A walk through prog folk

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Hi,

This is, by far, one of the nicest posts I have ever seen on this board ... and it is thorough ... 

I think I might add something about Alan Stivell ... for his mixes of folk, traditional, rock and jazz is really special. And like a lot of music in France, it is extremely political and has a few albums where the lyrics make sure that the world knows the history of the French Celtic folks and what happened to them in French history and how a lot of their culture was eradicated.

In general, he is a very tough listen for many audiences ... unless he tones it down to traditional instruments and comes off as a folk player, just doing traditional stuff ... but his power in strength is adding a Celtic Harp and soloing it around an electric guitar ... and being just as powerful and helping the music be even stronger ... it is, in effect, the modern version, of his culture ... and he set a nice pace for it ... though few were able to continue it and do more with it ... I think that too many folks feel that the celtic harp belongs with angels and not in music! ... something like that ... and he breaks that apart in one song ... all you have to do is listen up to Pop-Plinn one more time ,,, or Suite Irlandaise ... or Spered Hollvedel to catch what one might think sound like gospel vocals in the background ... to Kimiad for an amazing jazz morsel that is magical ...  (get the Again CD for a more prog style version of these, btw) ... 

Of any others, Spain and Portugal are hugely involved in the folk scene, but unfortunately these are not as well known or heard as you and I would have liked ... and some of this music tends to be more traditional than otherwise but there are some hybrid blends (wish I could name them and knew them) that stand out now and then ... and some of them are in the clubs in Madrid and Barcelona, for example ... that they have not been thought of as "progressive" is more a lack of too much of this music not being heard around the world, and populated through the LP, Cassette and CD world that all of these mentioned above have.

Incredible String Band probably deserves a wider mention, but I am not even sure how to do that ... Robin Williamson's sometimes contempt for singing and just having fun with lyrics often turn people off and in a way this group was more theatrical than all the others ... but unfortunately they could not make this survive on a stage, in such a way that people would appreciate the dancing and the theater in it. I oftne think that it was a serious attempt at mixing folk music with theater and some other elements of performance, and were it not for the ability of the work to sell itself, even on a stage, it might have worked. And ... I think much more importantly, like Amon Duul 2, this was indeed a commune and it DID feature the women in the group instead of not. Most "hippy" and psychedelic bands did not do so ... they could talk about anything, but when it came to the music it had to be just men! ... and even Grace Slick touched on this some in her biography ... it was music for male fantasies only! 

The Ramases thing is a bit strange, and the 10CC'rs talk about it with some humor, and there is some good music in those albums, however, they are more towards the philosophical side of things disguised as music ... take away the lyrics and you have a folk 10CC ... whose history came from the folk and pop side of things by even writing and putting together stuff for Neil Sedaka.

The American scene is not too dis-similar ... I came to Santa Barbara i n1972 and there was no "folk scene" per se, but there was a blue grass scene that tended to mix with folk rather well ... and LA was not exactly known for folk music much. I always thought that the Bay Area were the kinds of the folk music stuff, however, not sure that many of us can name that many folks from there and the songs/music they played ... the Farina's are well represented in many places and even Sandy Denny did an amazing song of theirs a capella in one of her albums ... showing that she was quite aware that Bob Dylan was not the only folk one around ... 

What I can not say that should be mentioned here, and in its history, I would think that the first Seeger and the elder Guthrie also deserve mention ... although they are thought of as reactionaries rather than "musicians" many times, and that is sad, for their work is as important as just about any mentioned here.  

But much of it maybe considered straight ahead folk much more than it would be considered any kind of prog-folk ... which tends to be mostly represented strictly by the fact that it is electric ... and nothing much more.

Third Ear Band, to me, even though it is influenced by eastern music is much more of an academic endeavor and work, than I would associate with anything else ... though it is clear to me that a lot of it is right out in the open free form. While they are important in a way, I still think that they are "colder" , and sometimes they remind me of music majors at UCSB tapping their fingers on a piece of paper and putting a note here and there, and calling it music ... but this may be me.

Brazil .. .should be in here, and somehow, finding a way to add Africa ... where Maria Bethania and so many others cracked radio in the later 60's with a massive amount of music that was getting played on radio, but really deserves to be mentioned as prog-folk ... it was not just folk music, and later people like Egberto Gismonti free formed his way, into a hybrid that folks tend to call "jazz" and is not ... it's just total free form within a folk context ... something that is really hard to explain as "folk". But it is ... check out his early albums on ECM. I can not speak with any authority at all, about Argentina, or other Latin countries, and it is widely known that Cuba is massive when it comes to music, and always has been in just about any style.

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