Is there a trad English music scene?

Rocker

There is a very active trad Irish music scene. I believe there is something similar in Scotland. Wales is famous for its male choirs but is there a trad music scene in Wales? I know about Morris Dancers in England but is there a trad music scene there?

What I mean is the music of the people - the music that 'ordinary' people sang and danced to in houses, at barn dances etc.  A key part of courtship in the days before recorded music, TV or the Internet. 

Bridgehouse

Yes.

See Mellstock Band:

https://www.davetownsendmusic.com/the-mellstock-band/

VimFuego

yes, lots of it. 

Rabs

Does this count? 

merlin

The Wurzels performed miracles. I mean, the guy on sousaphone sings for the majority of the song but he manages to keep playing the bass-line going throughout. Genius. 

Rabs

merlin said:

The Wurzels performed miracles. I mean, the guy on sousaphone sings for the majority of the song but he manages to keep playing the bass-line going throughout. Genius. 

Ha, that reminds me of when Faith No More were on tops of the pops and Mike decided to make rude faces while the very obvious backing track vocals were still going   

not_the_dj

Yes. There’s loads of folk festivals happening throughout the summer (my local one the Warwick Folk Fest is this weekend). Many towns have folk clubs, usually in pubs or village halls. The attendance at these certainly has a large amount of older folk, but plenty of young performances coming through the scene. It’s pretty much an underground movement, but occasionally breaks through. Eg Kate Rusby getting played on Radio 2 (and she puts here name to a festival that happened last week). 

Bridgehouse

not_the_dj said:

Yes. There’s loads of folk festivals happening throughout the summer (my local one the Warwick Folk Fest is this weekend). Many towns have folk clubs, usually in pubs or village halls. The attendance at these certainly has a large amount of older folk, but plenty of young performances coming through the scene. It’s pretty much an underground movement, but occasionally breaks through. Eg Kate Rusby getting played on Radio 2 (and she puts here name to a festival that happened last week). 

Kate Rusby is a good proponent of English Folk. It’s modern - not traditional if you ask me - but it’s certainly carrying the tradition. As are Fairport Convention. 

Steeleye Span used to do a lot of material which was a modern interpretation of the traditional English aural storytelling and news spreading nature of folk music

not_the_dj

I loved the first few Jim Moray albums, some great reworkings of old songs with a modern twist. ‘Sweet England’ is probably still his finest piece of work. 

That’s what I like, a modern re-telling, passed the songs on to the next generation rather than never moving past the Cecil Shrap ‘collected songs’, which trap them at a moment in time.

folk music (to me should evolve) 

EricTheWeary

As has been said lots of folk festivals in the UK, some absolutely amazing young musicians as well. I saw Eliza Carthy earlier this year ( in her 40s now, not a nipper maybe) and she's a stunning performer. I saw Show of Hands last year ( or before?) who look like a bunch of old geezers about to play Black Magic Woman for twenty minutes but mixed up traditional English folk with their own political compositions. 

I think the tradition that's dying more is the music hall song. Some of these go back to the early 19th century and were the songs that everyone ( of many generations) knew and could sing around an upright piano in the pub or in the parlour. Songs of the industrial English working class so a Boiled Beef and Carrots gets overlooked for the exoticism of more obscure trad songs about lost maidens and land owners. 

MagicPigDetective

Wales; nowhere near Ireland’s trad scene but there is one; Wales has its own traditional styles, dances, melodies and songs. The non conformist chapels did unfortunately stamp out a lot of this tradition, frowning upon people having fun and drinking and so on; they sung hymns which spawned the choral tradition.

But it never vanished and there have been many revivals over the years, many based on the Welsh language music scene, and hybrids with folk music. There are more formal types of dancing and singing, as taught at schools, performed in competitions at eisteddfods etc.
Recently it has gained more credibility as younger, more ‘trendy’ bands and artists have emerged. But unlike Ireland you’d be lucky to stumble into a pub where there is a trad jam going on; I’m sure that if your in the scene you would get to know the rest quickly and know where to go. To be honest I wouldn’t mind having a go but not aware of any local sessions!

The most prominent band at the moment is Calan, who are using trad instruments in a more modern style: 

https://youtu.be/jq7P1t3F8Vk


On Scotland, I recently discovered niteworks, who mix trad with electronic, and through them, Ellen Macdonald of Daimh who has a beautiful voice. I love the sound of Gaelic.

https://youtu.be/bOB-fOZ6SmY

Stuckfast

^ many of the folk songs that were collected by Cecil Sharp et al are now thought to have originated in the music halls, or in other forms of entertainment such as the pleasure gardens and glee clubs. They're only 'traditional' in the sense that they've been passed down and adapted through oral transmission.

In answer to the original question... as a fairly keen folk enthusiast and musician, actually I think English folk music is in a pretty parlous state compared with Scottish or Irish music. In those countries, music is seen as part of the national identity, and there are very active state-funded initiatives for preserving it and training new generations of musicians. England doesn't really have anything to compare. In fact even here in Cambridge, for example, there's a thriving Irish music community that offers loads of tuition for young players, but nothing of the sort for English music.

It's a shame, because the English folk tradition is actually quite distinctive and interesting from a musical point of view. English folk songs were invariably sung unaccompanied and in extremely free time, and typically make use of the Mixolydian, Dorian and Aeolian modes as well as the Ionian / major scale. Many of them are most easily notated in time signatures such as 3/2 or 5/4.

If you want to know about the "music of the people" from days gone by, I recommend a book called John Clare and the Folk Tradition, by George Deacon. The poet Clare was one of the earliest people to write down the folk songs, tunes and traditions of his part of England, and unlike all the other collectors, was actually a part of the community whose life he wrote about.

I am not always a fan of attempts to fuse English folk music with other genres, and I have a particular loathing for the so-called 'chamber folk' which lots of people are playing these days, involving breathy little-girl vocals and badly arranged string quartets. Jim Moray is weird, he's one of those artists whose albums invariably contain two or three brilliant tracks alongside two or three that are just embarrassing.

There are recordings of 'source singers' from the tradition, such as Walter Pardon and Harry Cox, but they can be hard work to modern ears. As a first port of call I'd suggest checking out Shirley Collins. She learned her trade from source singers such as the Copper family but went on to do some amazing records with her sister Dolly, who did Michael Nymanesque keyboard parts and early music arrangements. Shirley also sings on the Albion Country Band album No Roses, which is possibly the best English folk-rock record.

What made me get into folk music in the first place was hearing Nic Jones, who often played fast and loose with 'tradition' but was a great singer and a phenomenal guitarist. And if you want to hear very talented young musicians playing English music with a lot of spirit and enthusiasm check out a newish band called Granny's Attic.

vale

In quaint native dress an Italian maid
Was deep in distress as the streets she strayed
Searching in every part
For her false sweetheart
And his ice-cream cart
Her English was bad it cannot be denied
And so to herself in Italian she cried,

Oh Oh Antonio he's gone away
Left me alonio, all on my ownio
I want to meet him with his new sweetheart
Then up will go Antonio and his ice-cream cart.

So sad grew the plight of this fair, young lass
She'd faint at the sight of an ice-cream glass
She'd dream nigh every day
He'd come back to stay
But he'd fade away
Her old hurdy-gurdy all day she'd parade
And this she would sing to each tune that it played.

She sought in despair for Antonio
And looked everywhere that she thought he would go
Soon she to pine began
As each face she'd scan
For her ice-cream man
She faded away, but they say in the streets
The ghost of that girl in Italian repeats.

viz

My brother-in-law plays in a band called Boldwood. They’re traditional English 

VimFuego

viz said:

My brother-in-law plays in a band called Boldwood. They’re traditional English 

those guys are fantastic:

viz

VimFuego said:

viz said:

My brother-in-law plays in a band called Boldwood. They’re traditional English 

those guys are fantastic:

Ah yes - that’s me man in the middle  
Oh and my niece too. 

VimFuego

awesome, she's got some chops for a young un. 

viz

Aye, cheers mate, she has

Stuckfast

Here's a few random English trad songs that I like:

Rocker

Super guys.  I will spend an hour or two listening to the videos over the weekend.  A thought: try to keep your traditional music alive even if you learn one song or tune.  

Bridgehouse

My personal indulgence is 60s revival folk. My favourite album is Bert and John. 

They are, well, the best IMHO