THE MICHIGAN DAILY
1 -
Celidh:
Songs are people
By GARY BALDWIN
The weekend song fest con-
tinued Friday night at the Ark,
and both the singers and the
audience showed a great deal
more excitement than Thursday
night. Every bit of that energy
came through in the quality of
the music.
3 ?t Unlike many other forms of
music in which the composition
itself or the talent of the per-
former alone are of primary im-
portance, folk music is the peo-
ple's music, and the effective-
ness of the songs is determined
by the bond of the audience
and performer. Everyone must
also have a great interest in
the music. That's why folk songs
are about people and events ...
to gain that interest. Friday
night all those elements were
} there - especially the people
(the size of the crowd was also
greater).
f f 'Some may have wondered why
I carrried on so much in the
review of Thursday night about
the singers who are here this
weekend, those at the Ark last
) night know why. The songs were
essentially the same as Thurs-
, day. But the performers were
not just singers; they were peo-
s <~ple. The round robin form be-
...,,..came looser and there was more
, ' ' : I':spontaneity, as the order was
2ffoften broken.
r Jenny Haley was there from
California, Roger Renwick be-
*..*frgan to joke a little more, Mi-'
-Daily-Thomas R. Cops chael Cooney walked around
cnema
ne': Dime-store culture
playing Barry O'Neill's guitar
(bottle neck style) for a half an
hour before things were set to
begin, and Joe Hickerson's ex-
citement seemed to beam from
his face as he smiled while he
sang.
I finally got around to talking
to Larry Hanks, too. He is em-
ployed at Lumberg's Guitar
Shop in Berkeley, which is
known as the country's best. He
lives in nearby Albany, and has
worked for Lumberg for some
three and a half years. He has
sung at the Fox Hollow Folk
Festival, Cafe Lena (in Sara-
toga, N.Y.), and Freight and
Salvage in San Francisco, three
of the country's best places for
good folk music. Like scores of
others, his early influence was
Woody Guthrie (though his bass
voice could make Tennessee
Ernie Ford blush). That prob-
ably has a lot to do with his
current interest in ecology. He
sings a few songs by Mavina
Reynolds dealing with that sub-
ject. I also found that the Mar-
tin guitar I alluded to Friday
is not a Martin at all. It is an
unlabeled, oak guitar with a
small, sound box made about
1920. Anyway, he was as warm
to talk to. as he is quiet on stage.
He'll be singing at the SanDiego
State Folk Festival on April 24,
25, and 26.
Hanks again contributed a lot
Friday night, but the others
were in equally good form.
Cooney played both banjo and
harmonica on one song, and just
picked the hell out of his banjo.
Hanks did a song which he at-
tributed to the Washboard
Three from Oakland the chorus
of which was "I'd rather be a
newsboy is the USA than a ruler
in a foreign land." Cooney
matched that with a song
chorused "I am one hundred per
cent American, God damn I
am."
At one point Roger Renwick
explained the reason the singers
were using so many concertinas
was that they were all in some-
what different tunings. Jenny.
Haley, who is known primarily
for writing parody songs, fol-
lowed with the comment that
she has a "blind friend who
went to the top of the mountain,
3020 Washtenaw, Ph. 434-1782
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H CASSIDY AND
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above the crickets. He says the
(sound of) earth is in F, but I
get from an F sharp to a G."
Michael Cooney continued to
flatter Barry O'Neill, who made
one of his rare performances as
a guitarist. But Barry informs
me "I'm not really that well
known nationally." Believe who
you will, but O'Neill contributed
his usual wit (as well as his
songs)dand sang especially well
in a duet with Roger Renwick
early in the evening.
If I seem to be straying from
the music itself, you're right.
What I'm trying to get across is
that there is a lot more to folk
music than just music. I dare
say the "folk" are much more
important. There were good peo-
ple at the Ark Friday night.
They were the only reason the
music was as good. as it was.
The cielidh concluded last
night atthe Ark with the good
news that another one will be
there next year. And like the
first two nights, the music was
great.
Though the cast of singers
remained the same (fortunately
- for the audience - Jenny
Haley couldn't go home because
of the air strike), all the songs
were different, and despite the
fact that singing has gone until
2:30 each night no one showed
much fatigue.
Roger Renwick opened with a
ballad, followed by Hans doing
"Do Re Mi," and Jenny begin-
ning the spiritual "I'll Fly
Away" with her own addition,
"Some bright morning when the
strike is over, I'll fly away."
Late Friday night saw an old
suspendered lumberjack ham-
.W
ming it up and swinging to an
audience that appreciated him.
He was one of the people Mich-
ael Cooney was speaking of last
night when he said, "There's a
lot more great folk songs we
haven't heard. But they're all in
the heads of old pople who will
be dying soon, and who listen to
the radio and don't sing those,
songs anymore because they
think they are corny. Cooney
was right, The folk music fad
of a few years ago sterilized
("took the magic out" as Coon-
ey said) some of the great old
folk songs, then yielded to'leave
others in their obscurity.
Perhaps this weekend showed
that obscurity is not always a
bad thing. Because the magic
was there. And folk music has
never been more alive in Ann
Arbor.
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"AN INSTANT CLASSIC. IT HAS A HAMMER-LOCK ON
HISTORY, PERFORMANCE, PATHOS AND ROOTING
INTEREST!"-Archer Winsten, N.Y. Post
"EPIC BATTLE OF THE SEXES.-Vincent Canby,N.Y.imes
I
J By NEAL GABLER
Just about every year the.
motion picture academy, feeling
guilt pangs over its prospective
nominees, makes an earnest
effort to reward Kultchah. But,
as in most other things, its
members seldom look below the
surface to find the genuine
article. They settle for some-
thing that has the look and
feel of culture but is really
nothing nore than kitsch. It's
what I call the pseudo-Shake-
speare syndrome.
The victims 'of this affliction
think that elaborate sets, and
costuming, t h i c k English ac-
cents, lutes and flutes and a
fractured syntax that sounds
like a verbatim translation of
Latin are enough to rival the
Great Barcg himself. So here
comes the parade-Becket, A
Man for All Seasons, The Lion
in Winter and occasionally a
little of the real thing slips
through as in Zefferelli's doc-
tored but delightful Romeo and
Juliet. Yet, no 'atter how hard
he may try, Robert Bolt just
isn't Shakespeare, and not even
the thickest of English accents
or a plethora of weighty words
can elevate him to that status.
Anne of the Thousand Days
now playing at the Michigan is
the contender this year for the
academy's culture honors with
ten nominations. It has clop-
ping hooves, clinking swords,
clicking heels, creaking leather,
clanging bells, clambering
townsfolk. It also has a score
by George Delerue lifted right
out of R and J based, I guess,
on the assumption that what's
good for Venice is good for
England. Anyway, it's all Shake-
speare, isn't it? And the dialogue
is in the grand tradition, as
when Burton bellows, "I will
marry f Anne if it splits the
whole world in two like an
apple and flings the two halves
into the void." Well said!
The Anne of the title is, of
course, testy Anne B o 1 e y n
(Genevieve Bujold), the object
of lecherous King Henry VIII's
(Richard Burton) desires. Un-
like her predecessors in the
King's' affection, Anne doesn't
yield easily. Her aloofness makes
Henry all the more obdurate in
his p a s s i o n since, as Anne's
father says, "What his majesty
is denied he goes half mad to
obtain." For six years, with sin-'
gle ,purpose, Henry pursues
Anne until. .-..The rest is his-
tory as well as A Man for All
Seasons.
Unfortunately, the film uses
its history poorly. Falling short
of its Shakespearian mark, Anne
of the Thousand Days comes off
like a history book adapted to
the screen instead of using the
period to realize a truth about
the human drama. Its charac-
ters are interesting, but they
are too shallow to convey any
message a b o u t our condition.
They never get any closer to
truth than dime-store Freud-
ianism.
Richard Burton does little to
aid the humanization of this his-
tory. Like so many of his other
performances, Burton blusters
through the role, as if volume
and animation equal Acting.
Genevieve Bujold, who, like her
co-star, has been nominated for
an Oscar, fares slightly better al-
though it strains all credulity to
think Henry would chase her
for six years (a Katherine Ross
she isn't). Her worst moments
are her tirades where she fur-
iously wags her head from side
to side like a petulant three-
year old.,
In the supporting cast Irene,
Papas plays Queen Catherine
with appropriate dourness, and
I must say it's a relief to see her
unwidowed for once. Of all the
performances, however, An-
thony Quayle, as the cunning
but aging Cardinal Wolsey, ex-
cels. One more word about the
cast: Was William Squire cast
as Sir Thomas More because he
bears a striking resemblance to
Paul Scofield?
Even though Anne of the
Thousand Days is not what its
producers or the academy want
it to be, if you can wallow
through the verbeage - it has
more talk per foot of film than
any movie ever made ,- it might
be enjoyable as pure spectacle.
All the sixteenth century trap-
pings are here to produce the
feeling of the era. But if you're
looking for culture, go to the
ballet.
I
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V
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