More Northern Cultural Experience - Does Karaoke Replace The Singalong?

We visited the Isle of Skye in May and happened across a harbour front pub, The Pier Hotel, a real seafaring fisherman's pub overlooking Portree harbour. The clientèle still wore their fishy working clothes and in the corner a duo, two men in their seventies, played fiddle and accordian, both great musicians whipping up a storm with tunes everyone knew and loved. The heaving throng joined in with the slower wistful Scottish ballads and whooped to the faster dance tunes, jigging in the tight packed space. This was one of those holiday highlights where you feel you've got to the heart of a community and experienced something authentic of their culture.

Back in Oldham I reflected on how once again the Northern mill towns had been deprived of any kind of culture with a heritage going back centuries - no Robbie Burns for us. Our forebears migrated from the country for work brought by the booming cotton economy. They sacrificed their various cultures for an all new mill based community, based on leisure activities graciously provided by mill owners - the working mens' clubs and brass bands, for example.

My grandparents loved a sing-along at church social functions, where they sang songs of the musical hall or war time ditties. Then in the seventies they taught us, their grandchildren the words of the old songs and told us that these new loud songs would never catch on - "you won't be singing them round the piano in twenty years time" they used to tell us.

And they were right weren't they?

On Saturday we had a night out in a pub with a bit of a dubious reputation in Oldham - the sort of place you can be sure of a fight with your pint - there was a karaoke night. Mrs C and I joined a rowdy group of her colleagues for, rumour had it, was one of the best nights out around.

The start did not auger well, the place was shabby and the red faced hardened drinkers looked like they'd been in since they'd left work some considerable time before. Then the place filled up and by 10.30h was buzzing with young people and old, most of them knew each other, some had uncles, aunts and parents in the pub too.

The karaoke was indeed great fun with singers falling into two distinct camps: the wannabe diva and the drink addled trier. I preferred the triers, the ones who took on a challenge and failed to meet it, the ones where you heard the first bars of the song and said, "OMG he's not trying that one is he?!"

My favourite was Bert, dressed in what looked like the sweater he had for Christmas, in 1990, bright red face, legs that refused to keep him in one position for long; Bert belted out Robbie Williams' Angels with all the big-stage enthusiasm of Robbie himself, only three bars behind the rest of the song (that's Bert pictured above).

The thing was, nobody cared because we were all joining in with Bert, or with Terry who slaughtered Oasis's Wonderwall this was our community singing: tunes we all knew and loved that resonated with us. They might not have had a heritage traceable back through the annals of time but this was a culture in the making - I think my Gran would have been proud, even if she couldn't have said so for having to eat her words.

Folk and Roots Music - Whose Roots Exactly?

My mate and famous science fiction author Tony Ballantyne prompted this post with his own writing about the Valeta; not some form of motor scooter, nor a type of ice cream dessert but a dance popular among working class people who had their entertainment in Working Mens' Clubs up and down the country.

Tony and I are fans of folk music, or roots music as it has come to be known among the middle classes who like to associate themselves with whichever tradition they find most appealing sat in the audience at Cropredy or Cambridge Folk Festival.

But listen to the Copper Family speak about how they passed songs from generation to generation through times when they were truly out of fashion, before the current revival of interest in 'folk' music, and you begin to understand how cultural heritage really works. Their motivation for passing on songs was rooted in a mortal fear of their heritage dying out: the songs said something about what made them the people they are. So when popular culture scorned their songs they persisted, not of some desire that they should become universally popular, but out of a desire that their heritage should be preserved.

So, what's my musical heritage? Despite my own love of acoustic music, sea shanties and Bellowhead, I can claim no heritage from it. If I am to follow the example of the Copper family and trace a line back, in order to preserve the tradition of my forebears, I must anchor my ship to the memories of Edge Lane Methodist Church Hall and the sound of feet scratching and swishing across the salted hall floor as dancers joined in songs made famous in Oldhams Adelphi Music Hall. Songs that made Gracie Fields famous, or the songs of George Formby, the songs that helped people forget the stress of life in Post-War England. And as I sit here writing I can hear the communal singing and can join in as I sing along too, the memories resonating in a way that prove the point.

So, do I put my money where my mouth is and next time Tony and I get together, he with his accordian, I with my guitar, do we knock out a Valeta tune before launching into a technically more complex but authentic version of 'Leaning On a Lampost'?

Or do we check the latest Bellowhead album for a song we both like (and can play)?

I'll let you know... "Turned our nice again..."