So what is folk ......

So what is folk music?

I went to the Great Dorset Steam Fair a few days ago - with my eight year old grandson. We both had a great time, and came home smelling like kippers from the smoke being belched out by all the machinery. My favourite section of the show was the fairground organs - vast pieces of complicated kit playing music which could be heard all over the show-ground. Not only were they planing music composed around the time they were made - mostly early twentieth century. But the were also playing later music- Elvis, Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel….. Then in another area there was an Irish Folk Band - sounding for all the world like they were in a Dublin pub. And i found myself asking what is folk music? When you hear it, it’s fairly obvious. The answer might once have been the music of the working people - handed down through the generations, and often composed by those well known authors Trad and Anon. But the definition is much wider now - Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and the modern folk movement - Show of Hands, the McCarthys, And so if we are starting a new Folk Club in Fordingbridge - what do we expect or hope to hear there ? Answers on a postcard please ……. David