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The history of the Folk
Club
The motivation for setting up the new club came from Miriam Erasmus and Fiona Tozer, two local folk musicians who wanted somewhere to play their own kind of music. The first meeting was held at the Blue Waters Hotel on 19th February 1986. The venue wasn't great. It was an uncarpeted room with a huge curved bay window - not good for acoustics, but it was a venue. After about a year, the club moved to the Winston in Umbilo Road, upstairs in the Churchill Room. |
| The room was small but quite big enough for the small audiences that the club was attracting, and the club stayed there until 1989. Acoustic music started to come back into its own around that time. Bars and resaurants started featuring live musicians and the audiences at the folk club started carpeting the floor and spilling out the door. It was time to change venue, and the Le Plaza Hotel, run by long time folk musician Ian Lindsay was on offer. The club met there for several years before moving once again to Funky's at the BAT centre. After many successful gatherings there the Folk club moved to the Tusk Inn venue due to the closure of Funky's shortly before Christmas 1997. When the Tusk Inn closed in January 2002, the Folk Club re-opened in February at Burn in Umbilo Road, and in September of the same year, moved again to the Durban Wanderers Club in Montclair, and then on to Jammit Dammit in Sydney Road. The folk club now meets on the first Tuesday of every month at the Jazz Centre, University of KZN Durban campus, at 17:30. |
| What constitutes roots
/ folk music?
The folk movement encompasses many styles of music, and is not limited to, for instance, the old English folk style. The criterion used to be that the music was acoustic, but with today's larger venues, the need to amplify the music has made even the acoustic guitar an electronic instrument. Nowadays, the criterion is really that the music is played by people, rather than machines, although sequencers are sometimes used when they are an integral part of the music. A long-raging debate goes on over the acceptability of their use on stage in a folk environment. The music usually performed at the club ranges from contemporary folk to blues, light jazz and rock and roll, with occasionally traditional folk or a heavier rock band. Bands and performers who have played there include Landscape Prayers, Steve Newman and Tony Cox, Edi Niederlander, Johnny Fourie, Dave Goldblum, Urban Creep, Bona Fide, Fiona Tozer, Sharon Katz, Famous Curtain Trick and a host of other names, new and old. |
| The South African Folk
Movement
Each major centre in South Africa has its own music club. These clubs interact by holding annual festivals (when funds permit). Musicians are invited from all the clubs to play at these festivals. Two of the regular festivals are Mannville (in Port Elizabeth) which is held in January every year, and Maynardville (Cape Town), which is held in March. Durban Folk Club has held three festivals, in 1993,94 and 95. Current clubs around the country are:
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