This nyckelharpa kills fascists: Swedish folk musicians stand up to the racist right

Several months ago I was sent an academic paper written by an American called David Kaminsky: hat tip Jim Good, a Canadian musician now apparently living in Berlin. This was a seriously international undertaking as the article was about folk music in Sweden and how it has become entangled - much to the disgust of many Swedish folk musicians - with the far-right.

Woody Guthrie, 1943

Kaminsky's article, published in the Journal of Folklore Research in 2012 and called Keeping Sweden Swedish: Folk Music, Right-Wing Nationalism, and the Immigration Debate, can be read here.

It's an interesting paper, though a little short on specifics. The gist is that Sweden's folk scene is vulnerable to the far-right - "Sweden for the Swedish" etc - as a result of a slightly half-hearted folk revival in the 60s and 70s that left the country's 19th-century nationalist folk repertoire mainly in tact, myth of cultural purity and all. Think less Dirty Old Town and more Green Grow the Rushes, O. I guess, according to this thesis, racists find it easier to imagine white people in an imaginary rural environment than an imaginary urban one.

The context is that Sweden currently takes more migrants as a percentage of its population than anywhere else in Europe and that there is an international migration crisis taking place: four million people displaced by the Syrian civil war alone, which puts the 3,000 people currently estimated to be camping out in Calais in some kind of perspective. It is, let's face it though, mainly a crisis for the migrants themselves, not for western Europe, which has the resources to help if it chooses. Sweden chooses to help.

An attempt to find Swedish folkies to speak to foundered initially in an illuminating way: my first Swedish folky, whom I shall not name, told me off roundly for not knowing enough about Swedish folk music to deserve to speak to him and for believing that the Swedish band Baskery - whom I first saw at the Shrewsbury folk festival in the UK - might qualify as a folk band. I say "illuminating" because it is easy to see that if a folk scene is elitist and exclusionary it could be easily captured by one group of people. 

However, through the miracle of Facebook and specifically by posting a question on this blog's Facebook page (followed by all the most cosmopolitan folkies), I found myself being handed between Swedes until I was in touch with Anna Gustavsson and Jenny Franke, who are directly involved with the "folk musicians against racism" movement.

This was a familiar idea to me as there was something similar in the UK abut six years ago called Folk Against Fascism, although this organisation doesn't seem to have adapted itself very well to way the UK immigration debate has evolved and the reality of the 2015 election result, in which Ukip received 12% of the national vote. I guess it's lucky that Nigel Farage has no interest in music.

Anna, Jenny and I organised a chat on instant messenger but unfortunately on Monday - the allotted evening - Jenny had to go and earn a living at the drop of a hat. So I spoke with Anna and this is how it went...

Tell me a bit about yourself, Anna: are you a musician?

Photo: Joel Höglund

"Yes, I play the nyckelharpa and am currently a student at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. I'm from the countryside outside of Uppsala - a small place called Börje - and I'm 24."

Did you have a chance to read the essay by David Kaminsky?

"Not the whole text, but some of it."

And what did you think of it? Is his analysis correct? He was saying that there is a problem in Sweden involving folk music and the far-right. 

"If that is his analysis, he's right. That was the start of the folk musicians against racism movement."

Could you be a little more specific? 

"It began really when the leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson wore a traditional costume when entering parliament in 2010."

"Many parliamentary people have worn the national costume to the opening but when Jimmie Åkesson did it in 2010, it became clear that the aim was political and that the clothing was worn not only as formal wear. The same has been done by the deputy speaker, Björn Söder [another Sweden Democrat], and various Sweden Democrats also did this at public meetings, electoral work and the like."

The Sweden Democrats are the far-right party?

"Yes exactly. I believe the English organisation Folk against Fascism has a similar story. It's not only happening in Sweden. Many countries in Europe struggle with this."

Folk against Fascism was a response to a rightwing politician turning up to some gigs and his party selling folk music on its website, I understand.

"Right wing is also a nationalist party?"

Yes.

"In that case, it seems like the same kind of issues."

But the British National Party - which is specifically what Folk Against Fascism was against - was never a big political force in the UK: it didn't have any MPs. So I think it is a bit more serious in Sweden?

"Yes, you have a different way of counting votes I think, so it's maybe harder for new parties to enter the parliament? Since they are in the parliament in Sweden it is, I believe, more serious."

Do you know what percentage of the vote the Sweden Democrats got in the 2014 election?

"About 12 %, I can check up the exact number. They are the third biggest party now..."

That's interesting. It's exactly the same as Ukip - our most prominent far-right party - but because of our electoral system Ukip only got one MP out of about 650. 12% is quite a lot.

"Yes, they doubled at the election last year. Before that they entered the parliament with 6%." 

And does the government change every five years?

"Every four years. Here's last years result. So 12.86 % ..."   

And apart from the leader of the SD turning up in national costume, have there been other events that have made folk musicians alarmed?

"Nationalistic papers have visited folk festivals in Sweden and sent 'journalists' to report about the 'true Swedishness' of the event and written about how good and 'white' the folk scene is."

I think David Kaminsky mentioned one of these at the beginning of his article.

"But do you mean only Sweden Democrats or the other nationalistic parties/forces also?"

How many are there?

"We have some more parties, which are not in the parliament. National Democrats and The Swedes' Party."

And do they all have an anti-immigration agenda?

"Yes. One National Democrat tried to infiltrate Umeå folk music association to ban all world music bands at the big folk and world music festival in Umeå one year."

Wow. That's serious. So he/she didn't want any non-Swedes at the festival?  

"Not performing at least. It didn't get through, of course. But it's really terrible that it even happened."

Could you send me a link to something that was written about that?

"I was told this by a friend from Umeå, who said it was 2009-10. I have tried to find anything written about it but not succeeded. I will write to see if she has a link. I do have an article about the Swedish party coming to another festival."

Where was that one?

"Korrö, in the south of Sweden. What I think is important to say, is that the folk music scene is progressive in many ways. And such a long way from the narrow-minded thinking about folk culture that these nationalistic organisations have."

Sure. It's unusual to be a musician and be rightwing, perhaps?"

"Yes, it's not very common."

Are there any right-wing Swedish bands?

"Noooo. Not folk music at least. Maybe some rock bands? There/s a band called Ultima Thule that I think is a right-wing band. But that's more rock I think. That's the only one I know but I'm sure there are others."

So there were no folk musicians who expressed any sympathy with the right of these "national socialists" to be at the festivals?

"No. I know of one folk musician who is a Sweden Democrat. But otherwise I feel that we are united in our cause of developing our culture in many ways, and being a progressive movement."

Which year did folk musicians against racism start? 

"2010."

And are you an official of the movement?

"I'm not sure what an official is, but we have no one in the movement with some kind of title like chairman."

So how did it start?

"We are a so-called grassroots movement: it actually started with some students at the Royal College of Music. But now there are people all over Sweden that are in this all together. Everyone can join if they have the same beliefs as our statutes."

Are there membership cards?

"No, it is very unofficial."

It has a Facebook page?

"We mainly communicate on a Facebook page. "

Your Facebook page has more than 5,000 likes! 

"We are better at keeping the Facebook page, but here's a link to our website too."

So is folk music closely linked to wearing traditional costumes in Sweden? We don't really have this in the UK. Is it usual for Swedish folk musicians to dress in traditional costume?

"Well, it depends, but if you are at festivals in the summer you will definitely see some costumes. So it's a part of the folk culture 'kit'. Some people like to wear them, some don't. I believe it's different to England."

And does folk musicians against racism (FMR) organise any events?

"Here is a video of one of them: an anti-racism demonstration on the subway. It was in response to the Sweden Democrats talking about organised begging there."

 
How frequent are these events? Could I go to one this month in theory?

"Yes, we organise not only demonstrations and debates but also concerts with themes including 'Folkculture without borders'. This month, yes! We are on at a folk festival in Stockholm: we have a tent there with information about us and will have some different things going on. Me and Jenny (mostly Jenny) are doing this festival - Stockholm folk festival - in a week. And I have been organising a meeting at Womex in October, but that's not settled yet."

Is there ever any trouble at the events?

"The events I have been to and organised have been peaceful, but I know of one in Gothenburg where musicians played folk music while Jimmy Åkesson was talking. I was told they were described as 'left-extremists' afterwards in the newspapers. Also, we had to stop playing when we demonstrated in the subway (video above), but there has been no violence that I know of. People are often very happy and it's a nice vibe around our events - though they are serious." 

So what happened at the Swedish Democrat rally in Gothenburg?

"There is a short paragraph about it in the article, which is from May 2014. The FMR people turned their backs and played their instruments, it says. They were demonstrating against nationalist forces attempting to kidnap the concept of folk culture. FMR wants to show that folk culture is about equality and diversity. Then Sara Andersson and Ebba Larsson danced - they also turned their backs to the SD's meeting. 

"The article quotes Sara Andersson saying: 'For me it is important to stand up to SD, to stand up to the normalisation of the party that has taken place, even though they have a fascist ideology. I'm not sure if it benefits the matter, or if it benefits SD. I really do not know why, it's just a feeling I have, it feels wrong to yell aggressive things."

I guess that's why they were playing instruments instead? And did Jimmy Åkesson respond?

"According to the article he said 'I could hold my speech, but it was bad that the police could not prevent all the yelling and screaming,' before he hurried off to the plane that was taking him to Stockholm for Saturday's third and final appearance in the run-up to Sunday's EU elections. 'I hope that all those interested in our message could hear what I was saying. But the police must ensure that those who simply want to prevent or sabotage our meetings do not get as much space'."

The whole event reminds me of this event in the US, where a tuba player followed a Ku Klux Klan march. 

So do you agree with David Kaminsky that Swedish folk music is vulnerable to nationalist politics because there was no real folk revival in the 60s and 70s? 

"He said that? There was a huge folk revival in the 60s and 70s! It was part of what we call the 'green wave' - you know the hippies and environment and unisex and anti-nuclear movement?"

That sounds very like what was going on everywhere else in the world. So could you give me an example of something from the Swedish folk revival of the 1960s and 70s?

"This is one of the most influential bands in the Swedish folk music scene from that time."

And what is the translation of the title please?

"There lived a farmer at the harbour, I think that would be. Or seashore maybe."

And the musicians are called Folk & Rackare?

"Yes, it's a band."

What does rackare mean?

"Buster/rascal. A person that likes to joke but also can be a bit mean? Maybe, its kind of an old word that we don't use any more."

It crosses my mind that maybe she is making Kaminsky's case for him? And what is the best band on the Swedish folk scene at the moment in your opinion?

"We have Väsen and Frifot, but they have played for 25 years now...

Do you know Baskery?

"No. English band?"

Swedish. They went down a storm at the Shrewsbury folk festival.

Are you surprised? I think I have discovered is that the definition of "folk" is pretty different in Sweden and the UK. When I contacted Baskery about this they told me that they also do not consider themselves to be a folk band, although they play folk festivals in the UK. 

"Never heard of them, but I like it! In Sweden we have a quite narrow meaning of folk music - it's often the same as traditional music."

And that's Kaminsky's case in a nutshell. I sent Anna videos from YouTube of Bellowhead and Seth Lakeman, both of which she liked very much. But she also said that even Bob Dylan would struggle to get himself a "folk" tag in Sweden and would, instead, be called a "troubadour".

In response she sent this by a band called Hoven Droven, which is at the most non-traditional end of the Swedish folk scene.

  And then this

Which would probably tip over into being called "world music" in the UK. In response I sent this

which has elements of both but which, in my mind at least, remains folk music rather than world music on account of it being a traditional English tune. Not that it matters much...

* If you enjoyed this post you may also like this, called Sound of Heimat. Or why the Germans hate their own folk music Or there is also this called Afghanistan, where a violin may arouse
 

* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook newsfeed, you could *like* its Facebook page and then use the drop-down menu to indicate that it's one of your "interests". This will enhance the possibility that you'll get them. You could also follow me on Twitter @emma1hartley

Sound of Heimat. Or why the Germans hate their own folk music

If you think England has a difficult relationship with its folk music, pity the poor Germans.

Hayden Chisholm is a New Zealander of Scottish descent who went to Germany to study music and happened upon the country's awkward relationship with its own songs. Sound of Heimat is a thoughtful documentary exploring his love for and interest in Germany and German folk music that doubles up as an attempt to understand what has gone so very wrong for the genre. As he puts it: "I wanted to find out why the Germans have a problem with their own folk music? The same people who are moved to tears when they hear an Indian in the Andes playing on his pan pipe for the thousandth time that day go red with embarrassment at the thought of a German song." Sound familiar?

Chisholm is an engagingly genial narrator. The third child of a seventeen-year-old father, we hear that he was adopted as a youngster and, in turn, adopted music as a way of making sense of the world. His wondering where he belonged has caused him to wander. Literally - with a saxophone.

And so, mane of ginger hair knotted in a bun, he takes us to examine some rather self-conscious folk singing in a German pub, we accompany him on a yodelling course, meet three sisters who've spent their lives playing the instruments they learnt together as children and the young men trying to make folk sexy by singing traditional songs about shagging... In fact, the first time I watched it I was so taken by the uncanny superficial resemblance of German folkies to English folkies that I missed some of the differences.

I might as well get it out of the way though. Yes. German folk music's problem is the Second World War. And yet that simple statement contains nuances and subtleties that the documentary draws out rather well.

For instance, when I say that Germany's problem with its folk music is the war, I don't just mean the Nazis. National Socialism appropriated the country's culture with a special vigour reserved for that which was ethnically and indigenously German. So folk music took a right hammering. A calm Buchenwald survivor explains to Chisholm that the concentration camp had had a song specially composed for inmates to sing when someone had tried to escape, was caught and returned to be made an example of. Clearly such a thing might very well put you off singing for life (assuming you survived). In fact, he says after the war the sound of a folk song would for a long time simply produce the reaction from ordinary people that: "We've had enough of that."

But there is also an interview with a squeezebox player called Rudi Vodel, who I would say is around 70, a huge wardrobe of an easterner who has lived most of his life in the German Democratic Republic. He describes what being a folk musician under a communist regime meant and the exquisite unpleasantness of having one's songs forensically examined for political correctness by a committee of functionaries with no interest in music whatsoever. So, for instance, a song containing a lyric that ran "It was fun on the mountain and I wouldn't want to swap places with any king" was chopped from the repertoire because there was no room for kings in the GDR's ideology. "In the end it made you think 'Screw you'," he explains, after reliving the whole frustrating ordeal vividly on camera.

And yet Vodel is one of the many characters in Sound of Heimat who seem to have made a kind of peace with the music, which is important because the film implicitly makes the case that a country that is ill at ease with its own music is a country with an identity crisis. The relationship of a people to their ancestors' music is a direct analogy for that country's relationship with its past. How could it be otherwise?

Sound of Heimat is a fascinating and brave film that easily stands up to more than one viewing because of the understated seriousness with which the subject is drawn out. In fact, although it's made waves in Germany - where Der Spiegel recently printed an article asking, plangently, "Why doesn't Germany sing?" - I wondered whether it could usefully have hit the main points of its thesis a little harder for a foreign audience? It's as if it pulled its punches because Germany is still so touchy on the subject

Chisholm and the documentary's German director, Arne Birkenstock are seeking an English-speaking audience for Sound of Heimat (there is a version with English subtitles that I've been watching), so if you're interested and can help arrange this please contact Birkenstock here.

Watching it made me wonder, though, how to anatomise English squeamishness about its own folk music?

Mumford & Sons are arguably the biggest-selling band in the world at the moment despite much of it considering them to be an English folk act. This suggests to me that England's problem with its traditional music is - like Germany's - down to two big historical factors. Germany's have been fascism and communism. For England it's about class and post-colonial anxiety about what the world thinks of us: the usual suspects - and frankly they're nothing that the rest of the world gives a hoot about.

There is a very interesting moment in Sound of Heimat when Chisholm asks one of his interviewees whether the women at a dance would be wearing dirndls. In response she says that the good thing about folk events is that all classes of society are present, the dirndl-wearers and the non-dirndl-wearers, the doctor and landlord as well as the baker. I don't know whether dirndls are considered posh by Germans or not. The point is that German folk is not about class.

English folk still is though.

It's why the Mumfords get such a hard time - though their massive fame and success will, I imagine, go some way to taking the edge off that particular problem for them. They are highly visible posh boys in a genre that thinks of itself as the music of the masses.

However, the rest of the world doesn't really care about the niceties of English class distinctions in the 21st century, whether the acts themselves are worried about appearing "too big for their boots" to  sharp-tongued failures on internet messaging boards or whether aiming high is denounced as arrogance by those without the courage themselves to try. The English have over centuries developed a million habits of mind to keep people in their places: generation after generation replicates its steeply unequal class-based behaviours and it's not something that's being done to us, it's something we do to ourselves. What the Mumfords have neatly demonstrated is that - whatever doubts English folk has about itself - the world has nothing against English folk acts.

And that's useful information.

Whether we're comfortable showing the version of England represented in the English folk tradition to the rest of the world is a different matter.

* If you'd like to talk to Arne Birkenstock about showing Sound of Heimat in the UK contact him at this address. It would be fodder for a lively debate afterwards.

* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook newsfeed, you could *like* its Facebook page and then use the drop-down menu to indicate that it's one of your "interests". This will enhance the possibility that you'll get them. You could also follow me on Twitter @emma1hartley

Show me the way to Lau-Land?

Sometimes you can tell from looking at someone's work - or hearing it - that you would like them if you met them. That's what happened when I saw the promotional work Kings Place had done for Lau's upcoming week there: the pictures of the band on the front of and inside its autumn brochure were so curious, so idiosyncratic and so memorable that when I looked at them I knew they'd been shot by someone who takes enormous pleasure in their own work.

Because that kind of enthusiasm is infectious.

So it was great when Nick White, the photographer in question, agreed to a phone interview in the spirit that he was as keen to find out why the pics had turned out the way they had as I was. "It'll be like therapy," he said.

Among my enthusiasms for the pics is that that they're brilliant marketing: Lau's album launch for Race the Loser at Kings Place sold out weeks ago and it's not for a couple of weeks yet. Moreover it's uplifting to see something practical done so well that it transcends the everyday and becomes art, like applying the abstract ideas of physics to the making of a beautiful bridge. Or listening to Lau.

Everyone who's serious about what they do wants to work with other people who care about their craft - there is a nod of recognition, a respect for another's trade that comes with experience. You might not know how the other person does what they do, but you learn to appreciate high quality work when you see it.

Marketing, PR and the other behind-the-scenes stuff of the music industry are what often makes the difference between commercial success and failure and the carelessness with which the folk scene often deals with these matters is a constant source of frustration to me, media creature that I am. I often feel like a distantly related adult watching a teenage girl who doesn't understand that she's beautiful and as a consequence has low self-esteem, throwing her life away. I like this music and I want everyone else to like it too - it's just that most people will never hear it because, metaphorically, it won't brush its hair and leave the house.

However, Nick White's Lau pictures are the most striking piece of folk music marketing I've seen since this.

So how did the idea of Lau-Land emerge?

"I'd done some work for Kings Place before - for a jazz player called Django Bates (above) and the Brodsky Quartet (below)," he said.

"When they asked me to photograph Lau I have to admit that I knew nothing about them, so I listened to the band's music quite a lot to come up with some ideas. Then I spoke to them. The whole idea was that Lau-Land is a special place that they go off to explore - like Victorian explorers. Darwin and the Beagle were going through my head.

"I went to the Red Sea a while ago, to a place called Paradise Island which had a sign with big lettering. I took a picture.

"I really liked the fact that it was taken from the other side, so it was clear that I was actually in Paradise. I sent this picture to the band and I think they took the initiative and had a big sign made saying 'Lau-Land'. I'd like to take the credit for that, but I'm not entirely sure it was my idea. I'd be really interested to hear how they remember it...

"Anyway, originally the idea was to use the sign the other way around, so that they were in Lau-Land. But that was a bit weird and hard to explain, and it got dispensed with early on." Have a squint at the top of that cliff.

"For the picture for the front of the brochure (above) I said 'Let's get lots of stuff in there', things that they might have brought back from Lau-Land. The accordian hands were Martin's idea: he had a toy accordian and said 'I could just have them as my hands'. But there was only one accordian, so I had to shoot him twice and then stick the prints together later. In fact I shot all three of the guys separately and put together a montage in the studio. That picture is actually five different shots - including some extra cliff on the right.

"And we have these little, mysterious things - things from Lau-Land. So there's the arctic fox and the pheasant - and no, it wasn't a live arctic fox. They were both stuffed. Originally I'd wanted to graft the head of the fox on to the pheasant and vice versa. But it would have been too much work and, anyway, I always put more detail into these pictures than people actually notice..."

I asked him some more about the arctic fox. There was a pause.

"You know what? I think I must have been thinking about Philip Pullman's Northern Lights trilogy when I came up with that. One of the characters - Mrs Coulter - she has an arctic fox or a snow leopard as her daemon, doesn't she? There you go... I said this would be like therapy. But you can attach any symbolism you like to any of this. It didn't mean anything specific - like Paul McCartney not wearing any shoes in that Abbey Road Beatles' cover and a myth springing up that it was supposed to be symbolic that he'd died."

White said that most of the snaps had been taken on the windswept Scottish coast back in spring and that the weather had turned nasty.

"There was a lot of walking around with equipment and then the weather suddenly changed and became grim and miserable with driving rain. It was too far to carry all the bits and pieces and too wintry to put the sign up. They didn't enjoy it much - you can tell from the expressions on their faces.

"The band had different attitudes towards the photos. Martin was up for it. Kris just wanted to get it done. And Aidan wanted the whole thing to look more like an indy band shot."

What does an indy band shot look like?

"It's three blokes of a certain age standing around, trying to look interesting. The photographer has to do the rest. Oh - and they're usually dressed in black."

Here's an out-take that didn't make it into the brochure.

"It's not really what I do best," explained White. "There's a whole school of indy band photography that was done most successfully by Anton Corbin, a photographer who worked for NME in the late 80s and early 90s. He was responsible for U2's image round about the time of The Joshua Tree. He also did a lot of shots of Joy Division. But it's not my thing."

So what is your thing?

"My favourite shot is actually one that the band isn't in. It's the map.

"I asked the band to come with some made-up place names, so all the 'places' on that map mean something to at least one of them." I was beginning to see what he meant about "more detail than most people ever notice".

"And that box is something that I really like because I struggled with it and it took a long time.

"The box came from a car boot sale, the plant picture was cut out of The Observer's Book of Cacti and the idea was to make the three of them - there are tiny little images of them there - look like explorers in a flying machine. Their basket was made out of an air mail envelope and the top part came out of an old boiler at my studio - the shell-like metal object. I was thinking about Jules Verne, I think."

I pointed out that there is also a dirigible in the Northern Lights books, belonging to the American, Lee Scoresby. White was delighted.

He said that early on he'd also had an idea of somehow making the three members of Lau look like standing stones because he'd been thinking about The Wicker Man, but that this had been stomped on, on account of it being a "folk cliche" of which the band would have none.

And he mentioned an enthusiasm for Kit Williams's visually stunning 1970s book Masquerade, in which the reader had to piece together a series of pictorial clues with the aim of discovering where a piece of buried treasure shaped like a rabbit lay, somewhere in England. I had a copy of the book as a child and well remember the day I heard that the treasure had been dug up in a park somewhere.

In this spirit he left me with this: "There's a passport stamp on the left-hand side of that box with a date on it. Can you work out what the significance of the date is?" It's November 24, 1859.

Anyone?

* You could explore Lau-Land at Kings Place from Wednesday October 17 until Saturday October 20th, where there will be a series of Lau-related events, including the album launch, which is already sold out.

* Nick White would like to do more work with bands. Here's his website.

* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook news feed, you could *like* its Facebook page. Or follow me on Twitter @emma1hartley

Why Robert Peston loves folk music

Why does anyone love anything?

On the day it became known that Bert Jansch had died, Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor, mentioned on Radio Four's PM programme that he'd seen Jansch play, that he'd been to the gig with his wife and that he was a bit of a folkie on the quiet.

He said later, by email: "I love folk, especially 70s' folk - Pentangle, Fairport, Jansch - but my tastes are eclectic and also I love lots of other music, especially guitar rock, Purcell, heavy reggae dub. And I certainly wouldn't claim to be an expert on the current folk scene. I have warm feelings towards morris dancing but there's a time and a place for it."

He also explained that his folky leanings could be traced to his relationship with his wife, the social historian and writer Sian Busby.

As I say, why does anyone love anything?

Busby explained: "It was part of the music that was around when I was growing up. My dad was really keen on trad folk and one of my early memories is that he taught me to sing in harmony with him from the Pete Seeger folk book.

"I liked Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and I went to see Bert Jansch and John Martyn with dad. Then in my teens - I'm 51 now - I liked electric folk: Pentangle, Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention.

"Robert and I have known each other since we were teenagers - he was in the year above me at school. Apparently I gave him a folky compilation tape, but at school he was really cool and liked David Bowie and guitar rock. We had an on/off relationship for many years before getting together about 20 years ago now and I think I gave him the tape when we finally got together."

There's more about their life together here.

"He's not a big fan of Bob Dylan or Joan Baez, but he does listen to The Dubliners because I've heard him when I'm not in the room. He likes the stories - we both do - if there's a good tune and a good story, that's all you can ask.

"We used to have family gatherings with musician friends when I was growing up and I still love singing folk music. But it can make you hear a bit flat, I think, because a lot of it's pentatonic so it messes up your tuning. I sing around the house all the time: Rosemary Lane by Bert Jansch, The Lambs on the Green Hill and a version of Ca' the Yowes, which is based on a poem by Robbie Burns."

Didn't her husband say something about once having been to a folk festival? "Hmmm," she pondered. "I don't think Robert would go to a folk festival, though he's taken our younger son to Reading." And what about morris dancing? "It's good fun for a while but I find it gets boring: there's only so many times you can watch men banging sticks on the ground before it pales.

"I remember going around with my stepfather one afternoon - he loved The Corries - and every pub we went into these bloody morris dancers turned up. He kept bundling us up and taking us to the next place, so we basically spent the whole afternoon running away from morris dancers. Then at my younger son's primary school in Muswell Hill some of the fathers used to morris dance and at the summer fairs there used to be a tug of war and some morris dancing. But I don't think I could watch it for a whole afternoon."

Well, that's OK: I can't really think of a circumstance under which you'd have to. There's usually too much beer to be sunk behind the scenes...

What do you listen to in the car? "We don't have a car, we haven't had one for twelve years and rarely travel in them. But we live near Ally Pally and Wood Green tube station, so public transport's easy to come by. Sometimes we hire a car for a break and, yes, when it's there we use the stereo. That's when the old electric folk mix tape comes out."

She says that she's not very up on today's folk scene, although she's seen The Unthanks and liked them very much, prompting me to send her an email with some links on it to things I thought she might like. They were towards the festival headlining end of the folky spectrum, though, and now I'm wondering whether I should have included more female voices.

Busby said she thinks her musical influences and her choice of work are connected. "I'm a trained historian and I'm very interested in these lovely bits of social history that you get in many of the songs. I especially like the ballads that were sung at executions. They're very sentimental and for me that's a rich seam. I like the stories about ordinary people's lives, about the sad and happy things that happen to them. The unrequited loves and the snapshots you might get of the life of an ordinary serving girl, for instance."

At the moment she's working on her second novel. "It's supposed to be delivered at Christmas but I don't think it's going to be. It's set in 1946 and is a sort of detective story, about a murder that's all tied up with the black market and the background is the depleted, bombed-out landscape of London. It's a very modern setting for me because I'm much more at home in the 19th century and I'm thinking that it's going to be called The Commonplace Killing. But the publisher doesn't know that yet so it might turn out not to be..."

* Here's Sian Busby's Amazon page.

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Is Bellowhead a no-bread circus?

Rely on a musician to express himself tangentially. When Pete Flood, Bellowhead's percussionist, guest-curated a mix for Folk Radio UK he called it, rather wittily, No-Bread Circuses. It was billed as a "celebration of bands who, in defiance of all common sense, put their ability to make a big fat racket before other more practical considerations, such as wage and logistical ease". 

The bluntness caused me to spray toast crumbs all over my computer keyboard: Bellowhead has eleven members. Go on, Pete. Say what you mean...

"When you play in a large band the money is a bit hard to come by," he confirmed on the phone, still recovering from Glastonbury. "I wouldn't like to give the impression that Bellowhead is suffering, or that we are in extraordinary poverty. But we're never going to get rich as a result of this band.

"What we get is a lot of knock-on work. Lots of people want to do projects with us because of Bellowhead. There are commissions and other shows to be played, the residency at the South Bank Centre has helped a lot with that. And since the inception many of us have been working with duos and trios, with which you can earn four times what you get for one of Bellowhead's gigs." Spiers & Boden, The Remnant Kings, Belshazzar's Feast, Faustus and The Rachel McShane Band spring to mind. "Bellowhead gets more publicity. But if we were all paying mortgages and Bellowhead were our only source of income..."

The implication being that they'd be stuffed. Now on the one hand this is not news: the rich musician is not one of history's most conspicuous tropes. On the other, Bellowhead is already very successful by folk standards - and 12 out of 20 of the festivals they're playing this summer are mainstream, suggesting that there's more to come. But then, even if they did become as big as, say, The Pogues - there were eight of them on the cover of If I should fall from Grace With God - how many mainstream bands have eleven members? It's kind of fascinating to wonder exactly how successful they'd have to be in order to become properly, rock-star minted?

"As Bellowhead's become more popular it's become increasingly apparent that the smaller groupings have been benefiting too: they're also more in demand. But it's very hard work," said Flood. There's the mental energy involved in changing gears between bands, the touring and coming up with new material. "We played two gigs on Sunday at Glastonbury - one in terrible heat. And, though we're used to sweaty venues, it's hard to play two gigs a day.

"But still," and I swear I heard him smile down the phone, as if the sun had come out over Glastonbury again, "it feels really good to be in Bellowhead at the moment. It feels as if a big weight has been lifted from our backs. We've always been scrabbling for recognition, individually as well as collectively. And we've got to the point at which the hard work is starting to pay off.

"We're getting on really well together as a band. There are none of the little rivalries that you might expect. Jon [Boden] is seen as the figurehead - and in many ways he is a brilliant band leader. But it is a little strange to read the millionth article describing us as 'Jon Boden's raggle-taggle band of merry men', and to be thinking 'Well, hang on. We're really a collective.' And I know that Jon has always thought of it as one too."

It sounds as if they are taking precautionary steps to avoid the standard pitfalls of being in a band that makes money: what's the point of retelling ancient tales for a living if you don't learn something every once in a while? "Well, there is a conundrum when there are so many of us, which is how to divide up the proceeds," explains Flood. "There are so many terrible stories about bands that split up and then sue each other over royalties and we don't want to be in that position.

"Personally, I don't really buy into the idea of a composer coming up with a work of earth-shattering brilliance, which is what the PRS (Performing Rights Society) is all about because it deals with intellectual property." This is unexpected, since Flood has done several of Bellowhead's most memorable arrangements - Across the Line and Cholera Camp, for instance - and his background includes a composition qualification from Goldsmith's college.

"We're all about traditional music, so our stuff is more likely to be about arranging than composition. But once you've done the arrangement you rely heavily on the musicians involved to breathe life into the thing.

"So the conundrum is to reward creativity if an arranger arranges a piece, but also to reward the musicianship that goes into making the finished product. It's something we've been talking about for a long time and there are various ideas kicking around about how to do it.

"We're talking to some music business lawyers about them and working out how feasible they are. I should emphasise, this is not because there is conflict within the band but because we're talking to a lawyer about a whole bunch of admin things and we've only recently started making the kind of money that allows us to talk to lawyers about anything."

I've long been told by members of my family who are old enough to know, that part of the secret of a successful relationship is getting the finances on a satisfactory long-term footing (there was other stuff too - but, ahem, not for this blog). So I say long live Bellowhead and its sensible-sounding accountancy concerns. More for them, more for us.

* If you're interested in Bellowhead you may also like this interview with John Spiers, Bellowhead's squeezebox player.

* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog automatically in your Facebook news feed, you could *like* its Facebook page. Or you could follow me on Twitter @emma1hartley