Fifteen horns, four cellos, five percussionists, five electric guitarists and twenty-odd more besides. That’s the Conservatoire Folk Ensemble.
The Conservatoire Folk Ensemble is one of Birmingham’s most unusual, and unforgettable, collection of musicians. Well, a fity-piece folk band does tend to make a bit of an impression. Dave Woodhall talks to their leader, Joe Broughton, about their music and the upcoming Power Folk All-Dayer.
“When I started college I used to go to the Bear in Bearwood because they had some decent bands on. I don’t think they do gigs there now – pub gigss now are hard. There’s a lot of audiences who will only turn up to watch a tribute band for free. It is hard although we do our best to put music into Birmingham. The city’s good on big venues, we sold out the Town Hall last month but the ones that are smaller can be a struggle.”
Knowing little about folk music, it strikes me that it’s like jazz in that people have this pre-conceieved idea what the music is about and they’ll say they don’t like it, but they do like someone like Bily Bragg or going back Bob Dylan, singers that are folk musicians.
“Saying you don’t like any style of music is silly. It’s like saying you don’t like people, they come in all shapes and sizes. There’s some I dont like and that’s the same for everybody but when you look at Billy Bragg, then there’s the whole sort of, well world music is a terrible term but there’s some brilliant music from different countries that’s their fok music. We have our traditional music, you’ve got got the purists, then there’s the people who are mixing it with different kinds of music. It’s a massive thing and the way we work it is that what’s important is the kimnd of ethos that is about passing music from one person to another, it’s about the oral tradition, about what’s happening around you.
“What should be the folk music of people in Birmingham. To me it doesn’t necessarily be some kind of English rural tradition. It should be influenced by thinsg around you and that’s what I’m always encouraging people to do. The whole West Midlands conurbation is rife with brilliant musicians. It’s amazing the amount of musicians that have come from here. What we’re doing is to go okay, we’ll suggest some things and you should use them, not things from the past but from now, we’re going to learn it all together, and I want you to use whatever influence you have to make something that is genuinely our folk music right now.”
What’s the Folk Ensemble’s appeal to be to someone who thinks they might fancy seeing what this folk thing is all about?
“It’s about enjoyment, about a show where there’s not a single second when you’d rather be at home watching the telly. It’s about watching fifty people playing together, something impressive and entertaining. There’s a massive amount of energy to it and it leads to the sort of emotional moments when you get drawn into the song.
“Our ethos has always been to entertain. We want people to go home happier than they were when they arrived. If they pay good money for an album it doesn’t want to be something they can’t conect with. My mission is to make sure that our music is accessible and people get into it. We try new approaches. There’s a song on the album called William Taylor which is a traditional folk song, done with a string section and it’s very listenable, then there’s other things that are a bit different so you can dip in and out of it. That might be your starter point.”
And the Power Folk all-Dayer?
“It started four years ago as the local gigs I wanted the nucleus of the Ensemble to invite their friend to, because we play a lot of theatres and arts centres so it was just to have a club gig where you can get a beer and this morphed into Power Folk where all the bits of folk music they love they can do. This is the third year at the Spotted Dog in Digbeth, of course Digbeth has such an Irish music heritage and the owner John Tigue, emraced us with open arms. Doors open at three, the music starts at at four and the Ensemble goes on at 6.30 until eight, then the music moves indoors.”
How do you fit a fifty piece band into a pub like that?
“We have our ways. We stay outside in the garden and we squash up very close to the audience. Some of them like to sit at the back with a drink, others like to dance up front with the band. We’ve got some other great musicians as well. John McCusker who was nominated for a BBC Folk award, Gilmore & Roberts who’ve won awards, it started as a party but we’ve now got some of the biggest names on the circuit coming to play.”
I could be wrong, but I get the impression that you quite enjoy this gig.
“What’s not to enjoy? It’s a really welcoming pub, and there’s some fantastic music. We’d love to get some new people along to watch some great music in our city. It’s doing something that shows people what fantastic music we have here.”
How many of you are there in the band now?
“Er, well, let’s see, the line-up is 54 in total but we tend to have 49 of us because that’s as many as you can get on a coach. It helps to fill venues when you have so many friends and family but I was really impressed at the turnout at the Town Hall because we’re not a household name although word is getting round and that’s why we’re making the album, to get the message out.”
I can see you going down well at festivals.
“They’ve been good to us – big stages, big PAs, crowds. Even some brilliant musicians can get lost on the big stage but when you get so many people playing it’s a wall of sound, jumping up and down and having a big party.”
Do you ever get purists tutting at your approach?
“It’s never happend to be honest. Maybe they’re doing it under their breath. There’s many different kinds of music, some I like more than others. Anyone faced with fifty young and enthusiastic people jumping up and down giving their all has to be, what’s the word? I don’t know but to not like that kind of enthusiasm, people playing music that they’re genuinely loving and playing for you, I haven’t got time for anyone who would sniff at that.
“Folk’s about fun, about people joing in and music should be fun, something brilliant that we should enjoy sharing. Music that has energy and communicates something to you. I don’t expect everybody to love us and but I’ve yet to see anyone in the audience looking miserable. Usually you can’t get the smile off their faces.”
The Conservatoire Folk Ensemble’s Power Folk All Dayer is at the Spotted Dog, Digbeth, from 3pm on Sunday 11th. Details of this event and the album Painted can be found
here