NZ Music Awards: The Folk Tui

A few years ago the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) decided in its wisdom to drop a number of categories in its prestigious awards event, The Tuis. This for no better reason than there was no time to award them in their overblown, self-congratulatory, pop-music focussed awards ceremony. Among the categories dropped were Folk and Country causing consternation in both camps. After a bit of lobbying it was decided that these awards would still be facilitated by RIANZ but that the award would be announced at (for Country) the New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards in Gore each June and (for Folk) at the Auckland Folk Festival in January. These awards were reinstated about a year after they were initially dropped and have been running satisfactorily for the last 4 years.

There was much discussion on the nz-folk list at the time about the worth of the award, about turning folk music into a competition, about the commercial imperative that underpins the awards and more. The testimony of those that had won the Tui in the past was that it was of considerable value in promoting themselves and their music, both nationally and internationally and was worth persuing. Anything that was good for folk music was good for folk music, no matter how cynically it was regarded. There certainly is an element of prestige associated with it.

Recently the discussion hit the fan again as the three finalists in the Folk category for 2006 were announced. The award will be made next weekend at the end of January (at the Auckland Folk Festival). Each year five 'appropriate' people are approached in confidence by RIANZ and asked to be a judge for the category. Upon acceptance, they are sent all the albums that have been submitted for that category and a bare set of outlines for judging (which are largely irrelevant for folk music: commercial viability, radio friendliness etc.) basically asking them to be rated in order of preference. The top three (and, presumably, the winner) are selected from collation of the judges' returns.

This year the finalists were announced as follows:

"Scottish-born duo Ben The Hoose are Kenny Rich and Bob McNeill, a finalist with the album ‘The Little Cascade’ while Birmingham-born Bob Bickerton gains a finals berth for ‘The Likes of Us’. Third finalist is evergreen Kiwi folksters The Warratahs with the quintet’s seventh album ‘Keep On’."

The somewhat heated discussion arose around "evergreen Kiwi folksters The Warratahs" who have always been regarded as a Country music band. Indeed they performed at the Gold Guitar Awards when they started about a hundred years ago. What are they doing in the Folk category? And finalists to boot!

The RIANZ rules of engagement state that an album can be nominated in only one category. It stands to reason that an artist will place their album in the category where they think they will get the fairest hearing. The Warratahs, based largely around the country-style songwriting of Barry Saunders, have been around for 20 years and are without a doubt, a great, shit-kicking country band. The fact is, they've never fared well in country music circles, possibly because they don't wear big hats, sing with an American accent or play The Gambler. Country music buffs have stayed away from them in droves (speaking as one who has organised a couple of concerts for them) because they're a bit too clever, too original and don't fit the C&W mold.

Their strategy has paid off; they're finalists. There was indignation expressed from some who had their "proper folk album" nominated and nudged out by these folk pretenders - resulting in another unhealthy round of "What is folk?" discussion that just went to show that nobody can agree but we know it when we hear it. And the end of the day, five folk-friendly judges chose the finalists and all the best to all of them! I for one see it as a vote of confidence in the eclecticism of the folk scene that The Warratahs took a punt on us.