Ten favourite - and useful - web sites

Originally published in FoT Issue 100: Jul-Sep 2004

It is quite reassuring that - just for the love of it - about 35 people keen to safeguard the future of traditional music sit down very three months and bash out copy on their old Olivettis to send off to Sandy for publication in this august magazine. Or even this July to September magazine. Mankind hasn’t gone off the rails after all, despite what the “Daily Mail” may tell us. Unlike the rest of “Folk on Tap”, this page is written not at a battered portable but at a state-of-the-art home computer. And while I work, that same PC is able to entertain me with the DVD or CD of my choice. I find it a bit difficult to concentrate while watching a DVD, but it’s a cross I have to bear as the writer of the column dedicated to surfing the World Wide Web. Over the years I have been doing this there have been a lot of developments and quite a few comings and goings, but despite the best attempts of certain jackanapes to hijack the Internet for financial gain, there are still plenty of sites that reflect the same philosophy as the “Folk on Tap” crew, amateurs happy to share their love of whatever with whoever is interested.

And whether your main interest is traditional English, Scottish or Irish songs or music, Morris, Blues, Appalachian - the list is endless but the items all relate to music performed not to make a lot of money but to satisfy basic human needs such as story-telling, information-sharing or sheer pleasure - there is more available now than ever before. Along with, or perhaps because of, the explosion of the Web, advances in ways of storing data have had to be made. Researchers at the University of California reckon that during 2002 and 2003 about 36 billion gigabytes of information were stored - more data than had previously been stored throughout the history of the human race. It’s just a shame it didn’t happen a couple of hundred years earlier. If only Cecil Sharp had used a tape recorder instead of pencil and paper. Or Alan Lomax had visited Stovall’s Plantation armed with a DVD-cam. Or the BBC hadn’t wiped those tapes... But it’s no use crying over evaporated milk. Instead, let’s enjoy the cream of the Internet. As it’s a bit of a special occasion, I thought I would draw your attention to ten of my favourite sites. They have all stayed the course, and though they are not exclusively folk orientated, they would be of interest I am sure to the folk enthusiast and they invariably display the philosophy demonstrated above.

1 BBC: This is not the place for a debate about whether this site costs us anything. Just make use of it. It is of course packed with information about TV and radio programmes as well as news. But it is also a gateway to information and news about folk music, whether through the Hitchhiker’s Guide - h2g2 - Mike Harding’s programme pages or the site’s music section. And with regional radio programmes now available anywhere, we folkaholics are no longer limited to an hour every Wednesday evening.
2 The Mudcat Cafe: As well as a forum for sharing folk-based news - and with a strong UK contingent sending messages - this is the home of the Digital Tradition Database, which at the time of writing contains about 9000 songs. It also has a good section - the Mudcat Blues Museum - dedicated to the Blues.
3 OLGA: The Online Guitar Archive has had its ups and downs, not least because of threats from the recording industry, yet it is *still going strong. It mainly has tablature or chord charts for songs in various rock categories, but also includes classical music and folk. A must for the guitar enthusiast, though not so useful for lyrics due to the piracy problem. The home page has a link to an excellent guitar chord generator. (*Online update 100308: Olga was eventually taken down but I have left the link alive as there is a page there with information about the legal situation and a couple of useful links. Who knows, maybe one day common sense will prevail and it will return.)
4 The Prairie Home Companion: Although you can now listen to Garrison Keillor’s radio show on BBC Radio 7, the archives on the web site provide hours and hours of music and humour in Keillor’s good-natured style. You’ll find Kate Rusby there, John Renbourn and lots of nice Americans. And why not?
5 Google: Not only a search engine for the Web, it also gives searchable access to Usenet, which is often a useful source of information. The on-topic newsgroup here is uk.music.folk where you often get advance notice of folk acts who have a TV or radio appearance coming up, live gigs, recordings and news of cancelled gigs or deaths. Google also has a useful News section.
6 Free Agent: A great email and newsgroup reader. I must admit I have actually spent money on upgrading to Agent, which has enhanced features, but both versions are not so open to security problems as the more common Outlook Express (mainly because hackers are more interested in embarrassing Bill Gates) and it doesn’t have a Send to All button. There are a growing number of people who wish they hadn’t pressed their Send to All button.
7 DVD Genie: Enhances most PC-based DVD players and more importantly allows you to play Region 1 DVDs.
8 Multimap: Show me a folk enthusiast who doesn’t need directions to clubs and festivals and I’ll show you someone who should get out more often.
9 Internet Movie Database: You know when you see someone in a film and can’t remember where you’ve seen them before? It’s called getting old. It comes to us all sooner or later so we all need the Internet Movie Database. Just type in the name of the film, and when the cast list comes up, click on the actor’s name and see all the films in which they have ever appeared.
10 Dick Gaughan: These sites are in no particular order, though I have saved the best until last. Dick is a bit of a whizz kid when it comes to technology but places particular emphasis on accessibility, so whichever browser you use, you are guaranteed an enjoyable visit. You will find information about and in most cases the lyrics of all the songs Dick has recorded. You can find about the man himself, not just a list of his gigs, but also his thoughts on war, economics and web sites.

I went to the memorial service for Bob Copper in Rottingdean in April. It was a fantastic event, a very moving celebration of Bob’s life and work, and one of the highlights for me was to see the Copper Family still singing - of course with Bob’s generation no longer represented but in its stead there were numerous grandchildren. As they finished their first song John gave a big thumbs-up towards heaven. But we must give a big thumbs-up to the family. In Sussex at least the future of English traditional music is quite safe.