folk versus glam (1 of ??)

Hubert Parry: "in true folk-songs there is no sham, no got-up glitter, and no vulgarity"

Folk is associated with naturalism - the idea that there is no artifice involved, no element of show. 

Performance, stripped of performativity or exhibitionism. The singer as the ego-less vessel or conduit for the people's consciousness. 

Green Gartside on Anne Briggs: "The beautiful melodies Anne sang unaccompanied were profoundly affecting, her unornamented voice a precursor to the anti-professionalism of DIY."

Folk would be the Quaker option, the nonconformist option (in the religious and Puritan-ical sense).

Everybody equal in this society of friends; the liturgy, barebones, stripped of ceremonial flatus. 

(Whereas opera, or heavy metal - at least in the 70s - is obviously Catholic. Pomp rock).

The Puritans despised and feared the theatre. 

The diagram below relates to anti-theatricality  - and the idea that some sorts of performance (the folk mode and the art approach) can actually be "real". That reality can be brought on to the stage, either through the performer as representative of a community, or the artist expressive of their inner self, their emotional reality.  

(More on the Diagram below)

Peter Sellers’s  spoof on Lonnie Donegan: Benny Goonagain (starts at 4.30 minutes into this satire of a current affairs show): 

Goonagain: 

Rock'n'roll? -  No! I'm a folk singer, man -  I sing blues, work songs - songs of the people and the peasant, you understand, cos they're ah workin on a railroad...

Rock'n'roll as something to diss-associate from - on count of it being commercial, amplified, gimmicky, substance-less. 

Reminded that Guthrie-remodel minstrel Billy Bragg went on to write a whole book about skiffle. 

"Roots, Radicals and Rockers" - you couldn't get a better articulation of the Folk axis of my triangle!

It's notable, though, that Donegan and his band wore suits and bow ties when they played live (at least on TV shows). Donegan sang Leadbelly songs but he didn't wear denim dungarees like Leadbelly (which was, if I recall right, an idea of his handlers, to pitch him at the folk revival scene - working men's clothes. 

Barefoot too! The full story behind this image is shocking.

When left to his own druthers, Leadbelly - like most blues performers - preferred to wear a sharp suit. and a bow tie. Singing - even about gritty subjects - was still showtime. (So in that sense, Donegan's fancy get-up was actually - inadvertently? - authentic).

White gloves!

Even jamming, he's done up to the nines

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I created this diagram as a teaching aid. It depicts the discursive space of pop music - it's about talk and rhetoric, rather than praxis and genre per se.

- how fans and critics imagine and understand the music…

- how artists explain what they do, to others and to themselves. 

(But could there be a fourth side, making it a square? See if you are as clever as some of my students)

Some artists are firmly established on one side or other of this triangle, and stay there.

But the most interesting careers either involve an artist located somewhere between one axis and another (Roxy Music exist between Art and Showbiz but are nowhere near Folk).

Either that or they are equidistant between all three sides (can't think of a good example here).

Or even more interesting, when the artist goes on a trajectory within this triangular space, starting in one place and moving to another (Dylan is archetypal, moving from Folk to Art, and then creeping back a bit, at times). Some veer all over the place, doubling back, and contradicting / erasing the previous location: consider the literally careering careers of John Lennon and David Bowie.