No Joke – It’s Folk!
(And it’s not as bad as we feared!)
By Amanda Hallay
‘The Barleycorn’ - The Johnstons
‘The Barleycorn’
The Johnstons
Most people don’t like the idea of Traditional Folk Music. I can’t say I blame them. After all, think of what we associate with folk; aunties and uncles, earthenware mugs with handles you can’t get your fingers through, macrame, and (worst of all) Irish people. Yes, all these things are very nasty, and should right be avoided at all costs. However, there is another way to look at Traditional Folk which actually makes it enjoyable, and utterly disassociates it from tossers. Forget the poncho-wearing fools smoking roll-ups and pretending they're from Dublin as they order halves of cider at community centre ‘Irish Nights’.
Some of the nasty things we associate
with Traditional Folk Music.
Instead, think about the past. The distant past. Our distant past. Traditional Folk Music is just what it claims to be; the music of the people – and the people in question lived a long time ago. So instead of thinking of brown-toothed hippies riding around in a transit van, picture an 18th century tavern in the middle of a rugged moor, the fire blazing as the wind howls outside, the wretched souls of highwaymen and wool weavers cheered (or saddened) by the groups of people singing the songs their parents had sung before them. Stories of dead lovers, roguish sailors and barley farmers, all sung with harmonies and accompanied by fiddles, harps and early guitars. The rain lashes on the mottled-glass windows, and far in the distance, we see the lantern of a loan horseman.
See, already Traditional Folk is starting to sound better, isn’t it. And the best album for transporting the listener to the weaver’s cottage or pirate tavern of Britain’s past is The Barleycorn, by Irish ensemble The Johnstons. The Barleycorn is a ‘double greatest hits’ compilation of the Johnstons’ recordings of the Late ‘60s/’Early ‘70s. Twenty-five tracks carry the listener from the Highlands of Jacobite Scotland to the peat fields of Ireland, the beautiful Celtic melodies and faultless split-harmonies making The Barleycorn endlessly appealing, endlessly ‘listenable’. This is music for a bitter winter night, candle-light flickering as friends gather to ease the chill with a mug of mulled wine (or, at the very least, a plastic bottle of Tesco’s ‘Olde Style’ cider), the album a lovely reminder that the power of music has always been a force which drives people together.
Musically, The Barleycorn swings from foot-tapping drinking songs to eerie, melancholy love songs, the lyrics extra compelling for their insight into what mattered to our ancestors. It is difficult to imagine Britney Spears singing about the purchase of a prize pig, just as it is impossible to picture Billy Crawford entertaining us with his tales of adventures on the High Seas. We have movies for this sort of thing. In the 18th and 19th centuries – and with mass illiteracy – music was one of the few ways to ‘tell a story’ so that it was both memorable and entertaining, a vehicle in which the those who couldn’t read or write could make sure their story was known. This is why Traditional Folk is still so popular in Ireland.
Here are some of the nice things we
can associate with Traditional Folk Music.
A unisex ensemble, The Johnstons made it so ‘semi-big’ in the Sixties that the entire group moved to London (a big-deal if you’re from some slum-town in County Cork, or wherever these people were from.) Sadly, one of the two Johnston sisters died in 1981, and the ensemble ended. Fortunately, the recent re-release of their early recordings, compiled in The Barleycorn, allow for those of us for whom pop is the only music that really matters to finally ‘see what all the fuss is about’. Not all Traditional Folk makes for good listening. The Barleycorn does. For those of you who feel they should at least have one Traditional Folk C.D in their collection (just in case a good-looking Continuing Education woodwork teacher ever stops over), then please let The Barleycorn by The Johnstons be the one!
