When Dylan strapped on that Fender Stratocaster at the Newport Folk Festival and pulled its metaphorical trigger he fired a shot that was to be heard all round the world. And with it he was to dramatically change the complexion of contemporary music forever. Now almost fifty years on in a holiday camp on the east Lincolnshire coast its reverberations are still being felt. The little old lady in the anorak emerging from the Skyline Pavilion’s Centre Stage will testify to this. Shaking her head ruefully she mutters that it is far too loud in there. The Albion Band is the source of her disquiet proving once more that for many people folk purism and electricity just do not go together.
Going electric is a debate that will most surely rage on and on though it did seem strangely fitting that the Albion Band should draw this annual event to a close at the end of a week in which Ian Campbell, one of the leading pioneers of the great British folk revival of the 1960s and a man who had also once performed at the Newport Folk Festival had sadly passed away. Their melding of traditional folk and electric music and regular association with a revolving roster of some of the greatest names in English folk music had helped move this constantly narrow genre from the back rooms of pubs and clubs and out into a wider setting. Last year original member and band leader Ashley Hutchings had passed on the Albion mantle to his son and a younger generation of performers, a decision perhaps recognizing a need to not only breathe new life into this project but also to keep the new folk flame alive. Given this and the presence on the bill of such bright stars and relative newcomers to the party in Manchester’s The Travelling Band and Ireland’s Heidi Talbot, it is therefore somewhat disappointing that the hundreds of people pouring into the Butlins’ chalets for the weekend can almost entirely be described as middle-aged, middle class, middle Englanders. Their desire to travel down the middle of their individual roads and be entertained only within the confines of their own narrow expectations may best be measured in the respective audiences that the various acts attract. On the one hand Irish stalwarts The Fureys, accompanied by former member and fellow countryman Davey Arthur, play to a respectful full house on the other main stage in Reds and whilst to these ears they may veer uncomfortably close to supper club sing-a-long schmaltz to the rest of the crowd they most surely possess the reassuring warmth and familiarity of an old pair of comfy slippers. Yet on the other, The Travelling Band, who follow them onto the Reds stage and for all their youthful zest and modern take on the jingle jangle sound of the morning, can only watch as seats rapidly empty before them.
Whilst the changing of the guard does present a number of transitional issues for folk music, it has to be said that the most memorable performances of the weekend are undoubtedly drawn from the much deeper well of experience. Sixty four year old Gordon Giltrap is mesmerising. June Tabor and Oysterband combine perfectly as they mix and match songs from their recent Ragged Kingdom album with truly inspired covers of All Tomorrow’s Parties, White Rabbit and Bells Of Rhymney, though surely Love Will Tear Us Apart was also laid to rest that fateful night in 77 Barton Street, Macclesfield and should always remain thus. By way of similar homage, this time to her dearly departed brother and the eternal memory of Sandy Denny, Deborah Bonham makes a rather wonderful fist of Battle Of Evermore. Her take on Gavin Sutherland’s I Was In Chains is deeply liberating and enlivens the relative torpor of early Saturday afternoon. But despite the early promise of a quite breath-taking Sweet Child O’ Mine, sound problems and the eventual rigours of a long tour take their toll on Thea Gilmore’s performance as it peters out. No such difficulties faced Ray Jackson, though, as he first took to the stage with Hunter Muskett to blow some magical harp with them before returning later that evening with The Gathering where his emotional rendition of Lady Eleanor must have made the ghost of Alan Hull glow with immense pride.
Heidi Talbot’s beautiful encore of Sandy Denny’s At The End Of The Day encapsulates folk music’s apparent dichotomy between the old and the new. For all that it is a type of music very much versed in tradition it still possesses an image steeped in the gas lit coffee shops of yore and with this continues to attract an audience that grows old alongside it. How it then succeeds in harnessing these noble customs and values and can then expose them to a brand new audience is a difficult trick to manage. The successful continuation of events such as these, though, especially if coupled to a general relaxation of the lower age restrictions may well be a mighty fine way to start.
