If ever a genre suffered an unfair stereotype it’s folk music. Those beards and sandals just keep coming to mind when one thinks traditional music. But the Noughties are changing all that, banishing the hey nonny nonnies and bringing a new generation to the mainstream. It seems the parameters that once held the likes of Pentangle and Fairport Convention are being pushed aside by a new breed of artists including Seth Lakeman, Bellowhead, Lau, Kate Rusby and Eliza Carthy. Only question is, are their roots showing?
Check out the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2007 and you’ll see a (un)traditional story emerging. Something John Leonard, executive producer of those awards, acknowledges is a force for folk good: ‘To many, the majority of the artists featured in the Folk Awards will be new names but many winners of the New Horizon Folk Newcomer’s Award have gone on to be major names such as Karine Polwart and Julie Fowlis. Some folk artists including Seth Lakeman and Kate Rusby have caught the media’s attention and achieved an unprecedented volume of album sales. But I don’t think folk music is necessarily changing. Folk music has survived two World Wars, where many of the carriers of the tradition were killed; it has survived the destruction of its natural habitat, the pub, and has been ridiculed or at best ignored by the media at large for more than 50 years. But hopefully now many more people will become aware of our rich musical heritage that is folk music.’
it’s not hard to define, it’s nearly impossible
Bellowhead are one of those leading the charge as they bring our traditional music culture to centre stage. 
Twisting the roots of English music they’re brassed-up with a formidable horn section. Live they spellbind with their unique sound but are they the new folk? And what does folk mean to Bellowhead. Lead singer, fiddle and tambourine magician Jon Boden explains: ‘To be honest I prefer to talk about traditional rather than folk if I’m talking about the musical genre itself. Traditional basically refers to the mode of composition and transmission and there is something particularly magical about a song or tune that has been composed or refined by generations of singers passing it on. For me the word “folk” is more useful when talking about context; social music, where the division between performer and audience is absent.’ So what for Bowden are the differences between the new folk and the more traditional artists? ‘From what I know about the “new-folk” scene they’re a lot less interested in traditional material or in the stylistic traditions as solidified by the revival. It’s also not a scene that seems to be that interested in social music but that may be a false impression. In some ways, the scenes seem to keep themselves quite separate. Which is a shame. But it appears we are getting back to a natural balance where traditional music can take its place alongside classical, jazz and world music as an important, respected minority interest.’
all music is folk music
Ben Lane is the applications manager of the PRS Foundation, which gives £130,000 every year to folk projects in the UK. Does Lane think folk’s feeling the attention right now and, under the mainstream gaze, are the so-called old and new folk feeling the gap? ‘I don’t really see there being a break between traditional and new. It’s just great to see that this is a living tradition with new material being added to it. What I do think has changed is that folk music has recently begun to attract more mainstream attention and there certainly seems to have been 
a bigger influx of young blood. You can’t ignore things like the BBC Folk awards; the BBC’s sponsorship of the Cambridge Folk Festival and the proliferation of folk music on Radio 1, 2 and 3.’ Add 2006’s Folk Britannia TV series, the Folk Degree Course at Newcastle University and the hard work of organisations such as Folk Arts England and you can see the interest levels rising. For Ben Lane the folk tale has many twists to come: ‘If you look at the proliferation of new folk genres - nu folk, twisted folk, antifolk, alt-folk, folktronica - they’re all about combining a variety of contemporary influences with folk music. If giving new folk music a label that helps people get over the negative stereotype of beards and sandals that’s fine by me.’
One of the reasons folk music has been bolting through the stereotypical stable door is live music. Folk festivals are a priceless part of the folk tradition and organisations like FolkArts England are at the forefront. A national development agency for folk, roots and traditional music, FolkArts England is funded by Arts Council England and incorporates The Association of Festival Organisers as well as being publishers of Direct Roots; the guide to folk, roots and related music and arts. The Association Of Festival Organisers lends support, advice and wisdom to literally hundreds of events, whatever the size or roots. Steve Heap director of FolkArts England says: ‘Live music is quite clearly a vital element of people’s lives in entertainment. Prominent amongst the live music opportunities are music festivals and very strong amongst those are folk roots and traditional music festivals with over three hundred and fifty taking place in the UK each year. Some have as many as 10,000 to 15,000 people visiting, others just a few hundred but all very important to the communities in which they operate. They clearly feature as a shot in the arm to many customers and the evidence is in correspondence after folk festivals like Cambridge, Towersey, Chippenham and Fylde where customers write and express what a great event it was. “We’ll be back” is a 
common line used,’ Steve explains. ‘Folk festivals are on the rise. Folk music is clearly experiencing a new wave of interest from the young and family groups, from the elderly, the enthusiast and the up and coming musician. More singer/ songwriters are appearing showing more interest in research into tradition and local culture and without doubt live music. The festival scene is playing a vital role in not only the arts but in tourism in England where folk roots and traditional music is of major interest.’
One of folk’s most prominent festivals is The Oxford Folk Festival. Director Tim Healey is proud of the role festivals play in keeping folk alive. ‘We live in a festival culture where music-lovers are not satisfied with buying CDs and DVDs. They want the total immersion experience you get at a festival, where the music is live, multi-faceted and you are among like-minded people. This is especially true of folk music. Many of the audience sing or play instruments themselves. The festival workshops and live sessions - and the sense of community - are critically important to fostering a folk culture which is flourishing and interactive despite very little attention from the mass media.’
many more people are aware of our rich musical heritage that is folk
So this interest we’re all showing in artists like Drever, Bellowhead and their folk bedfellows. Why now? One person who’s at the working coal [folk] face is Harriet Simms, PR provider for many artists including Eliza Carthy, Martin Carthy & Norma Waterson, June Tabor and Tim Van Eyken courtesy of Glass Ceiling PR Limited. So what is happening to the new folk?: ‘There has definitely been a sea-change in the past eighteen months or so. Folk music of all kinds has emerged from underground. This is partly because of the search for national identity and the rise in interest in acoustic and independent music. “Folk” in all it’s myriad of forms is not the dirty word it once was.’
Lisa Knapp is a fine reason to reappraise the genre. Mixing the traditional with the modern courtesy of self penned moments of fiddle, hammer dulcimer, strings, banjo and sonic sweetness her debut album Wild And Undaunted on Ground Records is a real 21st century folk pleasure. For her, definitions of folk are as difficult as they are distinctive: ‘To me folk music tends to mean traditional music though I also take in the fact that it actually has a much broader spectrum of meaning as well. I think it’s rather hard to pin down folk as a genre: you could say it means music with an emphasis on acoustic music but that would leave out all experimental music, electronic experimentation and samples so that doesn’t fit. You could say it’s the interpretation of music found in the past but then you’d be leaving out all the creativity of songs and music written now, so that wouldn’t work either. In a way I think it is all of these things and others. But I take it back, It’s not rather hard but impossible to define. I think in the end Louis Armstrong’s quote said it best, “All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing.”’
Folk music is a vital British tradition but without new blood traditions die out. Today’s folk scene appears to be embracing the new folk, embracing the many family ties and enjoying the genre twisting we’re currently witnessing. And it’s this acknowledgment – the wisdom of the past and vibrancy of the new that will see folk forward. The roots are strong, the results are fine and folk, whatever it has in store, is here to stay. Perhaps Lisa Knapps sums it up best: ‘It goes really well with friends, beer and wine.’
www.prsfoundation.co.uk
www.folkarts-england.org
www.myspace.com/lisaknappmusic
www.cambridgefolkfestival.co.uk
www.distil.org.uk
www.myspace.com/thisisbellowhead
www.oxfordfolkfestival.com
www.elizanet.org.uk