AboutMike Turner Expertise Folk Music, particularly the Child Ballads and that great body of industrial and work-related songs which arose during the Industrial Revolution. I am well-versed in the history of the Folk Revival, and I have a particular interest in political and agit-prop songs, as well as in traditional Irish dance music. For ten years I was a committee member and resident singer/song-writer/musician with the Grey Cock Folk Club in Birmingham (the pre-eminent traditional club in the English midlands, which was founded by Charles Parker of `Radio Ballad` fame).
Question do you know anything about a song called (wind in the willows) by an irish group called SPUD
Answer Hi Chris,
Simply put, no - sorry. I had heard neither of the track nor the group.
A little research via Google tells me that they formed out of some performers (e.g. Dermot O'Connor) who later went on to perform in bands with quite diverse musical tastes, so I would suspect that they were not dyed-in-the-wool traditional folk musicians.
Back in 1963 there was a pop single called "Summer Skies and Golden Sand" which to my young and untutored ears sounded like what I would then have called folk music. I would now call it a novelty pop song with Hollywood-like pretensions to being hillbilly music. Similarly I have heard many a pop song over the years being described as folk music, simply because it employs an acoustic accompaniment. Are you sure that I would class this track as folk music?
