folk music ever ancient ever new

i suspect most people who attended
the tucson folk festival last weekend
be they performers or observers
are not near as critical as i may be
about the phenomenon

my experience at folk festivals is very limited
it's not a scene i follow
but i have happened across a few
in my time

here's the low down
from the bewildering search

the general push of music
seems to me to be favorable
to original- new music
i heard very little of the tradition
stemming back to old time sounds
i heard almost nothing of the best
of the artists of the past fifty years
artists who have shaped the way
we think of folk songs
artists who have gained the admiration
of most people associated with
the genre generally known as
AMERICAN ROOTS music

thus the whole pretense of performance
on the stages was marked by music
that makes a claim for originality
and a sort of strange competition
or competitive spirit enters in
--who has the coolest new stuff??

for my own part
though i know i've written some
pretty good songs
i am not at all sure that
i've written anything to compare
with bob dylan or john prine
or michael peter smith or
jerry jeff walker or townes van zandt
or emmy lou harris or gillian welch
or stan rogers or leonard cohen
or patsy cline or odetta or pete seeger
or nanci griffith

thus my one overarching criticism
is the phenomenon of what appears to be
the lust for the new and original
which i find to be disconcerting
while at least one or two new songs
might appear as really something profound
most everything else settles into a status
of mediocrity in a sea of mediocrity
all voices chiming in for attention

on a positive note
i heard some artists who impressed me
and i saw some signs of hope
that the tradition of music by the people
is a real and essentially very basic phenomenon
the establishment of a new stage
a stage for live and unplugged acoustic performance
was a treat and i heard some really fine
performances by some very young fledgling players
and some older folks who did in fact pay heed
to the music we have inherited
and more than in previous years i witnessed
the phenomenon of purely spontaneous
gatherings of musicians

i conducted a workshop based primarily
on the SINGALONG pattern established
by pete seeger (and others - hootnanny)
and i did this on the day of his birthday
about 20 people sat around in the open air
and sang the refrains i had typed out
and that was perhaps the most real moment
the music being part of an exchange
rather than a focus on the individual

the challenge for folk music it would seem
is the effort to distance the notions of the music
from personal achievement
to distance the whole matter from
commercial hype
and to insist upon the existence of live music
in the current of everyday life
it is time for the singers and players
to face the challenge (and i sense that this is happening)
to fight against the preoccupation with
the mechanical means of reproduction
and to state the case for this vital sound
within the matrix of everyday life

more music in the homes
more music in the neighborhoods
more music away from microphones
more music less recording
more music spontaneously performed
more music as a means for sharing and learning
more music as an agreement to be at peace
in the making of it

our communities should be places
where on any given day
friends are gathering
for no other purpose than to give
expression with strings and pipes
and voices to the intricate and mysterious
drama that links us together here on earth