Teach me to listen to traditional folk

I started by paying £2 for this CD in Fopp. It is awesome.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Folk-Guitar-Various-Artists/dp/B00000857F/

There are some good posts here British Folk (and Revival)

i find true trad folk stuff is best appreciated live, always seems a bit dry on record

of course the term "traditional" is extremely problematic/arbitrary

how do I know which comps are necessary for, say, Irish or British folk?

go straight to albums by Planxty, they are stylistically varied enough to be comps. "The Well Below The Valley" is my favourite, if only for the gothic horror of the title track.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acoustic-Folk-Box-Various-Artists/dp/samples/B00005Y49D/ref=dp_tracks_all_4/202-8779225-6330231?ie=UTF8&qid=1193152997&sr=8-1#disc_4

would probably be a good place to start. It covers most of the main names although there are inevitably omissions. There is also a box set called "Anthems in Eden" but this seems to concentrate mainly on "Psych-Acoustic" (as I would prefer to call it)and is far less representative of the trad stuff. You will inevitably find something of interest.

No Planxty, no credibility

Kind of Anglocentric that boxset

Well Leee did ask for British or Irish folk/trad pointers.

By the way Leee, how are things going for you since Imagination broke up? I used to enjoy your compering of the world disco dancing championships.

Anne Briggs's Topic recordings.

Planxty -- I've got a comp with a track of theirs on it, though I can't remember if I liked it. That same comp has a great Gemma Hasson track ("Galway Races") -- is she worth checking out?

I should also add that I'm interested in Eastern European folk, or any folk music that features accordions/melodeons or fiddles.

By the way Leee, how are things going for you since Imagination broke up?

You could do a men's health programme called "Body Talk".

and back to folk & trad... eh, it's not like I actually know anything about this. You should probably buy any Andy Irvine album that crosses your path. I'll see if I can get my beloved on the case, she knows all about this kind of stuff.

some kind of random recommendations:

-- john roberts and tony barrand, spencer the rover and the first nowell sing we clear album (terrific trad harmonies, great drinking songs, and the nowell albums are all christmas songs of various kinds, but mostly not ones you know)

-- the silly sisters, either album but especially the first one (maddy prior and june tabor, more gorgeous harmonies, great tunes)

-- steeleye span -- the first couple albums are pretty trad-y, some electric instrumentation but nothing like the (great in its own right) folk-boogie they evolved into.

-- for scottish ballads, pretty much any jean redpath will do you well. (she recorded the entire robert burns songbook, among other things.)

-- and for non-british-celtic folk, there's some amazing scandinavian fiddle music on these nordic roots compilations (which are pretty cheap). they also have a lot of folk-rock and folk-tronica type stuff, but the trad fiddle tunes are the standouts to me.

(ha i see i'm on that thread two years ago also repping for silly sisters and talking about boogie-folk.)

Wow, lots of wonderful suggestions. I'll be using 0!nk a lot, I'm sure!

Irish folk: Planxty bestride the 1970s revival like a big beardy colossus. And deservedly so. Also the Bothy Band, especially the second (or third?) album with The Maids of Mitchelstown on it. The Andy Irvine/Paul Brady record is another notable 1970s classic.

Most 1980s and 1990s trad records should be avoided, because this was a time when Irish trad artists somehow got it into their heads that what you really wanted on trad records is lots of lovely synth arrangements to Fill Out The Sound. (This was also the Enya era - nuff said.)

More recently, two members of Planxty are in a group called Mozaik with some eastern European musicians, so that might scratch your eastern-Europe itch as well as your folky one. I haven't heard the record myself, mind.

Otherwise, Martin Hayes is a great fiddler; Iarla O Lionaird is a fab sean-nos singer; and there'd be nothing wrong with going back to the classic recordings of the likes of Seamus Ennis, Willie Clancy, Sean McGuire etc. if you're really mad for it.

Unfortunately I don't know of any good Irish folk compilations - I think English folk might be better served in this regard. But it goes without saying that you should avoid anything with shamrocks or leprechauns or anything like that on the cover. Ditto people wearing balaclavas/carrying Armalites.

and if yr interested in american folk fiddle, the few serious fiddle-heads i know say bruce molsky is the best guy going (one of them says he might be the best american fiddler ever).

(here's a little molsky. dude is pretty hot.)

Wow, lots of wonderful suggestions. I'll be using 0!nk a lot, I'm sure!

-- Leee, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 6:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

lol.

Silly Sisters seconded, also maybe Shirley Collins

Martin Carthy needs to be mentioned - nearly anything - and the McPeakes

Thanks for the recommendations again, but I still have a lingering question which I think has been disproven by the recommendations: Is quality recorded folk largely based on (1) artists/bands, or (2) on anthologies/box sets/comps? Is the reason I might think (2) because I've never before heard of the artists on the comps I've listened to?

If you're talking the real hardcore folk material, I think the nature of (american) folk field recording lends itself to assembilages just based on the typically wide pallete of recordings obtained. I'd expect that the bulk of folk music from Europe was first laid down on 78s which would make it more difficult ( and less to assemble an idividual artists catalog.

Also, when you say "it's largely less focused on the band/artist", what exactly do you mean? I'd say the "folkiest" of music would tend to be solo or in very small groups, which would focus on them quite holistically.

I meant the essential records to have seem to be more compilation-based than centered around particular bands or artists, but this thread has kind of disabused me of this notion.