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Forum nameThe Lesson
Topic subjecton: trad songs
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=2526669&mesg_id=2526816
2526816, on: trad songs
Posted by lonesome_d, Fri Mar-18-11 01:11 PM

>Like, I can dig the Dylan strain and the post-rock stuff,

okay.

But how do you feel about Dylan's first few records? Or the Simon & Garfunkel songs from before Simon went to England, where they sound like the Everlys but singing traditional songs?

Sometimes the link between Dylan's folk roots and what he turned into after 1964/5 can seem tenuous, but it WAS a pretty natural and organic process in terms of his songwriting and where it came from... sort of like how Nick Drake's guitar playing is so otherworldly, but if you listen to his demos you can hear how he's aping Bert Jansch, Davey Graham and other guys who were aping Rev. Gary Davis and Big Bill Broonzy.

> but
>I just can't grab on to the Engish and Irish ballads and some
>of the traditional American songs. Probably because in the era
>in which I grew up (of course, I know you grew up in the same
>era).

I've got a few years on you, but probably more to the point, I'd wager my folks have a few years on yours (not to mention the cultural differences). My parents were both teenagers and young adults when the folk revival was at its commercial apex (say 1950 - 1965); they were drawn to folk only slightly less than rock and roll. It was just another pop music option, sometimes even played on the same TV shows and radio stations. So even though THEY grew up post-traditional, they loved Pete Seeger and The Weavers, S&G, The Byrds, PPM, Kingston Trio, and as a kid I was exposed to those records. And as I've noted elsewhere my pop had a repertoire of 10 or 12 songs from those days he used to play for us on his tenor guitar.

None of which really explains why I love the traditional ballads so much.

But I guess one thing that CAN help to explain it is that as I refined my aesthetic tastes in the pop music of my time - rock - I began to recognize that those same aesthetics were frequently holdovers from earlier forms. And a lot of those - clever words, beautiful stories, flexibility in arrangement, minimalistic studio intervention - were present in these songs older than my grandpop, no matter what kind of presentation they came in.

I think what _Spread_ references - the very fact that these songs have been around so long - also has some innate appeal for me, regardless of whether or not it speaks to the quality of the ballad or the veracity or universality of teh tale it tells.

One thing that cracks me up is when ballad researchers assign qualitative judgments... reading the liner notes for this Jean Richie comp that's been killing me lately the annotator commented that Bangum was a 'degradation' of an older, richer ballad. I think I scoffed out loud and muttered 'and who the fuck are you to be shitting on this version?'