Pioneer In This Folk Business

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30763, 29 May 1965, Page 16

Pioneer In This Folk Business

“I’m a pioneer in this business, but I’m not part of the popular folk - music movement,” said the American ballad singer, William Clauson, in Christchurch yesterday.

“The songs everyone is singing are not really folk songs,” he said. “They are pop folk songs, using rock ’n’ roll, twist and other modern rhythms. They change the old rhythms.

“The Beatles are more representative of folk singers than those who call themselves folk singers. Their melody line and rhythm is taken from rhythm-and-blues, which is folk —from the American Negro. “I work more in the classical tradition. But I’m happy to see this interest in folk music because it causes the young student of folklore to delve deeper into tradition.” American Accents ’ Mr Clauson was critical of the American accents adopted by singers in New Zealand and Australia, particularly

when they were singing songs from their own country. “I like people to sing a New Zealand song with a New Zealand accent,”, he said. “I’ve heard singers in Australia singing traditional Australian songs with a marked American accent. I have a better Australian accent myself than they use.”

He said there was a growing sameness in the interpreta-j tion of folk material. “Thej calypso beat creeps into everything,” he said. Mr Clauson, who is near the end of his fourth New Zealand tour since 1957, is an American, but his parents were Swedish and he and his Swedish wife live in Sweden. He arrived in Christchurch with an enormous black case holding two instruments, a classical Spanish guitar and a replica of an eighteenth-cen-tury lute, both made in Sweden The lute was copied from an authentic one, dated 1790 which Mr Clauson keeps at home. It has a twisted neck Ito accommodate its 14 strings —eight of them on the finger- • board and six open strings irunning alongside it. The lute I was made for him by Karl (Erik Gummesson at the Mu-

seum of Historic Instruments in Stockholm. Golden Disc

Last month Mr Clausen was awarded his first golden disc for the Australian long-play-ing record “Click Go The Shears" which has sold 100,000 copies. He hopes to be able to do [just as well with an album iof New Zealand songs, reI corded during this tour. It will be released in three months.

“Wet Night in Greymouth,” i “The New Chum,” “Otago," [ “The Waipu Settlers,” and the I “Taupo Trout” are some of the j songs in it. They were collec-l ted from all parts of the coun-1 try, some traditional, others; written recently. Mr Clauson will also record; a children’s album when he: returns to Wellington after I his concert in the Civic: Theatre this evening. One of the songs is “Master Kiwi and; the Snail,” written by Toni; Mcßae of Auckland when she was 14. Latin American Group When he makes his fifth New Zealand tour, perhaps next year after he has been to Australia, Mr Clauson hopes to introduce his Latin American group, the Trio Los

Guaramex, to New Zealand 1 audiences. The players are a Mexican, who plays a small guitar called a requinto, a Paraguayan who plays a folk harp, and an Argentinian who plays a ' Spanish guitar. “With these I specialists.” said Mr Clauson. i “I can present Latin American ; music authentically."