Folk Roots, July 1989: Difference between revisions
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<center><h3> Floor singer's revenge </h3></center> | <center><h3> Floor singer's revenge </h3></center> | ||
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<center> Colin Irwin </center> | <center> Colin Irwin </center> | ||
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'''In case you hadn't guessed, Elvis Costello knows his folk music. Colin Irwin hears all about it | |||
{{Bibliography text}} | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
He's ready and waiting with an anecdote. The one about his live debut as a nervous 15 year-old floor singer at a folk club, playing some crappy song he'd knocked up, while the main guest of the evening — a gentleman called MacColl — fell asleep in the front row. | He's ready and waiting with an anecdote. The one about his live debut as a nervous 15 year-old floor singer at a folk club, playing some crappy song he'd knocked up, while the main guest of the evening — a gentleman called MacColl — fell asleep in the front row. | ||
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Indeed, his lust for music is legendary. Already he'd shown his mettle delving into a variety of musics — from the Motown inspired ''Get Happy'' to his country album ''Almost Blue'' recorded in Nashville with Billy Sherrill and a Melvin Bragg camera crew. And more recently he was headlong into the rewriting of modern folk music, producing The Pogues' album ''[[The Pogues: Rum, Sodomy & The Lash|Rum, Sodomy & The Lash]]''. | Indeed, his lust for music is legendary. Already he'd shown his mettle delving into a variety of musics — from the Motown inspired ''Get Happy'' to his country album ''Almost Blue'' recorded in Nashville with Billy Sherrill and a Melvin Bragg camera crew. And more recently he was headlong into the rewriting of modern folk music, producing The Pogues' album ''[[The Pogues: Rum, Sodomy & The Lash|Rum, Sodomy & The Lash]]''. | ||
We've been trying to get him to do an interview for Folk Roots for years. With the release of his latest album '' | We've been trying to get him to do an interview for Folk Roots for years. With the release of his latest album ''Spike'' — which explores Irish folk music in some depth on a couple of tracks, notably "Any King's Shilling" and the anti-Thatcher tirade "[[Tramp The Dirt Down|Tread The Dirt Down]]" (featuring many Irish folk luminaries) — Elvis has agreed to that request. He is, in any case, a regular Folk Roots reader, full of educated opinion on the developments in world music. | ||
Today, he is only too willing to voice those opinions. Far from the ornery individual whose obsession with privacy created such mystique in his early days, he is full of reminiscences about his early days around the folk clubs — and the heroes and villains he encountered there. His wife | Today, he is only too willing to voice those opinions. Far from the ornery individual whose obsession with privacy created such mystique in his early days, he is full of reminiscences about his early days around the folk clubs — and the heroes and villains he encountered there. His wife Cait O'Riordan, once a Pogue, sits reading ''Time Out'', keeping her counsel beyond the odd incredulous expression (?). Elvis, the perfect host, offers Perrier and anecdotes... | ||
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''Yes, Louis Armstrong was one...'' | ''Yes, Louis Armstrong was one...'' | ||
Yeah, it's like that quote about "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member" | Yeah, it's like that quote about "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member." That was attributed to Groucho Marx and numerous other people. | ||
I do believe it, though. There's some music where you can't hear the humans in it very much and we all know what that is so we don't have to talk about that. But I was thinking about how much I hated folk music when I first started out, simply because of the resistance that I found... | I do believe it, though. There's some music where you can't hear the humans in it very much and we all know what that is so we don't have to talk about that. But I was thinking about how much I hated folk music when I first started out, simply because of the resistance that I found... | ||
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Yes. I don't have any tapes of those songs — they were probably pretty awful. Aren't everybody's first songs? Mind you, these days you can usually get your first songs out on a record. People would tolerate you at the beginning of the night — somebody had to get up and sing first. That was a way of learning and I didn't object to that. You didn't think about it as ambition. And then I got up to Liverpool and it was all that bloody stuff. | Yes. I don't have any tapes of those songs — they were probably pretty awful. Aren't everybody's first songs? Mind you, these days you can usually get your first songs out on a record. People would tolerate you at the beginning of the night — somebody had to get up and sing first. That was a way of learning and I didn't object to that. You didn't think about it as ambition. And then I got up to Liverpool and it was all that bloody stuff. | ||
My two revenges on folk music were to have The Pogues trash "Dirty Old Town" and have it turned into a football chant, which I thought was a marvellous disembowelling. And the other is "Wild Rover." "[[The Wild Rover]]" in Liverpool was the "Johnny B. Goode" of traditional music. A traditional singer could get up and be terrible and he could do Wild Rover and do an encore, and he'd come back and do The Holy Ground! I hated those fucking songs! | My two revenges on folk music were to have The Pogues trash "Dirty Old Town" and have it turned into a football chant, which I thought was a marvellous disembowelling. And the other is "Wild Rover." "[[The Wild Rover]]" in Liverpool was the "Johnny B. Goode" of traditional music. A traditional singer could get up and be terrible and he could do "Wild Rover" and do an encore, and he'd come back and do "The Holy Ground"! I hated those fucking songs! | ||
[Cait is feigning terrible shock-horror at this revelation] | ''[Cait is feigning terrible shock-horror at this revelation] | ||
It's true! The Pogues thought they were manipulating me but it was just a ruse to avenge myself! | It's true! The Pogues thought they were manipulating me but it was just a ruse to avenge myself! | ||
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''But you're not going to tell me what it is?'' | ''But you're not going to tell me what it is?'' | ||
Oh yes, sorry! It happened to my grand-father. He was born in Birkenhead but his folks were from Ireland. They came over like everybody else and his dad was... well, nobody's really sure, but they think he was murdered. And the kids were orphaned and my grandfather ended up from the orphanage in the military school of music. When war came he was sent to France and was shot and wasn't fit to go back to the front. So he ended up in the British Army in Dublin in 1916 on the wrong side, as you might say. I'm not saying that James Connolly came to him and said "Matt, keep your head down" but some Scallies that he knew there said "You'd better watch out" | Oh yes, sorry! It happened to my grand-father. He was born in Birkenhead but his folks were from Ireland. They came over like everybody else and his dad was... well, nobody's really sure, but they think he was murdered. And the kids were orphaned and my grandfather ended up from the orphanage in the military school of music. When war came he was sent to France and was shot and wasn't fit to go back to the front. So he ended up in the British Army in Dublin in 1916 on the wrong side, as you might say. I'm not saying that James Connolly came to him and said "Matt, keep your head down" but some Scallies that he knew there said "You'd better watch out." It's a good starting point for a story that could happen anywhere. | ||
''What about the musicians you've got on it? Davy Spillane and Donal Lunny and Christy Moore...'' | ''What about the musicians you've got on it? Davy Spillane and Donal Lunny and Christy Moore...'' | ||
I started off having a tussle with folk music but after nearly 20 years I've come to peace with folk music and I've got friends who are completely unapologetically in that tradition. [[Dónal Lunny|Donal Lunny]] asked me to do a TV show in Ireland — he did this O'Riada retrospective concert and he had this great line-up put together and he asked me if I wanted to come up and sing some songs with them. So I took some songs along — Let 'Em Dangle and Any King's Shilling and something from ''King Of America''. So we did that. | I started off having a tussle with folk music but after nearly 20 years I've come to peace with folk music and I've got friends who are completely unapologetically in that tradition. [[Dónal Lunny|Donal Lunny]] asked me to do a TV show in Ireland — he did this O'Riada retrospective concert and he had this great line-up put together and he asked me if I wanted to come up and sing some songs with them. So I took some songs along — "Let 'Em Dangle" and "Any King's Shilling" and something from ''King Of America''. So we did that. | ||
It's a very cliquey sort of music. It's like jazz in that because it goes largely unrewarded and uncelebrated, people jealously guard their own corners and it makes them more bitchy than pop people who get everything landed in their laps... and then they get bitchy! So when I was doing the record I went to Donal and asked him to help me put a band together for it. So he got [[Davy Spillane]], I got [[Derek Bell]], [[Christy Moore]] agreed to do it, and he suggested [[Frankie Gavin]] and I got [[Steve Wickham]] and between us we assembled this band. It's like a little orchestra and plays in a very formal way. | It's a very cliquey sort of music. It's like jazz in that because it goes largely unrewarded and uncelebrated, people jealously guard their own corners and it makes them more bitchy than pop people who get everything landed in their laps... and then they get bitchy! So when I was doing the record I went to Donal and asked him to help me put a band together for it. So he got [[Davy Spillane]], I got [[Derek Bell]], [[Christy Moore]] agreed to do it, and he suggested [[Frankie Gavin]] and I got [[Steve Wickham]] and between us we assembled this band. It's like a little orchestra and plays in a very formal way. | ||
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''Presumably you're in favour of this world music thing with the barriers breaking down?'' | ''Presumably you're in favour of this world music thing with the barriers breaking down?'' | ||
I see a danger that it could become a flavour of the week. I have a dreadful fear of artists being left high and dry by a change in the wind, particularly when they're from another country and they come here with an open attitude to the machinery here and suddenly it's "Oh sorry, it's not Algerian music this week, it's Czechoslovakian now" | I see a danger that it could become a flavour of the week. I have a dreadful fear of artists being left high and dry by a change in the wind, particularly when they're from another country and they come here with an open attitude to the machinery here and suddenly it's "Oh sorry, it's not Algerian music this week, it's Czechoslovakian now." That element worries me — I worry about the motives of the entrepreneurs... but then I worry about the motives of entrepreneurs all the time! | ||
There are songs about it on the record! | There are songs about it on the record! | ||
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If it wasn't for the language there wouldn't be any barriers at all between the traditions. There's so many parallels, there's so many meeting points musically. There are certain musics that seem alien to you in a very attractive way and that's the very thing you like about them. But the stories that they tell are all told using other mediums — the stories are basically the same because they're stories about humans. They're stories about folks — it's folk music, literally! People live, they die, they get sent away to war, they get transported... all those things happen everywhere. That's the strength of it. | If it wasn't for the language there wouldn't be any barriers at all between the traditions. There's so many parallels, there's so many meeting points musically. There are certain musics that seem alien to you in a very attractive way and that's the very thing you like about them. But the stories that they tell are all told using other mediums — the stories are basically the same because they're stories about humans. They're stories about folks — it's folk music, literally! People live, they die, they get sent away to war, they get transported... all those things happen everywhere. That's the strength of it. | ||
It's just whether it becomes like "Do you have this one?", "Have you got the Penny Black?" It becomes like stamp collecting after a while and that becomes as negative as "Oh is it electric blues — I only like acoustic blues" | It's just whether it becomes like "Do you have this one?", "Have you got the Penny Black?" It becomes like stamp collecting after a while and that becomes as negative as "Oh is it electric blues — I only like acoustic blues." Or "I only like trad., I don't like modern." That's bullshit. It's all stuff. We all need Dumbo ears. | ||
''So you think there's plenty more for you to explore?'' | ''So you think there's plenty more for you to explore?'' | ||
Yes. I have to trust people haven't become too cynical and will hear what's on this record honestly and without cynicism. That it's not "Oh now he's doing folk music" | Yes. I have to trust people haven't become too cynical and will hear what's on this record honestly and without cynicism. That it's not "Oh now he's doing folk music." That's shit! I don't think I'm doing folk music! I hear sounds that I think are entirely appropriate not only to the context but to the subject and the emotion of the song so I'll use them. In the same way that I've used the pipes and the fiddle, I think the horns are entirely appropriate to the songs they're on, and the more conventional pop-sounding arrangements with electric guitars — that's right for those songs. | ||
It's not like a series of overcoats that I'm wearing. It's not like "Look at me, haven't I got a big wardrobe?" That's not what it's about. What it's about is telling the stories as well as you possibly can. | It's not like a series of overcoats that I'm wearing. It's not like "Look at me, haven't I got a big wardrobe?" That's not what it's about. What it's about is telling the stories as well as you possibly can. | ||
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''You must have got that reaction when you went to Nashville to record Almost Blue...'' | ''You must have got that reaction when you went to Nashville to record Almost Blue...'' | ||
No, I don't think that's comparable. That was just indulging something that I wanted to do. To sing songs of a certain emotional stamp without having to write them myself. That was one attempt at doing it and I think I could do it a lot better now. In terms of the kind of emotional area I was trying to move in, I think I wrote better songs of my own for my voice to sing on '' | No, I don't think that's comparable. That was just indulging something that I wanted to do. To sing songs of a certain emotional stamp without having to write them myself. That was one attempt at doing it and I think I could do it a lot better now. In terms of the kind of emotional area I was trying to move in, I think I wrote better songs of my own for my voice to sing on ''King Of America'' than me attempting songs that I'm not equipped to sing. | ||
It's more like a rock 'n' roll singer doing a country record. It's more in the tradition of [[Charlie Rich]] doing his Hank Williams record. To my mind Charlie Rich is a great R & B singer, not a country singer... but he brings that sort of blues eclection out of the [[Hank Williams]] songs, something different out of those songs than you would get from [[George Jones]] singing Hank Williams. | It's more like a rock 'n' roll singer doing a country record. It's more in the tradition of [[Charlie Rich]] doing his Hank Williams record. To my mind Charlie Rich is a great R & B singer, not a country singer... but he brings that sort of blues eclection out of the [[Hank Williams]] songs, something different out of those songs than you would get from [[George Jones]] singing Hank Williams. | ||
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You go very far afield and you find the most outlandish things. When you start going to West Africa and finding that guy who wants to be Jimmie Rodgers. How did the pedal steel guitar get into West African music? I think that's great — let's mix it all up. Like [[Miles Davis]] in the '60s. He could have been the king of jazz forever and he wanted to be [[Sylvester Stewart|Sly Stone]]. I think that's really cool. Cool and brave. It's all there. It's not so much world music, it's just a world of music. | You go very far afield and you find the most outlandish things. When you start going to West Africa and finding that guy who wants to be Jimmie Rodgers. How did the pedal steel guitar get into West African music? I think that's great — let's mix it all up. Like [[Miles Davis]] in the '60s. He could have been the king of jazz forever and he wanted to be [[Sylvester Stewart|Sly Stone]]. I think that's really cool. Cool and brave. It's all there. It's not so much world music, it's just a world of music. | ||
''What do you think of | ''What do you think of Billy Bragg?'' | ||
He's written some good songs. I don't agree with him all the time and I don't agree with the stance from which he appears to work, but it seems like he's now working out the paradoxes in his songs, rather than the "we're in this position — you're in that position" way that it was a few years ago. | He's written some good songs. I don't agree with him all the time and I don't agree with the stance from which he appears to work, but it seems like he's now working out the paradoxes in his songs, rather than the "we're in this position — you're in that position" way that it was a few years ago. | ||
He's more involved in life. | He's more involved in life. | ||
His best songs to my ears are the ones where he takes a little story to illustrate a point rather than the big slogans, which was the failing of the protest movement in the first place because nobody that disagrees with you listens. You don't stir up an argument. The main thing you should do with any song that's about anything you can call political is start a fight with it. That should be the main aim. It's not going to change anything. Me singing Let 'Em Dangle isn't going to stop them bringing back hanging. The best you might do is start up some sort of punch-up which might get people talking about it... that's the very best you can ask for. The least you can ask for is to be completely ignored and for it not to be played — that's Leon Rosselson. | His best songs to my ears are the ones where he takes a little story to illustrate a point rather than the big slogans, which was the failing of the protest movement in the first place because nobody that disagrees with you listens. You don't stir up an argument. The main thing you should do with any song that's about anything you can call political is start a fight with it. That should be the main aim. It's not going to change anything. Me singing "Let 'Em Dangle" isn't going to stop them bringing back hanging. The best you might do is start up some sort of punch-up which might get people talking about it... that's the very best you can ask for. The least you can ask for is to be completely ignored and for it not to be played — that's Leon Rosselson. | ||
''What about a vicious song like Tramp The Dirt Down (which unequivocally wishes death on M. Thatcher). What do you hope to achieve by that?'' | ''What about a vicious song like "Tramp The Dirt Down" (which unequivocally wishes death on M. Thatcher). What do you hope to achieve by that?'' | ||
It gets it out of my system. That's more personal than the song may appear at first glance. It's a horrible thought — I don't like the idea of wishing anyone dead, no matter who they are or what they've done to whoever I love. But that's the case and therefore it's a very personal song. It's an unreasonable argument, it's not intended to be a balanced, liberal view. It's a psychopathic song. | It gets it out of my system. That's more personal than the song may appear at first glance. It's a horrible thought — I don't like the idea of wishing anyone dead, no matter who they are or what they've done to whoever I love. But that's the case and therefore it's a very personal song. It's an unreasonable argument, it's not intended to be a balanced, liberal view. It's a psychopathic song. | ||
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It is. It also says some things that are true. I do think that England is a whorehouse. If anyone takes exception to that line I'll argue the cases where I think it is. And if you qualify everything you're never going to win any arguments or change anything. If you've always got to have a let-out clause... there's no let-out clause in "[[The Times They Are A-Changin'|The Times They Are A-Changing]]," there's no let-out clause in the real version of "This Land Is Your Land." | It is. It also says some things that are true. I do think that England is a whorehouse. If anyone takes exception to that line I'll argue the cases where I think it is. And if you qualify everything you're never going to win any arguments or change anything. If you've always got to have a let-out clause... there's no let-out clause in "[[The Times They Are A-Changin'|The Times They Are A-Changing]]," there's no let-out clause in the real version of "This Land Is Your Land." | ||
It's a much more complicated psychology these days because nothing they say is true. When [[Woody Guthrie]] was writing songs it was like "You are worthless dirt farmers and we're gonna kick your butt off this land" — that was a fairly easy thing to understand. They didn't try to dress it up in any way. Now they would have an advertising campaign to explain to you why it's better that they come and steamroller your house. So a song as simplistic as that one won't work any more. It's ironic now. When | It's a much more complicated psychology these days because nothing they say is true. When [[Woody Guthrie]] was writing songs it was like "You are worthless dirt farmers and we're gonna kick your butt off this land" — that was a fairly easy thing to understand. They didn't try to dress it up in any way. Now they would have an advertising campaign to explain to you why it's better that they come and steamroller your house. So a song as simplistic as that one won't work any more. It's ironic now. When Bruce Springsteen sings "This Land Is Your Land" it's really beautiful because it's so obviously not true. It's like when I sang "All You Need Is Love" at [[Concert 1985-07-13 London|Live Aid]] I thought it was entirely appropriate because it is so transparently not all we need. | ||
''How and why did you get involved with [[Paul McCartney]]?'' | ''How and why did you get involved with [[Paul McCartney]]?'' | ||
He asked me to. And I said "Yes" | He asked me to. And I said "Yes." He's written some good songs. People tend to forget he's really good. Most people think he's really great... it's critics who think he isn't any good. | ||
''Some people might see a paradox in someone like you who rose with the punk brigade supposedly hell-bent on throwing over the old guard suddenly getting involved with the old guard.'' | ''Some people might see a paradox in someone like you who rose with the punk brigade supposedly hell-bent on throwing over the old guard suddenly getting involved with the old guard.'' | ||
I never said any of that shit. That was all nonsense. I mean, Johnny Rotten had Ginger Baker on his last record! That was all in Malcolm McLaren and Bernie Rhodes' heads! If the year of punk was '76/'77, '78/'79 had some of the worst dinosaur music ever. | I never said any of that shit. That was all nonsense. I mean, Johnny Rotten had Ginger Baker on his last record! That was all in Malcolm McLaren and Bernie Rhodes' heads! If the year of punk was '76/'77, '78/'79 had some of the worst dinosaur music ever. Fleetwood Mac, Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Foreigner, Journey and Boston. I hated those people with a passion. It was just so unfair — we just weren't given a break. | ||
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Latest revision as of 04:53, 20 September 2021
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