"There is a huge folk festival network, which the existing folkies frequent, but younger people are less likely to go to them. "But whatever people are trying, it doesn't seem to work," says Hield. The old guard is dying there is a need for new blood. The group does things like dancing with Wet Leg at the Brits, or having big owl puppets more contemporary aesthetics." The songs, music and dance also often serve as vehicles for other kinds of connection, Hield suggests, to midsummer, Pagan festivals and ceremony.Įstablished folk musicians frequently call for more young people to join their gatherings. "They're very Instagrammable, very crafts movement. "The Boss Morris costumes reference the traditional teams, but they're not the same," says Hield. And performance troupes such as Boss Morris look and feel current.
And sometimes that rubs people up the wrong way." Even though new groups like the Shovel Dance Collective and the Longest Johns sound folky, Hield says, there is something contemporary about their sound. Even though may be interested in a similar repertoire, they're approaching it in different ways. "The thing that has really grown is enthusiasm and desire," says Hield, "rather than actual participation in stuff that is already available. "Diversity is a huge issue," Hield says, "mostly because people only get into the folk scene if they already know somebody in it."Īs a result, the new, more diverse, wave of folk has taken its expression outside the established venues. The team's research also suggests that young people are put off by the lack of a broad representation of different ages, races, genders and sexualities in the folk world, both in the audiences and in the song texts themselves – and that other music scenes seem to have achieved a greater degree of racial inclusivity than folk. (Although also, when asked for an association with the word "folklore", the response "Taylor Swift" was frequently given – perhaps unsurprisingly since it was the name of the artist's 2020 album). As part of a project researching folk singing in England, Hield and her colleagues have found that non-folkies can associate terms like "folk music" mainly with phrases like "beardy old man" or "white man with guitar". It has its own sound, nuances and traditions, like singarounds and sessions, and its own fans and musicians, often older and middle class. However, the folk music movement is quite insular. Because that would be harder to navigate politically." And while this is not intrinsically linked to summer, Hield says, outdoor festivals certainly enable visitors to go to a place, both mentally and physically, where they can connect with their roots. "They are leapfrogging colonialism… but they still want to be proud of place. "In this kind of post-Brexit, Black Lives Matter narrative, people are wanting to engage in a kind of England or a kind of Englishness that they're proud of," she tells BBC Culture. There's currently a "huge, huge enthusiasm" for new types of folk culture, according to ethnomusicology professor Fay Hield at the University of Sheffield.
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