegrass Band" recordings. His most popular recordwas Footprints in the Snow (a Carter family song) and these later recordingsemployed a fiddle.

Another group which employed a fiddle and the last to be mentioned, wasthe "City Ramblers"--the suffix "Skiffle Group" or "Spasm Band" being addeddepending on the nature of the booking club. Russell Quaye, a teacher andartist, had been singing for some years previous to the time that he assembledhis band. The line-up included Quaye on quatro and kazoo together with fromthree to six persons playing guitars, washboard, harmonica, trumpet-mouthpiece,tub bass, fiddle, and mandoline. They recorded for the Topic (Worker's MusicAssociation) lable and they made real efforts to uncover songs from variedwritten and oral sources and not from recordings as so many other groups haddone. The range of instruments used meant that the early jazz numbers (SisterKate and Boodle-am-shake) and those associated with the Chicago washboard bandscould be included in programs with English traditional songs, union songs,calypsos and music from other European traditions. Quaye's group, which hasfunctioned spasmodically since the days when it had its headquarters in theSkiffle Cellar in Soho, showed the range of material available, the range ofpresentation possible and at the same time, managed to draw a large body ofsupport.

I have dwelt on skiffle for though it is often referred to, little has beenwritten on it in America. Moreover, Brian Bird's book Skiffle, published inBritain, was written at a time when the movement could not be placed in correcthistorical perspective.

The Rise of Popular Folk Music

Towards the end of the era an extended-play record appeared by "TheRamblers" on the Decca lable. The personnel included Ewan MacColl, Alan Lomax,Peggy Seeger, Isla Cameron, John Cole (a harmonica player who appears onMacColl and A.L. Lloyd discs issued over here), Bruce Turner on clarinet, andJim Bray on bass. The latter two musicians were members of the HumphreyLyttelton Band, a pioneer traditional jazz group which had turned by then tothe mainstream style. Turner was actually deputising for Sandy Brown, anotherjazz clarinetist who appears on Johnny Duncan and Jack Elliott albums. Therecording, and later song booklet, by this group included traditional materialscollected by MacColl and Lomax ("When I Was Single") as well as songs writtenby them ("Oh Lula" "Hard Case" and "Dirty Old Town").

The Ramblers were not a club performing group, but the skiffle era didallow a number of singers to develop. Many of the more commerical figures lat rturned to popular music forms ce.g., Adam Faith= but a few concentrated on sing-ing in the folk idiom. The recording companies, having been made aware of themarket for folk material, began issuing American recordings by many of the morepopular singers. Folkways albums began to filter on to the collectors' shelvesand more material became available for copying. One important group of thisperiod included Jimmie McGregor (guitar and mandoline) Robin Hall, Steve Benbowand Roy Guest (guitar/vocals). Their material was initially drawn from fairlypopular fields but later the Scottish element, McGregor and Hall, who had beenwith Quaye, began to introduce Glasgow street songs; gradually each performerbuilt up a large repertoire and group numbers became fewer.

At this time folksong clubs were few and the most important part of theLondon scene was Royal Festival Hall or suburban Town Hall Concerts. Castingmy mind back I can remember Dominic Behan, brother of Brendan, Roy Guestreading Dylan Thomas, Robin Hall reading and singing Burns, Spanish flamencoand Elizabethen ballads--all included in Festival Hall concerts.

Another major feature of the scene were the Saturday night "hoots" atthe Ballads and Blues Club in Soho Square. Here, MacColl, Peggy Seeger, Lloyd,Fitzroy Coleman (who had appeared on experimental recordings of the Grant-Lyttelton Paseo Band), Steve Benbow, visitors from the provinces, and audienceall took the floor. With the proliferation of artists in recent years togetherwith a certain degree of ethnic-folknick splitting, such informal gatheringsdo not seem to occur any more. The club calendar column of the MELODY MAKER,a musical newspaper cross between BILLBOARD and DOWNBEAT would have a few folkclub advertisements scattered among the mass of jazz clubs. Alexis Korner(guitar) and Cyril Davies (harmonica/vocals) had a weekly session called "Bluesat the Roundhouse". Kornpr is an expert on the blues, a member of the earlyColyer skiffle group, and host to the occasional blues visitors to London.In 1963 Korner founded a "rhythm and blues" band known as Blues Inc. whichrelied heavily on Muddy Waters material and was the first of several bands toplay the Marquee jazz club in London. The intermission group on my firstvisit to the club was the "Rolling Stones" who still rely heavily on the earlyR. and B. singers such as Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley.

The growth of clubs led to certain degree of commercialization. The jazzclubs had folk sessions on Sunday afternoons; one group, "The Thames-SideThree", produced a Weavers-like sound but also allowed each member to branchout into his own field. Redd Sullivan, ex-merchant seaman, drew his materialfrom the sea, clater to appear with Korner's band=. In contrast "Long" JohnBaldry was a blues enthusiast with one of the first twelve string guitarsheard in the clubs. "Sitting-in" might produce anything from classical guitarduets to attempts at bluegrass. In Britain, country music has a very differentfollowing from folk-music. There had long been established Country Musicsocieties but these had to rely on recordings for there were few Americanvisitors, outside air base concerts, and though a few club performers didattempt to do country material the English accent seldom rings true in anAppalachian or Western context.

Collectors and Traditional Singers

So far I have talked about commercial or amateur singers who are theresult of the revival and who have little traditional basis. What of thetraditional singer? The English Folk Song and Dance Society is the majororganization in England working actively in the folk song and dance field.In Scotland there is the School of Hiberian Studies with Hamish Hendersonat its head and in Wales and Ireland there are similar organizations. InEngland, too, the English language departments of many universities haveconcentrated on local or manuscript material. At Nottingham, for example,a large volume of manuscript ballads from the University collection has beenproduced but there seems to have been little effort to produce a completecatalog of collections. In reworking the Nottingham material in 1963, I foundseveral songs which were not on the files of the E.F.S.D.S. in London andundoubtedly there are many Country Record Offices and private collections withunnoted material.

The inter-war lull in collecting activity is surprising when we considerthat such a solid foundation was laid at the beginning of the century by CecilSharp, Lucy Broadwood, Percy Grainger, Ralph Vaughn-Williams and many otherswho covered much of the country, noting down song and dance and publishing theirfindings in the E.F.S.D.S. magazine.Sharp, of course, was also a pioneer workerin America and it is sad to relate that many of the collectors who revitalisedthe search for traditional material in England have been American. Lomax isoutstanding in this respect and long before there was any large following forsuch material he produced a series of BBC radio programs, called, I believe,"The Singing English." Jean Richie and others also came for collectingvisits and it is their work which helped to stimulate the rash of material nowavailable on record in the British Isles. Results were not slow in appearing.A label called Collector, which had released material by many of the emergingEnglish singers noted above, included recordings by Bob Roberts and othertraditional singers among its first release. Roberts is a good example of thetype of person who has retained the traditional material. At one time therewas a heavy sailing barge traffic around the coast of East Anglia, grain wascarried from the river wharves of the wheat areas to London, and fuel and othersupplies made the return journey. Though there are still sentimental bargeraces in some of the estuaries most of these vessels have given way to thequicker and more direct road and rail routes. Roberts still operates his barge,however, and with the help of one crewman continues to journey between Pin Millin Suffolk and the Port of London. Being a very open character he became knownto several collectors who noted his songs, recorded him, sat him in a broad-casting studio and more important, obtained contacts through him. The publichouse ("pub") is the meeting place of rural areas and a number of singers werediscovered and gradually contacts widened inland and a considerable amount ofmaterial was hence obtained.

Similar contacts have allowed collection in mining communities, Northernfishing villages and other rural areas. Today Topic and Folkways, as well asmany minor labels, have such recordings on their lists and several family groupsmake occasional visits to London for E.F.S.D.S. sponsored concerts. Inaddition there has been increased interest in folk dancing and especially the"Morris" dance with rural teams revived and urban teams started.

Today we have reached a stage where the awareness of a folksong heritageis increasing and young singers are wandering into rural areas to collect andreturn to sing in urban clubs. One controversy which arises is the "writtenin the style of" type of song, which is very common in England. Whether ornot songs written today can be classed as folk songs is a matter of continualdebate but one experience has led me to believe that such material is legitimatefolk music.

Nottingham--A University Club

About two years ago we began a club at Nottingham. We flourished onUniversity clientele but being in town we also attracted the local C.N.D.(Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and leftist elements. One day a youngminer sat in at the club. As far as I can remember he never sang anythingbut original songs, ranging in subject from Lady Chatterly (D.H. Lawrence wasborn locally and the setting for his novels were in the immediate areas) throughpit ponies to the current garb of his own "mates". His guitar training wasfrom records--bluegrass to rock and roll--and his tunes were as original as hislyrics which often introduced local dialect. Folk songs?

At Nottingham the club which began in town had a regular group of three,working together on some numbers and doing solo work. Again there were guestsand sit-ins from other performers. The range of material covered was widerthan that which appears to be performed in American clubs, and though by nomeans typical, we ranged in one evening from Roumania dances on the mandoline,through psuedo-bluegrass to Appalachian balladry. We were running in com-petition with two other clubs. One imported artists from London but was mainlyinterested in material derived from American recordings and the other, heldat a cooperative arts center, was run on the basis of a "hoot" with a regulargroup of performers on stage as well as guests from the audience.

Eventually, pressure was placed on our club to move to the campus--thiscoincided with the Joan Baez craze--and we duly moved onto the campus, developedcommittees, and red tape, and began to hold weekly sessions. I have reason tobelieve that a similar process occurred in other provincial universities. Wewere also running in competition with the University folk-dance society whichhad a folksong off-spring. This group included the more ethnic ent usiastswho were good instrumentalists and covered mainly English material. The campusclub built what was considered a good membership (about 3 percent of the campus)but had insufficient funds to run anything but club sessions. Parkinson's lawoperated and singers developed to fill clubs' needs. At the beginning a fewsingers had to hold the whole evening; a year later there were usually moreperformers than time would allow for. Some intermural sings were arranged andthere was the occasional sortie to London in order to gather new material.

Club Material

In conclusion I propose to comment on a few songs which formed part ofone night's program at our club. This program should not be regarded astypical of all clubs but will, I hope, serve to illustrate some features andthemes involved in the material sung by the English urban folk-singer in1962-3.

The immediate source for Captain Kidd was a recording by Steve Benbow onthe Collector label. Benbow's Folk Four was a feature of the scene for sometime and broadcast regularly on BBC and more surprisingly on Radio Luxembourg.7

The song, which has appeared in SING OUT is sung to the tune of "AdmiralBenbow" and appears in many forms in the British Isles. It gave rise to anumber of wartime songs concerning "Captain Hall", whose contents were hardlysuitable for folk song clubs where the line between the ethnic and the obsceneis clearly defined.

Only recently did I learn that "The Banks of Marble" was written by LesRice and that our probable source was a recording by Pete Seeger. Like so

many songs which are sung in English clubs the source was easily and con-veniently forgotten, especially when the words were changed so that recognitionof the original became difficult. This also provides another thread common in

American as well as English urban folk music, the leftist labor connection.

"The Bells of Hell", which tells no story and has little message derives

from a phrase in the Bible and was, I believe, a university song though not

well-known. In the mid-fifties the Theatre Workshop, which is an "off-Broadway"

or rather "off-West End" theatre in Stratford (London) produced The Hostage

by Brendan Behan. The play is set in Ireland at the time of the "troubles"and concerns the killing of an English soldier while a hostage to the I.R.A.Behan, whose death was greeted by unfortunate obituaries throughout America,has been criticised for using songs in his plays as a cover for his lack ofdramatic technique. His plays, and especially the Hostage were neverthelesssuccessful and the songs from them became well-known; the technique was laterused to a lesser degree by other so-called "kitchen-sink" writers.8 The useof traditional or traditionally-styled material is nothing new: Beaumont andFletcher, Shakespeare and Gay all used traditional lyrics in their plays."The Bells of Hell" ends the play, which also includes a satire on the EnglishEstablishment, "The Capitains and the Kings", and a doubtful rhyme concerninghomosexuals "When Socrates in Ancient Greece".

With various versions and various sources, Jug of Punch is an Irish songwhich I first heard on an H.M.V. album which was released under this title andincluded a number of traditional British singers. This song was from the McPeakfamily, one of the rediscovered families referred to earlier, with their homein Northern Ireland. They have recorded and travelled in England and in 1965came to the U.S.A. Records maintain the primary source for traditional material,supplemented by SING and SING OUT. Though many younger singers do performlong unaccompanied narrative ballads, reception is not good and songs likeJug of Punch are heard more often due to their "catchy" tunes and choruseswhich allow audience participation.

Geordie received club attention only when the Joan Baez recording becameavailable and it is her version that is usually heard in the provinces. Therehad been a recording made by Shirley Collins, sometime assistant to Alan Lomax,in the early fifties but it was released on an obscure label and was not sungaround the clubs. Thus, many "folknicks" listen to such English songs butexcept for the mention of British locations would not be aware of the factthat they were part of our tradition. Outside of singers and amateur folk-lorists there is little interest in the source of songs or their place in socialhistory; it is possible that a similar statement could be made concerning theAmerican folk music public at large.

It is interesting to note that Eric Bentley recently wrote an articlefor SING OUT7 on Bertolt Brecht for we often sang his Cannon Song. Thisselection, an American translation of the German, originates in the "Three-penny Opera" and raises several points of interest. Brecht's material wasoften in the form of social comment; his productions, involving music in dramaas well as full opera, were full of songs which had meaning for at least partof their audience. Some stand out of context with a message for today. TheCannon Song, Mack the Knife, and Alabama Moon are examples which have beensung in the folk clubs; in similar context are the songs of the Spanish CivilWar which are also fairly widely heard having been published in Italy andreleased on Folkways. Brecht himself recorded some of his own songs accompaniedby harmonium, more recently Bentley has recorded songs by Brecht on Folkways.

The Family Man, H-Bomb's Thunder, and Five Fingers are examples of thematerial produced around the C.N.D. and related peace movements. The C.N.D.possibly draws the same type of support as the Civil Rights moves do in Americaand hence there is criticism of the beatnick-jazz-folk music-leftist symbiosiswhich appears to exist in the public mind. The marches in England employ a

wide range of music forms, the folksingers often being "out-blown" by theNew Orleans-style marching bands which have appeared in recent years. Thesongs have one essential difference from the marching band material--theyare new and written for the purpose of describing and pointing to the errorsof society. Their area is not the family, the rural locality, the mine, thefactory, but the world. Are writers of this type of material doing what therural singer did two or more centuries ago?

It has been evident that this is a personal view by an untrained observerand participant. I have found it very easy to write at length on the subjectnow that I am cut off from current events but I have tried through the processof narrative, to point to some themes which might serve for further discussion.One theme touched upon could certainly be discussed--when is a song a "folksong?"

Some of the new paths of special interest to me are the connection betweenjazz and folk music, the sociology of the folk music following and the dif-ferential definitions of folk music in Britain and America.

Postscript March 14, 1965

Reading over my seminar draft of a year ago I have few comments to addas I have not yet returned to Britain to substantiate or change my opinions.Reports suggest that the scene is certainly still active with an increasedflow of American artists, and especially blues singers, for British concerts.Little appears to have been done towards a sociological study of the revival--something on the line of Newton's The Jazz Scene1 0 is long overdue. In thediscussion following the seminar the Beatles raised their well-covered headsand I suggested that they represented a truly British form of popular music.The proliferation of such groups, many using British material has supportedthis view. Possibly such numbers as Ferry Across the Mersey will find theirway into the clubs. In the opposite direction I heard recently a "popped-up"version of MacColl's Dirty Old Town.

FOOTNOTES

1. P. Seeger and E. MacColl, eds., Songs for the Sixties (London: Worker'sMusic Association, 1961), p. 2.

2. A.L. Lloyd, ed., Come All Ye Bold Miners: Ballads and Songs of theCoalfields (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 19$2), 144 p., was alsoproduced for these celebrations.

3. Included were Humphrey Lyttelton, The Saints, The Crane River Jazz Band,Graeme Bell's Australian Jazz Band and Joe Daniels.

LK Johnson had been brought out of retirement to reform a band to play inthe old New Orleans style; Lewis who is now regarded as the "Dean" ofNew Orleans musicians, was clarinetist in that band. For fuller detailssee: Samuel B. Charters, Jazz New Orleans 1885-1963 (New York: OakPublications, 1963, 173 p.).

5. BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation); the Corporation was also quick tosupport folk music--the series of MacColl-Peggy Seeger radio ballads werebut one example of their efforts. See a note by Pete Seeger, SING OUT,Vol. 14, No. 1, February-March 1964, p. 71.

6. Their bible appeared to be R. Vaughn-Williams and A.L. Lloyd's ThePenguin Book of English Folk Songs (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 19597,128 p.

7. As BBC is state controlled, the commerical station, Luxembourg, has tobeam from Europe and its contents are usually strictly "pop" music. Igathered that several "pirate"- stations in ships have also developed inthe last two years.

8. "Kitchen-sink" drama was the journalistic term for a new wave of socialrealist plays by Osborne, Pinter, Arden and others which have appearedsince the mid-fifteis at such theatres as the Theatre Workshop RoyalCourt.

9. Eric Bentley, "Bertolt Brecht: Songwriter," SING OUT, Vol. 13, No. 4,October-November 1963, pp. 35-39.

3.0. Francis Newton, The Jazz Scene (Harmondsworth:295 p.; a well-received analysis of the recentPeter Leslie, FAB, the Anatomy of a Phenomenon

Penguin Special, 1959),pop-music industry is(London: 1965).

i'o9- 4-

V

i 'L

BLUES TO ZON jI"ftL*U* E[^ Z-,

Robert McCoy: BARRELHOUSE BLUES AND JOOK PIANO. Vulcan 2501.

Jimmy Walker and Erwin Helfer: ROUGH AND READY/Boogie Woogie for 4 Hands.Testament 2202.

Nearly three decades ago, boogie woogie pianists Albert Ammons, PeteJohnson, and Meade "Lux" Lewis played in Carnegie Hall in the now-famed"Spirituals to Swing" concert overseen by critic-producer John Hammond.The period brought the height of mass exposure to the trip-hammer rhythmsof boogie piano, and every quater of the music industry leveled its sightson the public's pocketbook. Tommy Dorsey had an orchestral hit with hisversion of Boogie-Woogie, and classical pianist Jose Iturbi made a brittle,percussive recording of an odd composition by Morton Gould, Boogie WoogieEtude. Before the '40's ended, the craze had run its course. Boogie wasexciting, but the limitations of its form and endless recorded remindersof those limitations scuttled the music for most of the public.

On his disk of vocals and instrumentals recorded for Pat Cather's Vulcanlabel in 1962-63, Robert McCoy, one-time performer on American Record Co.issues of the 1930's, recalls a measure of the boisterous enthusiasm ofbarrelhouse piano as it once was played. McCoy's technique is rough andoccasionally falters but the Birmingham performer is impressive (vocalinterjections, aside) in a rollicking Bye, Bye, Baby and handles the standardGoing Down Slow, expertly and convincingly. The disk is available fromVulcan Records, 314 Windsor Drive, Birmingham, Alabama.

For their debut on Testament, Jimmy Walker and Erwin Helfer have assembleda program of two-piano and solo keyboard performances. The best of these,the title piece, Rough and Ready and Makin' the Changes (two pianos) andFringe Benefit (Helfer), are reasonably sturdy documents of boogie woogiepiano. On the whole, the disk is mildly successful. Neither Walker'stechnique (some parts of Walkin' with Walker flirt with a digital disaster)nor his ideas prove to be more than minimally qualitative. The album ismade interesting, on the other hand, by Helfer's contributions. His solosuncover not only a reasonable keyboard proficiency but also a sense oftartness and asymmetry through which provocative harmonic voicings aredeveloped with dramatic effect.

Listeners who somehow may have escaped boogie woogie in its hey-day but whcare curious about the art as practiced by Ammons, Johnson, and Lewis willfind samples of their work on a discontinued Harmony LP (7104) BARRELHOUSE,BOOGIE WOOGIE, AND BLUES. And well-worth searching for is another out-of-print Harmony LP (7006) AN ART TATUM CONCERT, which contains Tatum-PoleBoogie, a marvelous spoof of the redundancies and cliches of boogie woogie.

Big Joe Williams, Jimmy Brown and Willie Harris: BACK TO THE COUNTRY.Testament 2205.

Big Joe Williams, Johnny Young, James and Fannie Brewer, Otis Spann, MaryRoss, Avery Brady, John Granderson, Jimmy Brown and Bill Jackson: CAN'TKEEP FROM CRYING/Topical Blues on the Death of President Kennedy.Testament S-01.

Although Big Joe Williams may consider BACK TO THE COUNTRY the "bestrecording he has made," many persons will sadly regret it. Few tracks inthis set escape the doleful atmosphere nurtured by the most inelegantfiddling, that of Jimmy Brown's, heard on blues records in many a season.When Brown substitutes the guitar for the violin, a much more cordial meldof voice and instruments emerges. Vocals by Brown on a half-dozen numbers(including a dismal version of See, See Rider) are singularly undistinguished,except for a gem, Woody Woodpecker. Williams is heard to best advantage onthe up-tempo Shake Your Boogie and Put on Your Nightcap. Harris providesan adequate harmonica accompaniment during the session.

An anthology of tributes to the late John F. Kennedy, CAN'T KEEP FROM CRYINGincludes a series of performances by a group of (largely) Chicago-basedsingers and instrumentalists of widely varied styles. Musically, the diskmaintains a high order and provides glimpses of the alternatives availableto the composer of topical songs. Particularly moving are Avery Brady'sPoor Kennedy and Mary Ross' gospel-like President Kennedy Gave His Life.Pianist-vocalist Otis Spann's tribute is a somber, minor-hued Sad Day inTexas and that of the Brewers', I Want to Know Why, an appealing recitativesung to the composers' clear guitar accompaniment.

** * ** * . * -* * * *.

Jesse Fuller: JESSE FULLER/Greatest of the Negro Minstrels. Folk-Lyric 126.

The many faces of entertainer Jesse Fuller are revealed amply in thiscollection of songs ranging from the ragtime days' Bill Bailey to Fuller'sSan Francisco Bay Blues. As Harry Oster points out, Fuller draws on Negrofolksong, ragtime, ministrelsy, Tin Pan Alley, and jazz. Nonetheless, heremains convincing, whether bustling along in side show fashion to his ownguitar, kazoo, harmonica and 'fotdella' (a home-made, six-string foot bass)accompaniment or playing the guitar knife-blade style, as on a superb OldCincinnati Blues. Preacher Lowdown (who advises passers-by: "When I passthis hat around/If you want to keep from sin, drop a nickel in") is a comicsong in the tradition of the popular show, and Long as I Can Feel the Spiritis Fuller's version of a spiritual familiarly known as Every Time I Feelthe Spirit.

In the breadth of his repertoire and poise as a showman, Fuller calls tomind the late Willie McTell, who, as did Fuller, absorbed the spirit ofroad show and street entertainment and remained equal to the challenge ofendowing a variety of song-and-story materials with the particular inter-pretative and dramatic emphases due them (cf. BLIND WILLIE McTELL/LastSession, Prestige/Bluesville 1040).

* * *-; * * * * 4* * * * -k

Jelly Roll Morton (w/the Red Hot Peppers): STOMPS AND JOYS. Victor LPV-$50.

One of RCA Victor's Vintage Series reissues, STOMPS AND JOYS contains 16numbers recorded by Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers between 1928-30.All are group instrumentals except Don't Tell Me Nothin' 'Bout My Man and

I Hate a Man Like You, in which Morton accompanies blues singer LizzieMiles, and Seattle Hunch, a solo piano excursion.

The disk is a delight from beginning to end. Whatever legends have attachedthemselves to Morton, he was a pianist, composer, and leader of brilliantgifts and imagination. Here, he boils along masterfully, prodding his meninto spirited solos, pulling the ensemble together in occasional momentsof raggedness, and superintending the performance of a fascinating group ofMorton originals, including Low Gravey, Strokin' Away, Primrose Stomp, andFickle Fay Creep.

Trumpeter Ward Pinkett, present on eleven of the numbers, is revealed a top-deck instrumentalist capable of bristling solo and ensemble work. OmerSimeon's liquid clarinet is heard on Boogaboo, Shrevenport Stomp, and MournfulSerenade; and famed 'growl' trumpeter Bubber Miley, who played with DukeEllington during 1926-29, is present on Harmony Blues, Little Lawrence, andPontchartrain.

Victor's remastering has been faithfully accomplished, and quiet surfaces andbright sound characterized this reissue, so much so that on Fickle Fay Creep,two dramatic drum rolls by Bill Beason may be heard behind the opening tubastatements with which Bill Benford sets the mood of the piece.

AND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE...

On another Victor Vintage disk, SMOKY MOUNTAIN BALLADS (LPV-507), two earlyblues performances by the Carter Family, Worried Man Blues (1930) and TheEast Virginia Blues (1934) appear. The album is notable, though, for itsinclusion of original recordings by Uncle Dave Macon, the Dixon Brothers,and Wade Mainer groups.

The 'new sound' of Charlie Oyama, Pete Apo, and Dick Shirley, whose firstalbum for Capitol is NEW SOUNDS/The Travelers 3 (T-2207), turns out to besleek and assured, with not so much as a single guitar beat out of place.The trio swings through Fuller's San Francisco Bay Blues, shifts down forBrandy Wine Blues, and reaches an expressive high, when still more stopsare pushed in, with Turn Around.

Stan Kenton, who earlier produced a STAN KENTON . TEX RITTER I program forCapitol (T-1757), has moved to another world with his latest Capitol disk,KENTON/WAGNER (TAO-2217), for which, annotator Noel Wedder explains, Kentonhas written "venturesome arrangements that reflect with precision the detailof Wagner's superbly constructed themes." In truth, Kenton's arrangementswhet one's appetite for pre-Kenton Wagner, on the one hand, and pre-WagnerKenton, on the other. Rarely has Wagner received the exceptional recordedsound which Capitol's engineers provide here and only occasionally, in recentyears, has Kenton curbed the upper register abrasiveness of his bras-es ashe does here.

-- Ronald C. Foreman, Jr.

FETE STEELE CONCERT AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY

On January 6, Page Stephens, President of the Wabash College FolksongClub, Archie Green, and I visited Bloomington, Indiana, to see Pete Steeleperform before an audience for the first time in years. Steele was makinga rare public appearance for an Indiana University Folksong Club membershipconcert. He brought along his wife to sing with him during the first halfof the concert, but because they did not practice together, she did mostof the singing during that half.

Pete is a large jovial man with a "pot-belly" and "monk" haircut, whichmeans to say he has no hair on the top of his head. Both on and off stagehe has a wonderful, personal warmth which makes him very likeable. Thiswarmth, however, did not seem to come across in his songs because of hisvociferous banjo which covered up the words of songs. This problem wasincreased by the lack of an amplification system during the first half ofthe concert. At the intermission, after hearing a number of complaintsfrom everyone around me of the poor amplification, I went up on the stageand turned the mike on. The mike being off seemed to be an unnecessaryblunder on someone's part, and I silently thanked God for John Schmidt,who keeps such things from happening to us.

Some of the songs that Steel played and sang were: "Hard Times,""Boston Burgler," "Ellen Smith," "Pretty Polly," "Old Joe Clark," and manyof his well-known banjo pieces, such as "Coal Creek March." Most of thesesongs, except for the latter, were played in G tuning.

Besides fixing the mike in the intermission, I got to talk to Pete'svery pleasant wife, Lillie Steele, and she told me a little about herhusband.

Pete started learning the banjo at the age of six from his fiddle-playing father who also made Pete's first instrument. (Pete told me atthe party later that he also plays the fiddle but I did not have thepleasure of hearing him do so.) Back in the days when he was growing up,everyone would get together in the kitchen on Saturday night and play.Today he never picks up the banjo, and the concert was the first timethat he had played in a long time.

I enjoyed the concert very much, regardless of the problems, and I hada very good time later at the small party where I heard, for the third time(at my request) Pete play "Coal Creek March."

Pete is now 75 years old, but it has not slowed him down at all; orin his words: "I can jump any ten rail fence--as long as eight rails arelying down."

Pete Steele can be heard on an excellent LP: Pete Steele, Folkways FS 382.

--Jont Allen

FOURTH ANNIVERSARY FOLKSING PRESENTED TRADITIONAL FORMS

Reprinted from Daily Illini, March 2, 1965

The fourth anniversary folksing of the Campus Folksong Club Saturday nightwas an unusual program for a contemporary college campus--a program almostentirely devoid of the political protest song.

It was a program of country music and unusual instruments, of "folks" fromSouthern Illinois and white college students interpreting traditional blues.

The single performer, Art Frankel, junior in LAS, who offered the audiencethe music of Bobby Dylan, evoked an audience reaction that seemed to reflectfamiliarity with the composer rather than a true appreciation of the performance.

The same audience appreciated the sincerity of country performers likefiddler Stelle Elam of Brownstown, Ill. who still plays square dances in herhome county.

Many of the performers were old favorites of the Club and obviously put ontheir very best for a group they felt personal ties with. In fact they evenbrought along friends and neighbors to hear the concert and in some cases toperform.

The well-received local gospel singers Lloyd and Cathy Reynolds broughttheir friends the Saunders to sing for the Club.

Lyle and Doris Mayfield, well known to folk song fans on this campus, addedtheir nephew Ronnie to the act and the young man played the wash tub fiddle in

an enjoyable home grown band that included Lyle and the slide whistle, and hisyoungest son Layne, wearing a too large bowler hat, on the wash board.

The Mayfield's son David made his solo debut with an instrumental piece hisgrandfather had taught him. The piece was small and quiet and very restful.The boy had a very clear voice and amazing polish for one so young.

Doyle Moore, professor of art, who has long done most of the Club's handbillsand posters and the covers for the record albums "The Green Fields of Illinois,"brought the group the unusual sound of the autoharp, remarking that if 12 stringguitar was well received this ought to be three times as good with its 36 strings.

The country theme, which has been a strong point of the Club since itsfounding, extended to the student performers. The trio of Fritz Plous, fiddle;Victor Lukas, guitar; and, Preston Martin, banjo were obviously college studentswho enjoyed country music and not imitation country musicians.

--Barb WhitesideDI News Editor

CFC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEESpring, 1965

Officers

President

Vice-President

Treasurer

Recording Secretary

Corresponding Secretary

Committee Chairmen

Archives

Autoharp

Concert

Extention

Folksing

House Management

Membership

Publicity

Radio & Television

Record Production

Sales

Seminar

Social

Tape, PA, & Photo

Workshop

John Munday, 201 N. Lincoln, U., 365-2593

Marcia Sayers, 910 Wardell Hall, U., 332-4487

Bill Becker, 106 E. John, C., 359-1060

Carol Palmer, 234 LAR, U., 332-2866

Judi Munday, 201 N. Lincoln, U., 365-2593

Bob Mullen, 301 S. First, C., 333-2170

Fritz Plous, 1116 W. Hill, U., 367-6149

Bruce Hector, 1004 W. California, U., 344-3574

Jont Allen, 708A S. Sixth, C., 344-1423

Vic Lukas, 1116 W. Hill, U., 367-6149

Chuck Scott, 910 W. California, U., 344-1643

Barry Porter, 49 Maplewood Dr., U., 367-0104(Lincoln Trailer Park)

Janice Wilson, 107 W. California, U., 365-1187

Ernie Ruby, 1101 W. Illinois, U., 332-4283

Bob Koenig, 176 Townsend Hall, U., 332-4040

Geoff Batchelder, 418 Forbes Hall, C., 332-109O

April Appelquist, 206 E. White, C., 356-1593

John Schmidt, 1109 S. Second, C., 352-1668

Tom Silver, 1101 W. Illinois, U., 344-4839

Faculty Advisor

Archie Green, 611 W. Indiana, U., 367-7083ILIR Library, 504 E. Armory, C., 333-2380

ON THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO FOLK FESTIVAL

There is little doubt that for the majority of Mid-western folk fans theUniversity of Chicago Folk Festival is the high-water mark of the musical season.This prodigy of staging and production involves a multitude of activities andengages the attention of U of C students throughout the year, demanding time,energy and money so that artists may be booked, advertising put together, hallssecured and publicity dispatched to all points for the enlightenment of the public.

Those of us who have worked at putting together a concert featuring a singleartist at Illinois can only imagine the tribulation suffered by the U of C people,who book not one, but as many as a dozen acts, all of whom have other engagementselsewhere (engagements which will yield more money, too). In addition, the U ofC Folklore Society presents not only concerts, but workshops for instrumentalists,lectures by folklorists, a folk dance, a hootenanny (ugh, that word, again 1), andinterviews with the performers. Realizing that it will be a year before anothercollection of artists can be convoked in the same place, the U of C students tryto squeeze as much activity as possible into the smallest space of time.

For all of the above activities are completed in a three-day weekend in mid-winter. On Friday night the campus bursts into action with the first concert.Saturday morning the workshops and the lectures are under way. On Saturdayafternoon the blues concert (last year it was hillbilly) occupies everyone's time,and, after a short break for supper, the hall is again filled for the eveningperformance, which lets out around midnight. By ten-thirty in the morning theworkshops have begun again, followed by lectures, the hootenanny and the folkdance. A rushed meal, if you've got the money, and you're back in Mandel Hall forthe final performance.

The astute observer will notice from the above that scheduled activity stopsaround midnight and resumes in the middle of the next morning. This is a fact,but a deceptive one, for it implies that all activity then ceases. Nothing couldbe further from the truth, for the end of a concert is merely the signal for thebeginning of a party, and a party has to work up momentum before it's of any useto its participants. The result is that the majority of the out-of-townerscoming to Chicago for a good time don't even get any sleep by the time the festivalis over. There is too much to be done, and too little time to do it in.

The tract will not attempt to deal with artistic matters, such as selectionof artists and genres, etc. On considering the difficulties of artist-selectionmost of us will, I think, grant that the U of C does a tremendous job; if a lapsein taste occurs in one year it will probably be remedied in the following one.And every one of us carries with him some memory, some great moment experiencedon the Midway. When I first heard George Armstrong blow the bagpipes, when I firstheard Tom Ashley and Doc Watson do the "Coo-Coo Bird," when I first heard HobartSmith and Almeda Riddle--I knew I was hooked on the U of C Folk Festival, and eachspectator probably has some similar association which brings him back year afteryear, an association so powerful that even the absence of his favorite performerdoes not deter him from coming; he hopes for a new magic moment, a new performerwho will infect as the old one did. And with a slate of a dozen or more per-formers the mathematical probabilities are in the listener's favor, for on eachconcert program there is at least one performer who alone is worth the price ofadmission. So the students (and adults too) keep coming back, and the festivalis assured of further success, as long as the same policies of management areadhered to.

Underneath all this praise the reader has doubtless detected an urge tocriticize, to carp, to kvetch at the U of C folk festival. Correct. There aresome practices traditional at the festival which call for review, and with all dueregard to the people who run the Folklore Society--for they are people of greatimagination and daring--I must enter a demurrer or two as to the management of thefestival.

First, the squeezing together of all these activities into three days: Aweekend is mandatory for the holding of such an affair, but the volume of goodiesscheduled for the weekend is so enormous that no one can see or hear everything hedesires. This is a shame for people who have come long miles to be at the festival.It is also extremely hard on the performers, many of whom are quite aged and cannotbe expected to stand the strain as do the resilient bodies and psyches of students.Even Archie Green, who is usually a bundle of energy and enthusiasm, returns fromthe festival in a state unfit for human consumption. Students returning on Sundaynight usually cut classes Monday morning or just abandon Monday entirely. A wholeweekend without sleep not only takes the student out of circulation after his returnto academia; it actually interferes with his enjoyment of the festival while he isin Chicago. There is no time to rest, to enjoy a meal in comfort, to perform one'smatutinal ablutions or observe any other amenities which make people agreeable toone another. Hence, tempers are a bit raw and the overall enjoyment of the festivalundergoes some attenuation.

Second, the timing of the festival is unfortunate, to say the least. A glanceat the meteorological records for the last 50 years will show that the end of Jan-uary and the beginning of February is the period when Chicago's weather is at itsmost inhospitable. Of the five U of C folk festivals I have attended the lastfour, and each has been a meteorological horror. For practical purposes the Midwaymight have been transported bodily to the shores of Baffin Bay or the AnadyrPeninsula. For the student who travels a long distance by car the dangers aremyriad: icy highways, unplowed side streets that make parking difficult, blizzardsthat force you off the road entirely, engines that freeze up, blinding sunlight,car heaters that do not heat, und so weiter. Once safely in Chicago, the traveler'stroubles are not over. Since student budgets are notoriously thin, hotels areusually out of the question; putting up with friends is the usual answer. This meanspadding out on couches in stuffy, overheated and yet drafty apartments. It meansimposing on friends who should never be asked to perform such a service. It meanscadging meals because it is too cold to go out. It means shivering and quakingwith cold. It means discomfort in the car, since as many as six or seven passengerswill be sitting next to one another bundled into enormous coats, trying all thewhile to keep from bumping into the instrument cases that litter every spare crannyof the Volkswagen, the Renault, etc.

And speaking of instruments, have you ever considered the tuning problemsinvolved in carrying a delicate and expensive stringed instrument from an outdoortemperature of -l~0F into an indoor temperature of, say 800?. Once inside thehumidity drops to approximately 3 percent; the results on a 300 dollar guitar or anunappraised violin are disastrous. Joints split and crack, strings pop, rosin turnsto stone. The performer himself needs an hour with his fingers spread on a radiatorbefore he can even play a scale.

And all of this is narrated by a writer born and raised in Wisconsin, wherethe howling blasts descended upon us from the ice-scarred surface of Lake Michigan,

just one block away. What must the effect be on visitors and performers frommore benevolent climes--our Mississippi blues singers or Tennessee farmers? It's ahell of a way to welcome them to Chicago.

And the irony of it all is that for six months or more Chicago has a delight-ful climate and indeed, is a delightful city to be in. A more easy-going, relaxedfestival, with the schedule spread out and the weather more favorable would enablethe visitors and performers to make the most of their time in Chicago. Thenobility of the lakefront, the clamor of the Loop, the idyllic forest preserves--all suggest themselves as possible opiates for the jaded traveler. Even if onecannot leave the U of C campus there is plenty to contemplate: the Midway inspring, summer, and fall is a long and tranquil island amid the traffic; the shopsand restaurants of Hyde Park are easily accessible to those without a car; thebuildings of the University are infectious in their dignity; words like "groves ofAcademe" and "ivy-covered walls" are not metaphors in Chicago, but facts, and tothose of us from the Great Urbana Desert they are pleasant and relaxing facts. Butnone of this is to be discerned on the 29th of January.

The management of the U of C festival has proved itself equal to the task oforganizing and operating a large, costly, and somewhat bulky affair in a smooth,business-like, and yet hospitable manner. Although the festival is undeniablylarge, it does not present an impression of bigness for its own sake. Its simpleblack-and-white advertisements, the austere grandeur of its Gothic surroundings,the simplicity of the concerts--all belie the immense work and the grand scale onwhich such an event is conducted. And this achievement is worthy of the highestcommendation in a country where nothing is so simple that it cannot be commercial-ized all to hell and back.

Yet even more pleasing effects could be obtained, it seems to me, by choosinga more tolerable season for the festival, and by either stretching the time-spanby another day or else deleting some of the content which now strains the 2h-hourday to the bursting point. The desideratum here is, of course, to present afestival which is not only aesthetically satisfying, as the present version is,but which can be enjoyed at a more leisurely pace, i.e., really enjoyed and soakedup by the soul. It should be a festival which not only traditional music fans canbe proud of, but one which will attract more of the general public and which willbring much needed credit to the Midwest, to Illinois, and to Chicago as centers oftraditional studies and appreciation. What the University of Chicago has alreadydone toward this end is so dazzling as to make criticism almost unthinkable.Still, there are those of us who, even in the depths of slumber, retain the letchto kvetch, and articles like the above are the inevitable result. It is hopedthat the reader will exercise that benevolence which this author has abandonedand will take this tract seriously to heart, in hopes that even the great Univer-sity of Chicago Folk Festival will strive for further improvement in the future.For those of us who love traditional music there can never be too much of it,nor can it ever be presented too pleasingly.

--F. K. Plous, Jr.

JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE REVIEWS CFC 301

All three LP's issued by the Campus Folksong Club continue to receive goodreviews. Below we reprint from the JAF, Volume 78, January, 1965, p. 91.

American White Tradition:

A genu-ine working cowboy singer of interest to the folklorist andworthy to be featured on a commercial recording is surprising indeed. Ifnot the "discovery," at least the introduction of Glenn Ohrlin can becredited to members of the University of Illinois Campus Folksong Club,and from his concerts at Purdue and Illinois, December, 1963, stems TheHell-Bound Train (University of Illinois, Campus Folksong Club RecordsCFC 301). Ohrlin, now settled on an Ozark ranch, is a genial youngveteran of Nevada ranching and the California-Florida rodeo circuit. Hisrepertoire, performed in relaxed, laconic style, shows remarkably littleinfluence of modern eratz cowboy song; "Bull Riders in the Sky" is Ohrlin'sparody of what he calls "a fake cowboy song." The contents of the recordingare of the same general nature as the Lomax and Larkin collections, includ-ing more strictly cowboy tradition such as "Trail to Mexico" (B13),productions of western poets such as "Walking John," and regional songslike "Dakota Land." Ohrlin continues to bag songs from Ozark neighbors,the source of his "Waiting for a Train" version of "Ten Thousands Miles

from Home" (H2), which seems to predate the form recorded by Jimmie Rodgers.And Ohrlin is the kind of a yarn spinner who can render a personal experiencelike an antique tale. Full transcriptions of texts and tunes are provided,and the annotations by Archie Green and July McCulloh are scholarly models.The editors conjecture that the puzzling "My Home's in Montana," known else-

where only in a two-line introduction to a variant of "The Cowboy's Lament,"may have come from a school book. Quite possibly, as there is in the

unpublished collection of Leonard Roberts a duplicate text and tune secured

from Kentucky school children in 1958. Are there other Ohrlins on the

rodeo circuit?

--D.K. WilgusRecord-Review Editor

WESTERN HORSEMAN'S REVIEW

The February, 1965 (Volume 30) issue of Western Horseman carries a fine

note on The Hell-Bound Train by Dick Spencer in his column, "Brush Poppin'."

Thanks to his friendly words the Club has received orders for the album

from California, Maryland, Texas, and Alberta, Canada, as well as points

between.