Alistair Hulett post punk still folk
Last Update: Tuesday, April 10, 2007. 12:11pm AWST
By Sharon Kennedy
Despite 9/11, global warming and wars in the middle east, there is
still at least one folk musician out there who still believes a better
world is possible.
Scottish
folk singer Alistair Hulett spent the 70s on the hippie trail and the
80s roaring it up in a punk folk band. In this is the story, he
explains how he's managed to get through the disillusionment of the 90s
to be still supplying lyrics for "the voice of the people".
The Hulett odyssey started at age 16 when his parents decided to
emigrate from Glasgow to New Zealand. At the time, the immigration
rules stated that family had to stay put for two years or forfeit their
assisted passage. For the teenage Alistair, Christchurch was tantamount
to a prison cell. He escaped as soon as he could, landing in the
Melbourne folk scene.
The early 70s was the time of 'tune in, turn on and drop out' and Ally
heard the message loud and clear. He hit the hippy trail and travelled
up north to the rain forest, living in a tree house at one stage.
Singing was something you did cross legged round the campfire.
"I think you can't help but accumulate a certain set of spiritual
values when you're living a life so dependent on circumstance and
coincidence as we were living at that time," he says.
Next was India and not always knowing where your next shelter would be.
"That sort of experience puts an imprint on your brain. You realise the
existential insecurity and inconsequentiality of your own existence. It
gets reinforced on a daily basis."
There was an anger and a vitality in punk that reminded me of the folk music that I fell in love with way back in the 60s
After
three years, Ally was back in Sydney, only to find that punk was the
"next page of the adventure book". Flairs, long hair and caftans were
passé. Ally teamed up with Hunter Owens, a bluegrass player from the
US. Celtabilly they called it; a kind of celtic, bluegrass, rockabilly
take on Irish and Scots folk. Galliard was to evolve into Roaring Jack,
punk folk and proud of it.
The Clash had made the first foray into punk folk with the song English Civil War, says Ally. This was a Thatcher era song to the tune of Johnny I hardly knew you, an Irish folk anti-war song, only this time it was the class war that the Clash were bringing to the forefront.
"We also took the very hard edged political tone that was
characteristic of punk at that time," says Ally. In contrast, the music
of the hippies had become "complacent, fat and self-satisfied", he
recalls. "There was an anger and a vitality in punk that reminded me of
the folk music that I fell in love with way back in the 60s when folk
music was at the cutting edge."
Just as Fairport Convention had allied rock to folk, so Roaring Jack
pushed the traditional boundaries with punk. If you just listen to the
rhythm - bass and drums - says Ally, you hear pure rockabilly. Into the
compound went the energy and toughness of punk and political awareness
and social conscience.
Why folk though? "Because I knew it so well," is the immediate
response. Artists do their best work with what they have internalised,
says Alistair. Growing up in Glasgow, the music was all around. It may
have been commercialised and even bowdlerised - think Andy Stewart -
but it still had the ability to seep into the pores.
"I was almost hot wired to that music. It came to me naturally."
Of course, it's a long way from the 60s and the music that had a
generation fired up as they listened to Dylan or Ewan MacColl. What
does folk music mean now? Says Alistair, "I don't think people play
folk now have anything like the fire in the belly that we had back in
the 60s when we were so passionate about music and the social
implications of what we were singing about."
The original folk song revival, says Alistair, was driven by the
organised left; the trade unions and the communist party. Many folk
clubs in the UK were held in communist headquarters. While folk has
always contained an element of nationalism and patriotism, this was
counterpoised by the class struggle and internationalism.
Today, Alistair feels that folk has been subsumed into the search for a
nationalism that will sit well with the establishment. Pete Seeger,
Josh White, Woody Guthrie were all hounded in the McCarthy years.
There's a certain irony in the fact that Guthrie, the man who wrote This land is my land, now the anthem for the Republican Party, was under surveillance by the CIA, says Ally.
"If you go to a Conservative party conference," he continues, "you'll hear them sing Jerusalem."
Composed by William Blake, the song is a plea for utopia and the
formation of a welfare state. "They sing that song without any sense
that they are contradicting themselves."
Historically, folk was the voice of the people. Now it's to be a
soundtrack for travelogues. "It's become part of the tourist and
heritage industry rather than an authentic voice of the people."
Not that folk is about to fold up its fa la las and disappear into the
misty morning. "All the time, there's attempts to take it back again,
says Ally, to return it to its roots. Is the definition of a folkie an
eternal optimist? A pause. "Stoical optimist."
We are playing at the moment with a lot of elation in the music
"Because
we have to be. It's our job," he continues, serious again after a laugh
at his own earnestness. Alistair Hulett also feels that there's an
urgency to the new message that needs to be sung. Global warming and
climate change won't wait for the debate, he says. While we can't say
for certain that every adverse event is due to global warming, we know
we're having a deleterious effect and we have to change.
"Folk is voice of the people." That's why he keeps singing? "That's
exactly why I keep singing. I take it as a given that there's some
people who like what I do and some people who wish I'd shut up."
After 25 years Down Under, Ally is again based in Glasgow. The most
recent Hulett album is Red Clydeside, on which he is again teamed up
with English legendary folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick. It's about the
anti-war movement in Glasgow during the First World War, Ally explains;
historical but with an eye cocked to the present Iraq war and looking
for the parallels.
Swarbrick and Hulett first met in the late 90s when Dave was living in
the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. Ally has been a "huge fan" since
the early 60s when Dave was part of the Ian Campbell Folk Group,
predating even his stint with Fairport Convention.
Dave leads by example, says Ally. "It's an intuitive way to play." The
songs may be the same but each night is a different rendition and
that's "down to Dave', he states. "We are playing at the moment with a
lot of elation in the music," he says with reference to the fact that
Dave has recently come through a double lung transplant. "We all feared
we'd lose him,"
After this tour, Ally is heading back home to Glasgow with more songs
than he knows what to do with and "an itch to get back into a full band
ensemble again". After a long time playing solo and duos, he's hungry
for the energy and sound of a band. Next time he tours Australia, he
plans to do it with an acoustic outfit, good for the festivals, good
for dancing.
