Talk:Folk process

Hello. I note this article is one of many citing the liner notes to a Folkways LP as a source. I shall avoid re-stating the points I have made in the article on The Unfortunate Rake entry in too much detail. Suffice it to say that having followed back the references given in those liner notes, I can explain that a) it relies on articles that in themselves are dubious authorities, and at least one of which has a factual mistake in (Dublin for Cork) and one of which is far from being a reliable source, being basically a conjectural magazine piece b) it includes misleading ideas c) whatever Goldstein may have done subsequently, he was at that time a record produced/editor with a couple of degrees in business, and not an expert on folklore. The Lodewick article makes it plain he has not seen any broadside version, and that he is relying on unnamed sources for his ideas on the topic. Also at that time, it seems that none of the people Goldstein used were aware of The Buck's Elegy, now thought to be the earliest version of the song (see Bishop and Roud's latest Penguin Book of English Folk Song).

Goldstein seems to me notable for having started up a 'myth' about the history of this song, which speaks volumes for his marketing skills and about how we want to believe neat pretty stories like the ones put together in connection with this song.

There is no evidence that I have been able to find of a 18th or 19th century broadside called 'The Unfortunate Rake'. As far as I can see, this title came to be used as a 'catch all' for variants of the original broadside 'The unfortunate lad' in the 20th century. They discovered an Irish tune with no words called The Unfortunate Rake and conjectured that the tune might have gone originally with the song called 'The Unfortunate Lad' and other titles.

A positive point about this article is that it demonstrates how 'folk' - whatever that really is - and commercial music (eg the Folkways LP, Armstrongs St James Infirmary) interact. This is beginning to become clear when it comes to the origins of 20th century blues music, and the same seems to be true of folk. Of course the folklorist/anthropological tradition affected our beliefs about both musical traditions, as Hagstrom Miller's excellent book shows.

Thank you for reading. Looking forward to discussion

Kate Mash 11:45, 13 November 2017 (UTC)Kate Mash — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kate Mash (talk • contribs)


 * Kate, thanks for the post. I don't disagree with anything that you wrote, but if it was talking about a specific change in the article content, I was not able to see what that was unless it was just to explain/support the edit that you already made (?)  North8000  (talk) 05:05, 20 November 2017 (UTC)