When I was applying for a central government scholarship to study an art form, I saw that there was space to write the names of the institution and the guru we wanted to study with. For singing, dancing and folk songs, you could name a guru.
The way popular music is categorized and formatted cuts down on everyone’s options. And although people don’t talk about it, there are a lot of issues of race determining musical categories of what’s rock, R&B, or even folk. It ends up restricting creativity.
Political folk talk a lot these days about ‘messaging’ – a neologism designed to describe the way in which parties and politicians consciously characterize their efforts. It is only intended to be positive – i.e., ‘Our messaging is designed to show we care.’
My family making music was like a folk background, really: banging on tabletops, playing banjo and all kinds of things.
Folk music takes us back to the roots of our culture.
I really understand what that process is all about and how important it is, especially with young folk and creative folk that love looking for some platform that makes it easier for them to express themselves.
I love a lot of music that’s considered folk music, but I also love a lot of music that’s considered punk or considered rap. I don’t mind being called a folk singer. But it seems a bit limiting. I want to be able to write whatever kind of song I want.
My works are Chinese literature, which is part of world literature. They show the life of Chinese people as well as the country’s unique culture and folk customs.
People used to grow up in small communities where folk wisdom was passed down. But we don’t live there anymore. We can’t go next door to your aunt and ask her for the answers.
Being unprepared makes me nervous. I’m old-fashioned show folk.
All along, I did what I was comfortable doing, which was to play the music I enjoyed and try to stretch the parameters a bit. Country and bluegrass and folk were my foundation.
My mum’s family would all get together, with guitars, harmonica, mandolins and upright bass and play old blues and folk songs. That was normal to me.
I love singing opera, but the world surrounding it is not me. I want to be barefoot. I want to be in control of my own career. I want to put on a show. In the opera world, you wait for people to call you until you get to a certain level. In the folk world, it’s a lot easier to have control from the beginning.
I came late to the genre of folk music.
I listen to music mostly in the evening. I’ve come to love what is called world music, like the Zimbabwean Oliver Mtukudzi and the Colombian singer Marta Gomez. I also love the Irish folk singer Mary Black. Other favorites include Chet Baker, Eva Cassidy, and Billie Holiday.
At one stage, I wanted to be a folk singer.
And whether or not you’re interested in opera or classical music or folk music or the theatre, I think that for a nation’s health and well-being it’s very important that the arts scene is supported.
Folk music is music that everyday people can play, and it inspired a lot of people to make their own music. That trailed into making your own pop music, and that’s why garage bands started springing up everywhere.
I don’t really think of myself as a folk singer.
The genius of a folk melody or story is not the feeling that it’s original but quite the opposite – the feeling that it has existed all along.
I’ve never set out consciously to write American music. I don’t know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.
It was darn nigh impossible for women in rock in the ’70s. There wasn’t a mold if you were a woman and you were in the entertainment in the ’70s. You were probably a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio would play only one woman per hour.
Folk tales are the most authentic way of understanding a region, its legend and people.
Bruce Springsteen’s a rock star. Elton John is a rock star. I’m a folk musician. Honestly, I think that’s true.
Whether I’m acting, writing, or directing, I want to tell the truth about human beings, especially my folk.
My family used to put on a small folk festival.
The Band is probably the ultimate example of people taking all kinds of music, from gospel to blues to mountain music to folk music to on and on and on and on and putting them all in this big pot and mixing up a new gumbo.
Gujarat is truly vibrant. Be it handicrafts, folk music, art, costumes or food – the state offers the best of everything.
I guess fusion would be the best way to describe my music. I think it also goes into the spectrum of electronic and dance with inspiration from Indian folk songs.
We say Black lives matter, but a lot of white folks don’t know Black folk.
It’s fine if folk don’t like my sense of humour. But if somebody misunderstands, then that hurts a bit.
New Orleans is gumbo. You get so man types of things… jazz, folk, Zydeco.
Musicians are often asked to answer for an entire culture, or for an entire movement. It’s a process of commodification. It becomes packaged and summarized in a word like ’emo’ or ‘grunge’… or ‘folk music.’ I think that’s just language itself, trying to understand the mysteries of the world.
My parents knew about the story of Aladdin far before the animation film. It’s a folk tale that is very prevalent in Egypt.
I was reared on folk music.
I never started out as an R&B singer. I grew up on all types of music – jazz, rock, pop, country, folk – and I wanted to bring that to my stage.
Ideally, I’d love to write poems that intrigued humans across the board: literary folk and academics as well as… dog-walkers, doctors, plumbers, chefs, math professors, jugglers, etc.
Tricks you need to transform something which appears fantastic, unbelievable into something plausible, credible, those I learned from journalism. The key is to tell it straight. It is done by reporters and by country folk.
Of the music that we’ve done over the years, the things that are the most requested are the hymns. And folk music is also high on the list.
I’m not a folk or jazz singer, more a hard-edged pop singer – with some rock, and song hooks.
I think all old folk’s homes should have striptease. If I ran one I’d have a striptease every week.
I was on the dole once. I loved it. It was only for a couple of years, when I was 20 or 21 and playing in a band. Back then, this was something young folk did – you got your rent paid, a little bit of money to live on, and you loafed around, wrote songs, rehearsed and dreamed of playing Wembley Stadium.
There’s not that much English folk music that is really that appealing.
Some folk want their luck buttered.
It was really fun. Well, Bobby was just basically a folk singer. He didn’t play with any bands or anything, like all the rest of us. Just played his guitar and sang his songs.
When I was in college, being a magician was not the classiest thing to be. It was like being a folk singer before Bob Dylan.
Well, I think every now and again, some people deserve to get their butts chewed. Every now and again some people deserve a pat on the back. What I try and do is compliment folk who deserve a compliment, and chew folks out who deserve to be chewed out.
There’s sort of a persistent misperception that talking about race is black folk’s burden. Ultimately, only men can end sexism, and only white people can end racism.
You have to open your mind. I like the ability to express myself in a deep way. It’s the closest music to our humanity – it’s like a folk music that rises up out of a culture.
Like all right-listening folk, I am an implacable enemy of all muzak.
I enjoy bluegrass, folk, gospel, and classical. I don’t listen to music when I write. I sometimes listen to music just before I sit down to write.
Purcell is a composer who had a formative influence on British music – even The Who now cite him as an influence. There’s an intense, dirty harmony, but there’s a Louis XIV kind of elan and style, too. He had the melancholy DNA of our national folk heritage.
A folk melody can exist uniquely but also still be somewhat familiar to you.
I love British folk music, but I’m not obsessed with it. I love the Celtic stuff, and Enya is a favorite, but that’s more electronic.
I have tried to show the influence of folk music in Bollywood, in Tamil movies, in Telugu cinema.
The truth is there’s always a hum of people playing folk music in cities.
Black folk who don’t realize I’m mixed will treat me like I’m some racist person, or when white people find out I’m black, they treat me with racism, and I don’t feel like I belong or fit in anywhere.
I tend to be freer on the piano. I never took guitar lessons, so my reach exceeds my grasp – what I hear in my head I don’t always know how to play. But I love to play over something else. I’m not a self-starter. I get kind of bored with the same three folk chords that I know.
I mean, the genuine roots of culture is folk music.
For me, let’s keep jazz as folk music. Let’s not make jazz classical music. Let’s keep it as street music, as people’s everyday-life music. Let’s see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they’re living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.
