Other folkie beginnings - Home

When I was 13 a music-loving friend told me I should be into heavy metal. To illustrate he lent me Made in Japan by Deep Purple. I loved the energy and rawness, but also the gentle delicacy of some moments. I wanted more of this.... before that I hadn't taken too much notice - I listened largely to bland pop music.

My heavy metal freak friends followed on and got me into Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Rush, Genesis and Pink Floyd (among others). For my quieter moods I kept hold of the Beatles and my Dad's Simon & Garfunkel. Some other "pop" stuff got through too - notably Elvis Costello and Dire Straits. Another more intellectually oriented friend lent me Emerson Lake and Palmer, and Yes. These 2 bands were just too hard to get into.... at the time. Some years later I returned to them and got hooked, they just needed the listener to put in a bit more effort.

Where is the folk connection?

An opinionated guitarist songsmith called Roy Harper is credited on both Led Zeppelin 3 and Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. So when this Roy Harper played Huddersfield Polytechnic I had to find out what Zep and Floyd were into. I discovered not only a magnificent song writer with a strong message, but some fabulous playing - largely on acoustic guitar. Roy Harper's not an established Folkie - his rock friends and fans kept him pigeonholed in that camp, but lots of his stuff has more in common with folk than pop/rock.

Jethro Tull with Ian Anderson's folk vocal style and great, often acoustic, backing gave me the interest in the combination of folk and rock. Following the thread meant when "folk rock legends" Fairport Convention played Nottingham, I had to go and see what this was about. A colleague told me they weren't a patch on when they had Sandy Denny - so I bought Liege & Lief, was astounded, and went full circle, suddenly recognising the guest singer on Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore. I also followed hard rock and harmony singing through Crosby Stills and Nash, and Neil Young.

So here I was, finding folk appealing, and wanting to play fingerstyle acoustic guitar work. So I took a couple of courses of guitar lessons in the evenings at the local school. The teacher was president of the local Bingham Folk Club and suggested if we wanted to see some good playing that we come down to the club on Friday nights.

The rest is history (or at least it doesn't illustrate any points). Many years later, here in New Zealand, I'm actively trying to promote this music and love playing and singing (but know I'm never going to be Richard Thompson or Jimmy Page). My music collection includes everything from Bach to Black Sabbath via Miles Davis and Martin Carthy. And I'm still fascinated by the connections between styles, artists and songs. And good friends on the folk scene have finally persuaded me that there's more to Country than Billy Jo Spears (my Dad has a lot to answer for there).

Conclusion?

My parent's were not at all musical (though my Dad enjoyed Jazz) and certainly not folkies so we don't need to rely on our own offspring to keep this stuff alive - we can bring non folkies into the scene - and they will revere and join in with the trad material as well as the new (I now get as much pleasure from a shanty singing session as a display of virtuoso guitar playing).

Just talk to people who express interest, lend them recordings - get them into the music. Playing can come later. I owe a debt of gratitude to everyone who ever said to me "So you like X? have you heard Y? They learned from / inspired / are similar to ..........."