Folk and Country

A while ago, somewhat unintentionally, I chucked a hand-grenade into the nz-folk list. There was a post, mentioned in an earlier blog:

"Folk? The Warratahs? They are listed as a Country band."

To which I somewhat rashly replied,

"Something I notice that we have trouble getting our heads around is that country music is the folk music of this country."

The response was astounding, from those who thought I was joking to those who were indignant and miffed (and those who agreed and told me so quietly in the background).

"Mike, I am guessing that you are teasing when you say that country is the real NZ folk music, but I'll react just for fun... Country has always been a small, but welcome part of our folk music, but is hardly the folk music of New Zealand because it has always so commonly featured American culture: All that fake rolled-r accent emulating Texas, the whiny nasal singing about county jails and horses, the Stetson hats & braided clothes and boots with spurs. Contrast that with our our Swandris, stockmen's hats & oilskins & gumboots."

"I find it rather interesting that Bluegrass music is seen as part of the folk scene, whereas 'whinge and cringe' country isnt."

"There's been no mention of Victorian palour music or classical music which I think has had a huge influence of NZ music from the early days right through to the Verlaines and beyond."

"But to say it's THE main influence? I don't think country is quite a 'national' music here in the same way as in Australia. It's big and been around for a while, but so have brass bands and Highland piping."

"I tend to agree with Mike, Phil and Alan that country music has had a strong influence on 'homemade' songwriting in NZ, ever since it was the latest trendy music back in the 1930s."

"And as far as I´m concerned, country music stemmed from this celtic stuff anyway... don´t believe me?? Go out and rent Songcatcher."

I have no problem with any of this. I was talking somewhat historically. Back in the 50s and 60s as the folk revival burgeoned, folkies started looking at their own rich traditions; Ireland and Scotland had their celtic musics, America had its dust-bowl ballads and blues and appalachan traditions and so forth. New Zealand folkies, NZ being a much younger country, struggled a bit to find a traditional identity in their music. We tended to look straight past characters like Tex Morton and Cole Wilson because they were a bit recent, a bit twee and maybe, a bit naff. Paul Metsers wrote Farewell to the Gold to get the ball rolling in the NZ folk songwriters' camp, Neil Colquhoun collected some songs of a young country. Phil Garland wrote, resurrected and reconstructed contemporary and other material and so did Martin Curtis (these are the most noteable I can think of, there were heaps of others). We looked at our fields of gold and gum for old songs. But meanwhile, perhaps from as early as the 20's, there was a mainstream music that was being played in parlours, theatres, pubs and shanties that was "ordinary" and played with instruments of the day. A lot of formal music was based around the piano, but those songs that were based around more portable stringed instruments were undeniably "country" in sound.

Now whatever you choose as your folk music is absolutely fine by me whether it's based on a tradition or not. But when you're talking about the indigenous music of this country (with a respectful nod to the tangata whenua), it's country music that has been the mainstream music of the dock worker, the stockman, the tramp, the soldier, the miner and the digger.

Tui Award Finalists 2006

Here are links to the finalists of the Best Folk Album 2006 award (the award is called a 'Tui' after our native songbird):

• Bob Bickerton, The Likes of Us
• Ben the Hoose, Little Cascade
• The Warratahs, Keep On

There are samples on all the sites. The winner will be announced at the Auckland Folk Festival, on Sunday, 29th January 2007. A full list of award winners and finalists since the category was introduced in 1984 can be found here .

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.