FATB There is no rubber stamp for authenticity

The main BBC website (there is a Folk America sub-site) seems to use the picture below as a billystamper to indicate 'old and authentic' for any kind of music that has a connection with America at any time before the Beatles played Shea Stadium. I should explain that a billystamper is an expression in Northern England for a fake tattoo using wet transfer printing technology and enjoyed by children in a bygone era; thus it has certain humorous and derogatory connotations. The children would incant: "Billy Billy Stamper, stamp my hand / If you don't, you'll never be a man", while pounding on the transfer to make it stick. At some point in history the incantation may have been in some way meaningful, but now that is probably long gone and possibly lost forever.

Below is the verification of the billystamper accusation, which was not made lightly or to garner cheap acclaim as a media pundit; you should know better than to even think such things. The image has been used on the BBC website in connection with items about Woody Guthrie, the Carter Family, Greenwich Village, Billy Bragg (just a goldurn minute, he is a punk rocker from Barking, Essex, near London, England) and Roger McGuinn of popular 1960s hit-parade band the Byrds, or it seems anything with the words 'blues', 'folk', or 'American' in the title to a point that is barking mad.

You will be wondering whom the picture depicts, given that it has such heap big wampum to confer instant patina and authenticity: it is what the educated know as a 'leitmotif', meaning "a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea, or situation" according to my dictionary. You will also want to know if the shows were authentic: to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, there is no such thing as authentic music, music is either well played or badly played. One of the most authentic pasta and tomato sauce luncheons I ever ate was in a restaurant near the entrance to the ruins at Pomeii in Italy. The restaurant owner was a larger than life character who told me he was a "Roo-shian from South America" and gave me a huge conspiratorial wink before asking me if I thought his daughters were beautiful: "Italian mama", he explained helpfully. Here is the full photograph, which thereby explains the provenance of the BBC billystamper leitmotif:

You may see the image at full size by clicking on the entry in an interesting collection tagged "opry" by user typesticker at the Flickriver.com aggregation service. Dave Harrison Macon (1870-1952) aka 'The Dixie Dewdrop' and otherwise universally known as 'Uncle Dave Macon' was a vaudeville performer who became the first star of the Grand Old Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.

The first Barbican show was presented by Seasick Steve. If there is such a thing as old and authentic in showbiz then it is Steven Gene 'Seasick Steve' Wold. He even sits in a chair listening to a floor-standing radio with his feet on a patched footstool, all items that he bought in Murfreeboro, Tennessee, the town that hosts the annual Uncle Dave Macon Days event. Can you get any more authentic than that? Steve is also older than me: ditto the other 'any more' question. He was born in Oakland, California, so not really a Child of the South, although he spent a lot of time in Mississippi and Tennessee. Later he lived in Paris, France, and in Norway, before becoming an overnight success in the UK after half a century of playing—can you see how absurd all this authenticity thing is becoming?

I have no doubt whatsoever that Steve plays well and so do the other artists appearing in the show, including an Australian contingent! The other artists were Allison Williams & Chance MCoy, CW Stoneking, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, Diana Jones, and the Wiyvos.

The second Barbican show was presented by Billy Bragg. It's good to see old people are getting gigs to supplement their pensions and to hear how good they can still be. If occasionally you hold your breath because you think they are going to lose it, well just be a little forgiving for once. The good bits are really good: for example, Judy Collins is astounding with 'Anathea'. Carolyn Hester, Eric Andersen, and Roger McGuinn are the other artists.

If the format, artist roster, and playlists of these concerts was supposed to be 'educational' or 'retrospective' in some sense then their purpose went completely over my head. The settings were somewhat weird: the Barbican is neither intimate nor is it a massive venue. The sets were whacky, too: living room furniture and prop stadium crowd repeat monitors are not a good fit. The lighting varied between a style suitable for a glam-rock concert and a footlights style more suited to a local amdramsoc presentation of 'An Inspector Calls' by JB Priestley.

No matter these cavils, the artists transcended the medium and the milieu: I felt closer to these people than is usually possible with all the technology that gets between them and us. The show may have been over-blown, but the music was delightfully straightforward.

 

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