New Music 2018 - Part 3 - Laura Cannell - Hunter Huntress Hawker

I mentioned this yesterday. Towards the end of 2017 I started a Friday spot on Facebook in which I mention a music release that has captured my attention. I'm planning to revive that idea after the break for Christmas and New Year although perhaps not every week. I rather like the idea of more blog posts but the two are not incompatible by any means.  To date it has been a very recent release but I'm thinking that this should not always be the case.

Hunter Huntress Hawker - Laura Cannell (Brawl Records, 20 October 2017).

This album (it is actually her fourth) is one that, while I mentioned it on Facebook, has not appeared here before. You may find it challenging but I'm not going to apologise for that. It has two key-words that might be used to describe it that tend to put people off  -  experimental and improvised.
It was recorded live in a ruined church (St. Andrew, Covehithe, Suffolk) that is the only significant structure that remains of a one-thriving fishing community on the east coast of England, the rest of which has now been almost entirely claimed by coastal erosion.
Half-an-hour of truly haunting over-bowed violin playing might just make the cold and damp of early January seem rewarding. I have wavered about choosing a tune (for they are all thus, there are no words). I decided on this:

The penultimate item on the collection - Nordhalla.

New Music 2018 - Part 1 - Stick In The Wheel - Follow Them True

Divining the future has to start somewhere. I have chosen this as my starting point for music in 2018, not least because Stick In The Wheel is exactly between the future and the past.
I have no idea what the songs on this, the second LP, will be but I'm happy to trust that I shall like them and so I have pre-ordered it on vinyl.

Follow Them True - Stick In The Wheel (self released, 26 January 2018).

This is the follow-up to astonishing 2015 début 'From Here' and I can't think of an act better qualified to be my first suggestion for music that is to be released in 2018, but there are plenty more snapping at the heels.
This is 'Over Again':

In 2017 the band released a record of other artists singing traditional songs live and that is well worth an hour of your precious time too. It features well known artists and also many less so but no less worthy.

FROM HERE: English Folk Field Recordings (From Here Records, 2017).

The idea was to capture what the essence, the making and the performance of English folk music means in the here-and-now.

New Music 2017 - Part 28 - Top Floor Taivers - A Delicate Game

This has nothing directly to do with the festivals I have been to over this summer. It has a great deal to do with the variety of music that garners my attention. It is also a possible pointer towards my change of direction when it comes to festivals that I'm considering visiting in 2018. I'm almost certain that I have never seen any of the four artists that form the core of Top Floor Taivers live in any of their many and various other guises. This is their first album together as such. Their recorded works as individuals or other bands are a however a different matter and I have listened to them.

A Delicate Game, Top Floor Taivers (TFT Records, 28 February 2017).

Recorded it is a slightly different consideration - as a trans-Britain-and-Ireland collective this is quite something. It treats traditional songs with grace and pressure, but also includes versions of modern folk songs such as Richard Thompson's '1952 Vincent Black Lightning'. The best comes with some new compositions such as 'Jeanie and the Spider' that rate alongside anything else here.
If you want my opinion then it is that this album is under-rated. The version of the traditional Scottish song 'Johnnie of Braidieslee' is as good as it could be. The origin, and age, of the song is anyone's guess; possibly 17th century in approximately current form but it might have origins older than that and have been updated and reconstructed to suit the times. It really doesn't matter that much.
For the curious, here is the track-list:

Top Floor Taivers - A Delicate Game:

• Johnnie of Braidieslee
• Princess Rosanna
• The False Bride
• Everybody Knows
• 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
• Jeannie and the Spider
• Campfires
• Ramblin' Rover
• 10 Little Men

I  don't think that I could leave you hanging, with nothing to listen to, so here are a couple of tunes that are not on the album.


'Captain Ward' (traditional) and 'The Porterhead Reel' (Gráinne Brady).

New Music 2017 - Part 22 - Offa Rex - The Queen Of Hearts

One of the things about doing this [writing a blog] is that it pretty much forces me to listen, read and then actually think about music. I can't really assimilate so-called background music anymore. If it's there than that is how it is, but I'll be either paying proper attention or simply not consciously noticing it at all. Sub-conscious listening is however very much a real 'thing'. I was doing chores at home this morning whilst I had the latest Spotify 'Discover Weekly' playlist playing from the stereo but until this came on I couldn't, had it been a crime scene, have given you a single useful piece of evidence to show that I had paying any attention to what was going on.
Had my head been inside a scanner that measures synapse connections I suspect that the images would have been quite interesting. It was, as subsequent investigations have shown, a song I have never heard before but the apparent jumble of concepts that my mind spewed out in response, much like the coins from a change machine, was surprisingly accurate.

What triggered all that, and it is also the title of the forthcoming LP, is this song:

Offa Rex is a project that sees UK singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney transported to the Pacific Northwest to weave tradition from British and Celtic folk into a psych-folk influenced tapestry. The rest of Offa Rex will be familiar to many as the Decemberists. The album was recorded and produced by Tucker Martine at his studio in Portland, OR. The majority of the eleven tracks were arranged by Olivia Chaney

Offa Rex - The Queen of Hearts, (Nonesuch Records, 14 July 2017).

Offa Rex - The Queen of Hearts:

• The Queen of Hearts
• Blackleg Miner
• The Gardener
• The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
• Flash Company
• The Old Churchyard
• Constant Billy (Oddington) / I'll Go Enlist (Sherborne)
• Willie o' Winsbury
• Bonny May
• Sheepcrook and Black Dog
• To Make You Stay

To hear this in its entirety is something I am looking forward to very much indeed.  It is another journey in the story of how, for centuries, songs have travelled back and forth across the Atlantic to be reappraised and then returned.
A fine example is Willie o' Winsbury that is from Scottish tradition and probably of late 17th century origin. It is also Child #100 and has been back and forth a few times since. A version also appears on the LP Child Ballads - Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer (2013).

Festivals - a road trip through music

In the last week or so all three festivals for which I have a ticket have released details of the first tranche of artists that are appearing. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that in all cases these are festivals that I have attended on multiple previous occasions and so I had established trust sufficient to purchase tickets prior to having any associated acts announced.

Not all of this post concerns artists announced as mentioned above but it does go some way towards explaining my method and rationale for discovering music that is new or new to me and why festivals play such an important rôle in that. The road trip analogy is apposite - it is a journey for which there is a defined starting point but neither is there a predictable end point or a route.
In addition there is the BCR analysis of this approach, which is similar to the formula applied to assessing the economic value of public works projects. In this case it stands for Benefit-Cost-Risk (as a calculation), rather than Benefit : Cost ratio!
Festival tickets are good value in comparison with individual concert tickets (assuming one makes good use of what is on offer) and there is far less time and money spent on travel.  One can take risks on seeing artists that are little known because if disappointment strikes, and occasionally it does, there will always be others to see instead.  There will also be completely unexpected delights (one from EOTR 2016 here), however much pre-festival homework one does. Indeed I am coming to the conclusion that it is possible to do too much beforehand and that it stifles instinct.

With that in mind here are a few artists that I have on my radar.

Courtney Marie Andrews - Honest Life (Loose Music, 2017) plays End Of The Road 2017.

This one however is not playing the UK festivals as far as I am currently aware.  If she turns up at a festival I am attending then I'll be watching. This is another great album of careworn alt-country.

Goodluck Man - Carson McHone (Good Horse Record Company, 2015).

In recent years there have been accusations that a number of festivals (and I'm not going to name names before you ask, just figure it out for yourself) book a relatively small proportion of female (or female-fronted) acts, particularly as headline artists.

Just for a moment let us put that aside. Here is something that is almost never mentioned at all.
Gaelynn Lea is one of the most astonishing virtuoso fiddle players of recent years, of both her own and traditional music, but you may possibly never even have heard of her. She is playing End Of The Road 2017 and is on my must-see list.
Here are her interpretations of the traditional Scottish song 'The Parting Glass' although it is now often most associated with emigration from Ireland, and 'Brenda Stubbert's Reel' (and similar spellings) that is an Irish tune that has become particularly associated with Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. Music travels!  Gaelynn Lea herself is from none of these places; she hails from Duluth, Minnesota.

The Songs We Sing Along The Way EP - Gaelynn Lea (CDBaby, 2016).

Consider it and then read this article and watch the longer live set. You hadn't guessed that had you?

That seems a natural place at which to end this post. I shall return to the road-trip theme soon. There will be some male artists too on the second leg of this haphazard journey.

New Music 2016 - Part 52 - Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker - Overnight

I have seen a great deal of live music in 2016 and this is the latest release from one of the highlights of those endeavours. I know that this duo is a Marmite thing in UK folk circles. I make no apologies. I'm totally on-board here.

Overnight - Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker (Rough Trade Records, 14 October 2016)

• Nine Times Along
• Something Familiar
• Sweet the Sorrow
• Dawn of the Dark
• Dark Turn of Mind
• Weep You No More Sad Fountains
• The Light of His Lamp
• Sleep
• Milk and Honey
• The Waning Crescent
• Overnight
• Light of Day

'Dark Turn of Mind' is a Gillian Welch cover but what you are really hearing here is the pushing of boundaries. Most of these songs are originals. Most of them are tales of loss and regret. Therefore there is a clear bond with traditional folk themes.

This is the Garden Stage, End Of The Road Festival 2016.

Seeing the duo play live is something else. Josienne is quite the compère spinning the miserabilism and self-deprecating threads, between the songs, to the point that it becomes impossible to divine reality from construct. Then there is her voice.

'Something Familiar'

A meander through music...

This isn't quite the virtual road or rail trip through music that I have been mentioning in my plans for some while, though I expect I'll come to that sooner rather than later. It's just a spur-of-the-moment thing and I don't really know where I'm headed. Its genesis was last week when I had been listening to lots of stuff that is new to me and, every so often, something quite unexpected ended up in my path.
It really started just fifteen minutes walk from home with live music at the Grain Bar Roots Sessions in my home town of Frome, played by an acoustic trio from down the road in Devon. This is folk (of the English variety) but not quite just that. Amongst the summer rain, so typical of England, touches of blues and even jazz seep in through the cracks whilst the stories told are relevant to those in almost any place or time. That trio is Velvet & Stone and they were touring their six-song début release.

The Storm - Velvet & Stone (self released, 8 December 2015).

Not a weak track on this and how this band has passed under my radar completely requires an investigation. These are not traditional songs but new songs that embody traditional themes and the distinction is a rather important one.

The next is certainly the result of a improbable set of coincidences. It all started with a local (but not particularly so to me) community radio show called FNARW (Folk is Not A Rude Word) that is primarily broadcast on Hailsham FM (Sussex, England) but is also available (almost) worldwide on Mixcloud here. Chris Giles, the presenter, cited his awareness of this duo as a result of 'networking'. I'm going to continue that theme...
He introduced me to this next act and played a couple of tracks from it yesterday. I couldn't wait to find out more. This one is a collection of folk songs revisited and reinterpreted:

Wolf Hunter - The Creek Rocks (self released, 2016).

The Creek Rocks is husband and wife team Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu both from the territory covered by the Ozark Mountains (they are similar in altitude to the "mountains" in the UK so not Rocky mountains or Alps style) but cover extensive tracts of southern Missouri and north central and north western parts of Arkansas. Wolf Hunter is their first truly collaborative work although both have released music before.
It is released on vinyl, CD and d/l but finding the physical versions in the UK is a slight issue at the moment. I rather like the idea of buying the vinyl for myself as a birthday present, even if it has to ship from the US. The album certainly deserves a listen and you can listen to five tracks from it here.

Last but not least is this news from today, about new music from an artist possibly better known on both sides of the Atlantic than either of the aforementioned. This is the follow up to 2014 self-titled début Arc Iris.

Moon Saloon - Arc Iris (19 August, Bella Union in the EU and possibly also the UK too).

The first track released from the second LP from Jocie Adams and her cohort is Kaleidoscope. I'm guessing that the title might serve as a good guide to the rest of the offering.

Arc Iris, The Garden Stage, End Of The Road Festival, 6 September 2014.

An interesting dilemma.

About this time last year I mentioned that I was going to start listening over again to all of my long-list of music (EPs and albums together) that I had noted should be considered for those end-of-year rituals. In the end I did that, twice over, and the result was that I whittled that list of fifty-something down to just twenty LPs and a handful of EPs. Some were something between; let us agree to call them mini-albums for sustained quality, not length, is the defining criterion here. That process now needs to commence all over again.

I'm fine with that but there is a nascent problem. I'm pretty sure that my qualifications for inclusion on this long list are every bit as discerning as was the case last year. It is absolutely vital that this is so; as it stands today my long-list currently runs to one-hundred-and-eight items. A quick survey suggests that on average each is 40 minutes in length. To put it another way, if I were to start listening now (21:15 Tuesday) with no breaks at all I would get to the end of it early on Friday evening!
I'm not planning to do that, not least because I also have live music to go and see tomorrow evening.
It also brings me to another issue. That of all the live music that I have seen in 2015 and the discussions, both in person and remotely, about that. The good thing about this is that I certainly have a lot to reflect on!

My next two posts will both be in the series 'New Music 2015'. Both about albums released in the last couple of weeks, that should logically be included in the category of UK folk, and yet they are two very different beasts indeed.
I shall aim to make sure that both posts are published simultaneously. The order in which they actually appear will be decided by the toss of a coin. I'll get someone else to do that for me and with the outcomes known to them beforehand.
What remains true from the start is that, even as my taste in music has evolved over these last nine years and it most certainly has and in ways I might not have anticipated, I will not chose to write posts about things that I don't much care for. I do make comparisons in order to explain why I favour one thing over another. I regard that as something inevitable.

New Music 2015 - Part 59 - Fara

Although not titled as such, here begin my thoughts on Cambridge Folk Festival 2015: it was first held in 1965 and, as this run is unbroken, this was its 51st edition. It was my first, however, despite the fact that we are the same age to within a matter of six weeks!
The music started 6pm on Sunday, using just Stage 2, for the early birds. That is not to say that the quality was in any way compromised. The opening act of the festival was a recently constituted five-piece hailing from Orkney and that is Fara.

Four of the members play fiddle, Jennifer Austin plays piano.

Jeana Leslie takes most of the lead vocals.

Their début release is the self-titled mini-album, released 20 December 2014. I don't usually buy music on impulse at festivals and suchlike. This was an exception. Listen below, then buy it.
It did cross my mind that this standard could be hard to sustain across four stages over the next three days. I soon forgot all about that, and almost everything else beyond my immediate surroundings. That is the hallmark of a really good festival.

New Music 2015 - Part 56 - Della Mae - Della Mae

You never know where the next thing will come from... This time it was a tip from a locally based band that have something of a bluegrass thing going on. Della Mae is an all female four-piece from Nashville, TN and while not entirely bluegrass there's plenty of that in the mix. The rest is traditional country and roots. This is actually their third LP and the band is on tour in the UK and mainland Europe at the moment too.

It was released by Rounder Records (distributed by Decca Records in some countries) on 10 July 2015.

The original compositions are quite on point but as it so happens it also includes a cover of 'To Ohio', which is one of my favourite tracks by The Low Anthem and from the 2008 LP 'Oh My God, Charlie Darwin'. It is pure speculation but I do wonder if this is something inspired by how Jocie Adams might have liked it to sound. Just thought that I'd mention that.
Overall things can't get much better, except to say that now I need to see Della Mae live!

Folk, Roots, Americana - whatever you want to label it.

It seems that my music theme for 2015 is to be set to folk/roots/Americana in all its many varied guises. I should probably mention here that the "new to me" festival for this summer is in fact one of the longest running of the kind - Cambridge Folk Festival. Conjured up in the autumn of 1964 it made its first appearance in the summer of 1965. I've had it in mind as one to try for a while now and this coincidence seemed to be the perfect excuse. I have my ticket.
I don't know if this is generally true or not but I think that my liking of such genres may be down to the music I was exposed to as a child. In particular, and I was reminded of this just yesterday evening, live music.

I saw Leveret at Rook Lane Arts, Frome yesterday evening and I'm happy to say that the event was very well attended. It was lengthy set that consisted of tunes (not songs) mostly traditional but a scattering of new compositions in the style. It served to remind me that despite a very rudimentary knowledge of music theory I can spot a slip-jig when I hear one.
More interesting was the commentary by the trio about something I had never considered. Many of the traditional tunes, and there are thousands of them, are now known only from manuscripts and some dating from the mid 17th Century. For the most part all they contain is the basic melody. To make the tune truly fly again the harmony, ornamentation and speed is all pretty much a case of reverse engineering. That, needless to say, takes a great deal of time, patience and skill.
It was an issue that had never really occurred to me before if I am honest.
The trio comprises Andy Cutting (diatonic button accordion, also known in some countries as melodeon), Rob Harbron (English concertina) and Sam Sweeney (fiddle) and the set was astonishing. I do wonder if had I been new to such music this might actually have proven an overwhelmingly intense experience. It could have felt like a lecture, albeit light heartedly-given, in an esoteric subject.
I wasn't the youngest member of the audience, that's for sure, but I reckon that I was well below the median age. On the other hand I am older than all the members of the band.

My next post will likely serve to illustrate the obvious - such as night follows day. It also reminds me of something I was told at one of the first festivals I went to.
I guess I must have mentioned that I didn't know anything about the majority of artists. It all seemed too much to get my head around and therefore what I went to see play was something of a lottery - fortunately, as it turned out, one with damn fine odds...  What I was told was roughly this: keep listening, remembering and making notes and in time it will become second nature. I only remembered this last night and I can't remember if I was awake or dreaming but it was a real conversation in origin.
Seven or so years after the origin of this I have realised that this is in fact entirely true. In a sense that is why photography plays a part for me - it is a kind of note-taking. There are two strands. One is that I can now find new music that I like almost on a whim and especially that in categories that back then I would have been rather dubious about. I still dislike pigeon-holing music by genre but had you suggested alt-country to me back then I would have probably thought you were trying to lead me on a wild goose chase. The second is that now the music quite often finds me instead. This year I am for the first time attempting to listen to music by many of the festival artists in advance. I know lots of people that do this but, until now, it has just seemed like a whole lot of effort and what is more I really like the surprise factor of festivals.
I know that I won't be able to do that for all acts in advance, so I won't really spoil that aspect for myself. If I were in danger of doing that at least the reason is simple - I'm hoping that it will allow more informed choices about which acts to see when there are the inevitable clashes.
If it does then the reality is rather prosaic.  It is to go to more festivals.

Music from the past - discovered (Part 1).

The history of this; it became something of a project that in essence goes back a long time and to 1977, at least for me. This is the first post on that, and it involved this album originally released in 1971:

As I mentioned then, back in early 2012, it had taken me almost thirty-five years to actually track this down. For some reason, in early December 2012, I decided upon a more ambitious project. That was (to attempt to) track down the two albums that preceded 'High Level'. The proviso was threefold:

• it would be done on a tight budget, with no particular time limit therefore
• the albums had to be playable (not mint or wrapped, as I fully intended to play them)
• the albums had to be the original vinyl releases

You might wonder about this, as did I but a little searching it proved what recordings I was actually looking for. Knowing what you are trying to find is always a good place to start.  It turned out to be this trio:

• Northumberland For Ever (1968) - Topic Records 12TS186
• The Lads of Northumbria (1969) - Trailer Records LER 2007
• Keep Your Feet Still Geordie Hinnie (1970) - Trailer Records LER 2020

I was already aware in essence of the first two of the above, which are studio albums, but not the third and that is how it turned out to being a search for three albums. The last was the final one to succumb and also the most expensive although not by much. Keep Your Feet Still Geordie Hinnie is a live album recorded in a single take at Balmbaras, an old-time music-hall pub in Newcastle.

Here are the covers of the three albums that I purchased, as taken by me just now:

  

  

So there you are. The total cost for all three, including all delivery charges, was £33.71.  In Part 2 of this post I shall try and comment on the music and also the history behind some of it, not least that of Balmbaras.

Matty Groves, lyric, Alela Diane

To see the latest update on this thread follow the link below: http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2010/06/alela-alina-matty-groves-live.html


Thank you to whosoever searched today for the lyric to 'Matty Groves', as performed by Alela Diane. A definitive answer is difficult, as I heard it live at 'End Of The Road 2009' and it is not, as far as I know, an Alela Diane album track but it was in so far as I could tell from memory quite faithful to the 'In Real Time - 1987' Fairport Convention' rendition and this is the lyric for that:

Matty Groves
A holiday, a holiday, and the first one of the year
Lord Donald's wife came into the church, the gospel for to hear
And when the meeting it was done, she cast her eyes about
And there she saw little Matty Groves, walking in the crowd
"Come home with me, little Matty Groves, come home with me tonight
Come home with me, little Matty Groves, and sleep with me till light"
"Oh, I can't come home, I won't come home and sleep with you tonight
By the rings on your fingers I can tell you are my master's wife"
"But if I am Lord Donald's wife, Lord Donald's not at home
He is out in the far cornfields bringing the yearlings home"

And a servant who was standing by and hearing what was said
He swore Lord Donald he would know before the sun would set
And in his hurry to carry the news, he bent his breast and ran
And when he came to the broad millstream, he took off his shoes and he swam

Little Matty Groves, he lay down and took a little sleep
When he awoke, Lord Donald was standing at his feet
Saying "How do you like my feather bed and how do you like my sheets
How do you like my lady who lies in your arms asleep?"
"Oh, well I like your feather bed and well I like your sheets
But better I like your lady gay who lies in my arms asleep"
"Well, get up, get up," Lord Donald cried, "get up as quick as you can
It'll never be said in fair England that I slew a naked man"
"Oh, I can't get up, I won't get up, I can't get up for my life
For you have two long beaten swords and I not a pocket knife"
"Well it's true I have two beaten swords and they cost me deep in the purse
But you will have the better of them and I will have the worse
And you will strike the very first blow and strike it like a man
I will strike the very next blow and I'll kill you if I can"

So Matty struck the very first blow and he hurt Lord Donald sore
Lord Donald struck the very next blow and Matty struck no more
And then Lord Donald took his wife and he sat her on his knee
Saying "Who do you like the best of us, Matty Groves or me?"
And then up spoke his own dear wife, never heard to speak so free
"I'd rather a kiss from dead Matty's lips than you or your finery"

Lord Donald he jumped up and loudly he did bawl
He struck his wife right through the heart and pinned her against the wall
"A grave, a grave," Lord Donald cried, "to put these lovers in
But bury my lady at the top for she was of noble kin."

If there are subtle differences then and with luck this will at least help you with the greater part of the remainder. It is a traditional song so bear in mind that there are probably many versions of both the lyric and its accompaniment in existence and, in particular, I think Joan Baez may have recorded one that is notably different.

Added October 15, 2009:
Well here's something interesting that reinforces the point about alternate versions, even ones by the same artist.
The lyric above may actually be that to an idealized or a recorded version. I've just listened to 'Matty Groves' from 'In Real Time - 1987' Fairport Convention' very carefully indeed and they are are some subtle differences:
Some are totally trivial and are common in any canon but one, which struck me as being rather more significant, is that in the live version the servant who relays the tale of adultery is now female (consistently so, therefore I don't think I have misheard it) and the wronged party is Lord Arnold (not Lord Donald). It answers another issue that struck me as slightly strange yesterday evening:
Why would yearlings (sheep, cattle or any other kind) be in cornfields? It seemed rather strange agricultural practise to me, but then what do I know? Listen carefully and it is this:

He is out in the far country bringing the yearlings home.

That makes much more sense and 'the far country' is a well known, if somewhat archaic, term for the distant parts on one's estates, if one were lucky enough to have so much as the ground beneath one's feet to call ones own! The Lord Donald/Lord Arnold dichotomy may be merely a regional variation, each using the name of a local dignitary or a play on it, as much traditional music was carefully veiled sedition in any case.

Much later, still to this day indeed, there are regional variations even though the locations may not be far apart at all. The song 'Stanley Market' (Co. Durham), dating from the 19th century I suspect, is 'Bedlington Market' when just across the Tyne in Northumberland. It is recognizably the same song but, as above, the lyrics vary somewhat.

When 'folk' meant only one thing...

Folk music, and the influence it has on music in general, has had a bumpy ride in the last half-century. It's influence is, particularly in times when largely disregarded as such, just as important as it is actually indefinable. This applies not only to traditional music from Britain but to that from many other places as is now rather becoming obvious again...

This is not least because, and it was ever thus, it has a remarkable tendency to renew by borrowing from far and wide while also maintaining and reflecting its own place and time, so it somehow still keeps its innate and definable integrity. Here is a thought: why would it be otherwise? It has adapted over centuries, in many cultures, to be memorable - that is to play, to sing and dance to; and that is also a definition, which explains a later phenomenon, that we now know as pop!

Call it what you like - folk, roots, traditional or any of the bijou genres (and I'm guilty of this sort of categorisation) such as nu-folk, anti-folk, freak-folk - for whatever it is called it is alive and well in the 21st century. So is much truly traditional folk music and that is a real bonus for, in 2008, it was no longer a surprise to hear a mandolin played in a band that would not, in any traditional way, be regarded as folk-influenced. So what if it is an electric mandolin? To me that doesn't matter much in the context of new music but the fact the instrument is used at all certainly does.
Imelda May plays bodhrán on several tracks on her 2008 album but does that make mean she is any more or less 'folk' than the all-electric Thin Lizzy covering Whiskey In The Jar in 1972?

Of course it doesn't!