Folk Music – It’s not all Hey Nonny Nonny

Folk music often defines a nation telling, as it tends to do, stories about life, about communities and about individuals.

Classical composers have often used folk music in their works. For example Dvorak used music from his native Czechoslovakia in a number of his symphonies and, in the amazing Symphony No. 9 “From The New World”, borrowed American folk music especially spiritual music to set the mood…..listen to the haunting cor angles tune in the second movement. You will recognise it as the Hovis advert.

Talk to people about folk music and in their minds they often see a bunch of guys in waistcoats, supping beer, fingers in ears and singing through their noses. Well in some cases that’s true…..and great fun it is too. I quite enjoy singing those songs myself. However, over the years we have developed a great tradition on both sides of the Atlantic for expanding this genre and bring it into the modern world.

During that amazing period of the late 60s to the late 70s a whole bunch of folk bands “plugged in” and went electric. This outraged some of the purists. Bob Dylan was berated when he picked up his electric guitar but he just carried on and produced some of his greatest albums.

In this country, bands such as Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span appeared and wowed us with their fabulous electric beats and I have included a couple of their songs here. Incidentally on those tracks we have the gorgeous and much missed Sandy Denny singing with Fairport and the equally amazing Maddy Prior with Steeleye Span. Check out some of their solo material on You Tube…….I’m sure you will love it.

On the other side of the pond bands like the trio of great guitarists ‘America’ hit the scene. They came to prominence with the song A horse with no name and then released the beautiful track we have here, Ventura Highway.

The Anglo American trio Crosby, Stills and Nash (Graham Nash was once a member of British group The Hollies) were a huge part of The Woodstock generation and the track I have picked here is a masterpiece.

The final selection is a favourite of mine. I can honestly say that I LOVE the music of Nick Drake and if you play this selection you might see why. Although his music did not find a wide audience during his lifetime, he gradually achieved wider recognition and is now considered among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years.

Nick was a very complex character who was prone to bouts of depression. He was, however, a genius guitarist and songwriter. He can tug at your heart strings and make you laugh and cry all in the space of a 3 minute song.

He died of an accidental overdose of anti depressants in November 1974 and his ashes were buried with his late parents under a beautiful oak tree in the churchyard in Tanworh-in-Arden. Pam and I visited there some years ago and I was staggered by the number of people that were doing the same. It was one of the most moving moments of my whole life.

Fairport Convention – Matty Groves