by Steve Srubowich
LEARNING TO LOVE THE MANY FLAVOURS OF FOLK MUSIC
My introduction and admiration of folk music has been a gradual progression.
Rock and roll has always and remains my first love amongst the many types of music.
But I’ve learned to accept that musical styles don’t have to remain pure and blending different styles makes creative sense for artists and provides a greater variety for listeners. Plus Duke Ellington was right when he said there are only two types of music, good and bad, and it’s up to yourself to find what valuable and what isn’t to your ears and heart.
Although I’ve always enjoyed the pure folk of early Bob Dylan, Joan Armatrading, Gordon Lightfoot, Murray McLauchlan and a few others, it has definitely been the cross-pollination of folk with rock and roll that has actually drawn me in closer to all folk and traditional music. I reckon my entrance to folk music was via a side door rather than the front door.
The work of about six or so artists has opened my mind to a whole, seemingly limitless, world of folk, traditional and acoustic music.
Those ‘door-opening’ artists would include Armatrading, The Pogues, Billy Bragg, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Kelly from Australia and an English collective known as the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
Armatrading has made a career of cooking various musical styles together and her soulful voice has mixed melodic folk with pop and rock.
The Pogues proved to me that the energy and attitude of rock could be woven beautifully with Celtic and folk melodies.
Springsteen’s stark Nebraska album showed me how a powerful rocker could deliver a stirring album with little more than his own voice and acoustic guitar.
England’s Billy Bragg has made a career of blending tasteful and ragged rock with folk, Woody Guthrie’s visions with a liberal conscience and insightful humanistic and funny lyrics.
Paul Kelly is simply one of the finest songwriters living who uses folk, blues and rock to flesh out his rich narratives of characters often entangled in moral dilemmas.
And lastly the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, an instrumental collective, cooly mixed English traditional music with a parade of world music styles to create a captivating confluence of rootsy styles.
Another epiphany was hearing the late great Bob Marley, reggae’s first superstar, deliver one of the finest folk songs of all time. His tune Redemption Song is priceless with its bare bones guitar and voice with rich passion and beauty.
Attending folk festivals over the last decade, primarily to see rock and pop acts like Elvis Costello, Armatrading and others, opened my mind and ears to an army of folk artists. If I’d only listened to so-called top 40 radio and only attended rock and roll shows, I’d never have been introduced to the wonderful talents of people like Dougie MacLean, David Francey, Rory McLeod, The Codependents, Bill Bourne, Mary Gauthier, The Stiff Gins and so many others.
Hopefully the Medicine Hat Folk Club can play a role in exposing more people to the beauty and soul of folk music of all flavours.