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or many years we’ve crammed our Novem- ber issues with a wide- ranging selection of
world music features, since it’s the one that gets read by an extra three thousand delegates attending the annual Womex event. But this year, with the wandering Womex circus mak- ing only its second appearance here in the UK, we decided to give those delegates much
more home-grown music to investigate.
Recently we’ve seen strange features elsewhere in the UK press. One suddenly noticed – only a decade late – that English music is on the rise. Another repeated that old whinge that British folk is not good enough to stand along- side the equivalent musics from the rest of the planet. Reg- ular readers of fRoots will know all that to be a nonsense. Even if English folk is still grossly under-represented at Womex, there’s more than enough to be proud of.
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Looking through our 34 years worth of back issues can be quite instructive for people who have only become inter- ested in recent times. In pre-history – BFR – the 1960s saw folk music here move from a heavily American influence to a need to find out what home traditions had to offer, and also those of other parts of the world via exploring artists like Davy Graham and the Incredible String Band.
When we began in 1979, it was at the end of a decade in which things had become very polarised between those who only wanted local traditional music in as ‘pure’ (they thought) a form as possible; those who wanted to mix it up with rock music, imagining it might gain mass appeal; and those who only wanted light entertainment and thought everybody else was boring. The only thing they all agreed on was that they all abhorred punk (thus losing a generation).
In our first decade, folk got its soul back as a reaction against the Thatcher era. The music of the rest of the world suddenly became widely available, appreciated (and got a name) and a place where disenfranchised punks and folkies found common ground and inspiration. In local folk, ‘Celtic’ music swept everything before it globally: England barely got a look in as Irish and Scottish music dominated.
In the 1990s, a new generation of home-grown musi- cians, many of them literally the children of 1960s folk per- sons, began invigorating things, and people now fascinated by music from Africa or Asia began to wonder if we had our own equivalent, just like those in thrall to American music like blues had done in the 1960s. By the end of the decade, they were finding a growing excitement and excellence as young English artists like Eliza Carthy stepped forward.
The past decade has seen a fabulous consolidation. Multi-cultural England buzzes with creativity and celebrates many roots, Wales has at last seen its own burst of confi- dence after many years of being the Celts who were ignored in favour of Scotland and Ireland. The UK is throb- bing with great roots music from all its corners and cultures old and new. We can surely all celebrate this at Womex.
Ian Anderson
Photo: Judith Burrows
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