Folk Britannia (BBC4)

worth it this week for the ISB footage. the first weeks archive footage was better though - 50s britain looked so desolate. the beatniks of newquay! i had a half hour arguement with my flatmate over the maccoll/seeger decision that people could only sing songs from their country of birth in the club (i was against).

The early part of the part you saw (which was the first part I saw) was great. That early footage of Davy Graham was interesting in an "I could do that when I was younger than him" kind of way (of course, that's not to say he could play better than what was shown). Was there a 'current' bit of D.Graham? I missed that.

The Nick drake section was brief, which was only right as he didn't have that much effect at the time.

It was right to show the Strawbs and Lidisfarne, if only to show that Folk was getting commercial and/or politically lost. And how Steeleye Span got into more 'comedy folk' at the end, in search of hits.

Also, during the "excerpts in full" part, Amber and Alice wandered in and took interest. So Alice sat on my knee and strummed and/or picked at the strings while I did chord changes on Ambers amazingly in-tune with the TV acoustic guitar. Although, as I had to explain, just because I used to do music and play in a band, that did not mean 'that was me' there on the telly. Especially when it's Leonard Cohen there.

I really enjoyed it, esp Davy Graham (Folk Blues & Beyond is a must-have imo) and I don't think I know anyone who doesn't like Pentangle's Light Flight (their equivalent of Georgy Girl I suppose).

'twas a theme tune for a BBC programme, I believe. "Take three girls".

Aye - and on the subject of Georgy Girl, if the Strawbs were allowed on the programme, where were The Seekers?

Episode two had some good bits -- nice footage of Davy Graham in particular -- but the first episode was fascinating. There was a lot of detail about how folk music was used as a political football; in the early years of the twentieth century you had cultural conservatives wishing to consolidate British culture (in opposition to European enemies like Germany, in particular) and ending up with the genteel settings of virtually extinct rural folk music by the likes of Britten, Vaughan Wiliams, Percy Grainger etc. Then they detailed the whole communist party colonisation of folk after WW2, with Ewan MacColl working along the same orthodox party lines as Pete Seeger in the US. I was also amused by the whole folk/skiffle schism, Peggy Seeger/Ewan MacColl's almost fascistic insistence that people could only sing songs from the region they came from. Terrific use of vintage footage too.

That does sound more interesting, I must say. I think the second episode suffered from trying to cover too much. (The Watersons, Hampstead beatniks, Donovan, ISB, John Martyn, The Strawbs, Dylan , Paul Simon, Martin Luther King etc etc).

The next one seems to be Pogues & Billy Bragg

.. and ends at the Fence collective.