Recent Photo Credits

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Photographic progress

I hit a personal milestone on Flickr this month with my photographs and original Demotivator posters...over 350,000 views!

One of the contributing factors is that my images are being used on other sites on the web.

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Cover Me

This article was commissioned by the Calgary Folk Music Festival, for their 2010 program book.

To accompany this article, I also created sidebars referencing artists appearing at the 2010 festival, internet links, a streaming playlist of cover versions of songs and original illustrations.

Cover Me

What comes to mind when you think of the songs that light up your life? We all have them - the songs that captured a feeling so perfectly that every time you hear them you feel like kicking ass or kicking back.

What songs remind you most of where you come from, or that perfect summer when you fell in love? What's the song that always reminds you that everything's going to be alright?

Now imagine that you'll never hear that song again.

Sure, you can always press Play but we all know the difference between the live and the Memorex is as big as all outdoors, or we wouldn't be here this weekend. Songs are meant to be sung, and when they're not, they fade and eventually disappear.

Why talk about this here, at a folk festival of all places?

Because when you're more likely to hear a Dylan song at a Brian Ferry show than a folk club, we have a problem, Houston.

When an aging Scottish rock band* knows more Joni Mitchell songs than most of the people applying for her job, it's time to talk.

Fifty years ago, folk was all covers, all the time. These days, when it comes to songs, it's more like all mine, all the time.

Why are singer-songwriters the least likely candidates to sing songs by somebody else?



Deeper into the Mystery
The first song we ever hear is a lullaby, and it's hard to imagine a more wonderful welcome to what must seem like a pretty weird world. It's the first of many folk songs we'll encounter when we're young. Some are simply silly and fun, while some are stories in code about historic events. Singing them at home and at recess teaches us about language and how to move our bodies and other useful things, including songs to sing to our own children one day.

The history of music is much more concerned with cover songs than it is with original compositions. Classical and spiritual music are based on them. In jazz, they call them standards, and it's assumed you'll either know them or be able to fake them convincingly. Dance music is often built on different producers remixing the same song into new versions.

Musicians in other genres across the vast folk/global/roots music continuum, from blues to bluegrass to ragas and reggae, do covers all the time.

It's less than a non-issue. It's a tradition, and one can’t help but notice that the more cover songs there are in the repertoire, the more a genre seems to value instrumental and vocal training.

There's Something Happening Here
It's 1961. In Greenwich Village, a kid calling himself Bob Dylan is having a hoot. He's hanging out, playing the guitar and listening to people like Dave van Ronk, Rambling Jack Elliott, Odetta and Mike Seeger playing covers. It's classic ‘folk’ – ballads, blues, rags and what-have-you that don't belong to anybody, but everybody seems to know.

Listening to Mike one night, Bob realizes he's never going to play the old songs as well as Mike already can. If he's going to get a musical life, he needs to do something different.

What if he wrote new songs that sounded like the old ones, and sang them himself?

Ba-da-bing! It works like stink. His singing voice puts some people off, and he's not the best guitar player in the Village, but more and more people are loving the new songs. The more places he plays, the more people want more. People like his songs so much they call him an artist, and maybe they are right.

As the veneration of Bob goes ballistic, new Dylans start turning up all over. All you have to do is buy a guitar, write a few songs and voila, you're an Artist.

The Bermuda Triangle of Contemporary Songwriting

Welcome to the Great Folk Scare
of the Sixties.
Up until the Scare, there were fewer artists and a lot more entertainers on stage. The big difference between them is that entertainers start from a vested interest in the happiness of the audience and artists, generally, do not. Artists let you in on their perceptions of the world, and you can take it or leave it.

"The main thing is to live for that audience 'cause that's what you're there for... to please the people."

Louis Armstrong said that, and he was one of the most innovative, influential musicians of the 20th century. Most of the time he played covers and when asked what he did, he'd say he was an entertainer. Frank Sinatra used to call himself a 'saloon singer'.

As more musicians became Artists, it wasn't simply that no one sang sea shanties anymore or that Kumbaya was off the playlist. Under the old folk rules, the performer on a stage was there to reflect us back to ourselves. Now, the stage is about the Artist. We celebrate them.



A New Fusion of Old Traditions
The sound of the world has changed. In the world of folk-based global roots music, the gains have frankly been astounding.

Traditions that were once in danger of fading away are thriving again. There are more people making music, instruments and songs and more people listening to it now than ever before.

From a time when few people outside specific communities had heard women singing traditional Bulgarian songs, or experienced real zydeco music or heard a digeridoo live and direct, the music of the world is no longer so strange to our North American ears.

Our summers are brimming with festivals, almost all of them based on the model developed by folk-based festivals. No one knows how many new songs have been added to the world’s songbook over the last five decades. Some have disappeared without a trace. Some have become anthems of celebration for millions of people.

Meanwhile, the story of who "we" are and where our roots run back to has grown much more complex.  Wherever you live in Canada, the demographics have changed dramatically over the last 50 years. There are songs that many of us have in common, though. Immersed in media as we are, songs come to us all the time through film, television and the net.

Witness for instance K’Naan’s song “Waving Flag,” a deeply personal story of his struggles for survival as a youth in Somalia.

Over the space of a couple of years, the song has been covered twice – first as a group aid effort with Young Artists for Haiti, and then as the 2010 World Cup anthem – and in the process has become the soundtrack to a space and time for a global community.
 

Or consider recent festival guests The Sparrow Quartet, where bluegrass fiddle-trained Abigail Washburn has built her music around covers of traditional Mandarin Chinese folk songs.
This is an exciting time, as our definitions of who we are as a folk – and the music that reflects that for us – are evolving every day.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
Despite all of these interesting developments, though, the essence of the modern-day singer-songwriter’s identity still rests on the production and presentation of never-before-heard music. Singing their latest new songs consistently trumps the idea that there are as many creative possibilities in interpreting a song as there are in writing one.

It flies in the face of one of music's most amazing attributes – the way the same song will mean something different and very personal to everyone who hears it, including the one singing it at the time.

Even leaving aside the obvious potential for professional development or the performance possibilities, will anyone else ever sing any of these new songs?

Songs enter into the canon of a culture slowly, and only as they are actively shared over time. Our musicians bring them, and we sing them together. It used to be that a musician’s main job was to preserve our history for us; to remember our stories through song, and pass them down through the generations. They were known as griots, song carriers, minstrels and occupied a special place in people’s cultural lives. In many traditions, they still do.

The history of folk music is a history of cover tunes, and that living tradition has been reminding us that we are not alone for centuries. A familiar song doesn't just invoke memories. For a few minutes, it reminds us that whatever our differences might be, we are profoundly connected, to each other, and to our shared history.

In a world where people seem to feel more alienated and isolated all the time, it's a circle
that shouldn't be broken.





Dugg Simpson has been in love with festivals and all things folk for 30 years, including a dozen as the artistic director of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. More deep thoughts about the good, the bad and the ugly of it all can be found at <http://www.thedugghouse.com/>

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Recent photographs - August 10

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The Oil in the Gulf

...and more than 50 days later,

it's still coming

-tbc- 

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... the weather's been strange
here lately, all the way up
to snowing in May...

which may be funny
when it happens
a few provinces away,

but not so much
when it's your yard.

anyway, one result of it
all is that i've been bringing
a few of the flowers
in the garden inside,
so i can spend some time
looking at them...

come rain or come shine...

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January photographs

some recent fascinations...

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My Dinner With Estelle

Chapter 1

The Quest

Years ago, when I was a baby artistic director I was very interested in trying to find new approaches to the art and the craft of that work. Once in a while, I'd get ideas about a "best next step" on that path. Many would fade in the light of day or get lost among more pressing concerns, but sometimes one would refuse to go away until it actually happened... which is how I came to dine with Estelle Klein.

Estelle was not the first artistic director of a folk festival in Canada, but she had set a high standard for that position during her years at the Mariposa Folk Festival and in the programming she had done after that in a variety of prominent venues. A cultural pioneer of the first order, she wove music, dance, craft and other elements of folk living into inspiring experiences that changed lives.

One of the people profoundly affected by her work was a kid from Winnipeg named Mitch Podolak, who would go on to found a new folk festival there. A few years later, a marketing maven from Brooklyn turned city planner in Vancouver named Ernie Fladell would invite him out to start another one with another radical youth familiar with Estelle's work named Gary Cristall.

In the years since, these and other events like them would transform the experience of culture in Canada, and the way events were created and staged. It seemed to me that if anyone might understand my determination to do a good job, or could offer me a clue or two, it would be Estelle Klein.

This country can be a pretty small town sometimes, no matter what you're into, and the folk/roots/global music zone is no exception. Once in a while, it can be a good thing and for me, this was one of those times. My desire to come and pay my respects to her the next time I was back east (as we say out west) was forwarded to her through the appropriate channels and one day an email from her turned up in my inbox saying she would be up for a visit.

And so it was that one fine fall day, a friend and I found ourselves on the road to Quinte Bay, a little village near Kingston on the north shore of Lake Ontario where she and her husband had moved when he retired. Our plan was simple- a cup or two of tea and some conversation - but like most plans, it evolved in response to changing circumstances as the afternoon turned into evening. The conversation paused just long enough to secure some pizza and beer for dinner and just kept rolling along until finally, it was really time to go. We said our good-byes and as we headed back out to the highway, I knew I was in love.

Chapter 2

2. Respection & Affection

One of the fundamentals of First Nations culture is a profound respect for elders, and when I began to work with people from west coast First Nations on programming for the festival, this was one thing I got from the get-go... the elders in my family had inspired an early love and respect verging on adoration that continues long after their passing.




Their example, and the fond memories of our time together have led me to seek the company of elders ever since, and my life continues to be influenced by the grace and wisdom of the company of some very extraordinary people- Vince Stogan from the Squamish Nation, Carsten Panduro, Utah Phillips, Roy Bailey and Roy Estrada and a few others over the years, including Estelle.

My appreciation of each of these amazing people and the time we spent together grows with every passing year and it's a practice I would recommend to anyone trying to learn more about their art, their craft or simply about how to be a human being.




A conversation with an elder one respects is a profound moment: it's implicit in their listening that one's naive ideas are worthy of attention and it's just as implicit that the elder's experience experience and perspective are both highly valued and influential.

For those having the conversation, it is also historic- imagining the future while referencing the past and the present. As a young practitioner, one is welcomed into history while gaining deeper insights into it from someone who helped to create it.




There's an old truism often heard backstage anywhere that there's no money in it, you just do it for the stories. If she had wanted to just tell me some war stories, as they're known in the trade, I would have felt like the luckiest guy in folk music. She'd worked with some of the most amazing musicians and other performers on the continent and they'd made magic together that had long since evolved into mythology.




What she did, most of the time though, was ask me about what I was working on, and what I hoped would come of it. Estelle would listen with a patience and a genuine curiousity that was rare in my life, as I suspect it is in many other people's these days, and it was both inspiring and intimidating.

She was far more interested in what was happening now than she was in recounting her own history. From that first afternoon in her kitchen, the stories she would share and her pointed questions always sent me back to work scratching my head, but also inspired to find the essence of it and to find an answer worth sharing with her the next time we saw each other.

Only later, well beyond the here and now of it all, would I realize she was also teaching me a few things about being an elder. Only much, much later would it occur to me that the respect and interest in the elder that the "younger" brings to these encounters may also have some value.

Chapter 3
The Question

One of the things that makes time with an elder so precious is scarcity.

My grandparents lived in London, Ontario, which was almost exactly halfway between our family in Brampton and their other grandchildren in Windsor. They were scrupulous about sharing their free time equally with each family and while we all respected the fairness of their decision, it didn't add up to half the time we would have preferred to spend with them.

It's a pattern that's held true with every elder in my life ever since, and it's a feeling that only gets worse when their time of dying comes. There is not a week that goes by without them in my thoughts.

I know time with them was a gift, but some days I forget. I remember something they said, I hear the sound of their laughter and sometimes I am certain of their presence beside me, but sometimes, when the dark days come on, their absence is an aching deep inside and I'd trade a month of my time for one more evening together again.




. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
 
The last time I had dinner with Estelle was during a music conference in Ottawa. There were, as always, a million things I was dying to talk about and not nearly enough time. I was dreaming in techni-colour about something or other and in the course of my rhapsodizing I made a reference to "the folk community".

She raised a finger and when I paused, asked me to repeat what I'd just said to her. When I did, she put down her fork, looked me straight in the eye and said "the folk community... do you really believe there is such a thing?"





It was a very serious question and one that she was not expecting an answer to that night. The conversation moved on, dessert came and went and we each returned to our respective conference commitments. Our paths didn't cross again that weekend and I went back to Vancouver, with her words much on my mind.

It turned out to be the last question. All too soon after that night, she would pass away and I'm just one of many people who miss her still. Her question has stayed with me, and the look in her eyes and lately, I think of it as a gift, one that only an elder could give...

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The Old Weird Canada

The Old Weird Canada

The Best Music We’ve Never Heard...

There are currently more than 21,000** hours
of field recordings made of music from all over
Canada in the archives at the Museum of
Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec. Dating back
to the dawn of recording, they are a priceless
resource.

Virtually none of the collections have been
digitized, or are widely available to musicians,
scholars or anyone else. Like all cultural
organizations, the Museum has had to adapt
to changing government priorities.

They don’t have the resources to bring this music back to life. They also don’t have the resources to continue to record in the field today, or to support any research work or study of the living of the dynamic traditional and poly-cultural folk music being made in Canada today.

** if you listened 24 hours a day, it would take you almost two and half years to hear it all once.

The Project

To bring 5,000 hours of pre-WW2
field recordings of Canadian folk
music to the internet by 2009,
making the sound of our history available
to musicians, students, teachers and other
music lovers across Canada and around
the world.

Bringing the Museum’s archives out of the
basement and into the living traditions
of today, available to anyone who wants
to know more about the sound of our history
is an ideal project for organizations with
decades of history celebrating the heritage
these recordings represent.

A National Dream… unplugged…

The project becomes a reason for the key
partners to communicate within and beyond
the existing regions. The purpose of the project
becomes a call for people to think beyond
their own town or region – to see it, and to
hear it as part of history that we all share.

It presents all of us, regardless of region,
with a big challenge. It’s a project no one
region could do alone, but one we can clearly
do together.

The Time is Short!

The archives are a virtual history of audio
recording since it began in the late 1800s
and up to the present day. There are wax
cylinders, wire recordings, 78s, LPs, cassettes
and reel to reel tapes.

Ironically, the older media are not at risk
right now. The wax and the vinyl are both
stable media, requiring only the right
equipment to hear them again. It's the
material - since the late forties on magnetic
recording tape that is in danger of being
lost forever.

As these tapes age, even under ideal storage
conditions, the brown magnetic powder
begins to separate from the plastic backing
tape. If the process of digitizing these
recordings is not begun soon, all that will
be left is some brown powder and clear
plastic tape.

That music will be lost forever...

The Time is Now!

The last 20 years have seen an amazing
increase in the level of folk.roots/global/trad
music in Canada. There are more people
playing it than ever before.There is more
infrastructure - agents, festivals, clubs, camps
and conferences than ever before too.

Long story short- more people, more interest,
more energy, more resources, talent and
potential in every region of this country
than anyone would have believed possible
even a decade ago.

But this is a really big country...

Connections have been developing among
people working in Newfoundland, the
Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, the West
and the North, but geography, climate
and pressing local and international
demands on everyone never leave enough
time to maintain, let alone expand
those connections.

The Old Weird Canada presents an
opportunity for artists, organizations
and others who love roots music to do
build something together that will have
a national and a regional impact.

The Name

The Old Weird Canada acknowledges 
the massive presence and level of awareness
of Harry Smith’s seminal “American Folk
Music Trilogy” in North American folk circles
while situating this collection in a similar
iconic role . Often credited with kick-starting
what became known as the Folk Revival
(or conversely, The Great Folk Scare) of the
1960s, it has been a towering musical icon
referred to by artists from Dave van Ronk
and Pete Seeger to The Be Good Tanyas
and The Duhks.

The re-release on CD featured an unusually accessible essay by Greil Marcus entitled “The Old Weird America”, which has since become part of the lingua franca of folk.

The Old Weird Canada leverages this
musical description and its power as a
musical signifier to accelerate communication
and comprehension. The high recognition
factor makes it easy for a wide range of
music media to reference, while invoking
a little of the Old Testament presence
of the US recordings respectfully, yet in
a singularly Canadian tongue-in-cheek style.

Given the Museum’s collections, it also
presents interesting visual possibilities for
the design of the web site, the contemporary
CD and associated materials including print
ads and merch.

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