[mplpost] definitions needed?

[Nick Naffin]

Estelle Klein asked: >how do YOU define this music ?<

	There's quite a tradition of jazz players insisting jazz should remain
undefined by the mind, but felt by the soul. "It's all folk music; ain't
never heard no horse singin' no song" is one quote attributed to too many
for me to even try and name an author; Louis Armstrong's "If you gotta ask,
you'll never know" is another one.

	On the way home from one of those few festivals with a heart, head spinning
with all the songs and images, mosquito bites itching in places unimagined,
and the car stereo playing the albums bought there because "Good Night
Irene" was just fat guys singing and no lady, and it ain't over, can't be
over yet... that's folk to me.  Don't know what it is, but I just got hit by
it.


	As Tim Harrison once showed on the bus going from Stanstock to the
performers' quarters, "Mustang Sally" is folk.  Bobby Watt yelling, "oh sing
along, ye cowards" is folk.  Finding himself in a workshop that suddenly
turned PC, Jackie Washington singing "Shove It Up Your Union" is folk (well,
a 'folk you,' anyway);  bleepin' "American Pie" is folk, and yes!,
Madonna's version is the recycled Volkswagen Beetle of folk.

	(Don't tell Jackie I mentioned him in the same sentence as Madonna.  Or,
do; maybe he'll get a kick out of it.)

	So there's this corporate folk; and in the end, only kindness matters.  On
your way out, Warner Bros. asking you to kindly tip the waitress from
Alaska.  It must drive them crazy not to be able to pinpoint that target
group - "folkies."  Mm-mmh; educated, critical, and without any buying
power; the nightmare of marketing strategy.

	There's echoes of that, acts on the circuit you and I could name we don't
think are folk, but musical entertainment sailing under its banner; and we
know where we'll find them, who books 'em, and how much more they're
getting.  Yeah, but only too often our contracts require us to say, thank
you to the Bleepville Business Association, and to duMaurier, for doing to
folk music what they did for lung cancer.  It's not that easy anymore; not
that it ever was.

	Folk's a thing of the heart.  You can tell by the stars in the eyes of
someone you meet at a festival; by the walk of a woman who just found a song
teling her she's alright after all; by the guy who tells you, man, I gotta
pull out that guitar; by the way they let you pass on your way out of the
parking lot.


	Maybe it's easier to define what isn't folk.  The ones left standing are
folk; but they'll probably debate about it.


	Nick
--

______________________________________________________


	nick naffin

	nick@takenotepromotion.com
	www.interlog.com/~takenote/nicknaffin.htm
	www.interlog.com/~takenote/naffinwright.htm

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