Guest blog by Paul Murray
At the end of the Trad Talk conference on the 24th March 2012, I was invited to give a talk about my experiences in Radio, particularly with regard to my show in Fresh Air Student Radio, “Fresh Folk”. I made a reference to Radio 2 and their efforts to further the cause of Folk Music in the mainstream and was aware of some raised eyebrows and tutting in the audience. I thought it would be worth expanding on my thoughts here.
Guest blog by Paul Murray
At the end of the Trad Talk conference on the 24th March 2012, I was invited to give a talk about my experiences in Radio, particularly with regard to my show in Fresh Air Student Radio, “Fresh Folk”. I made a reference to Radio 2 and their efforts to further the cause of Folk Music in the mainstream and was aware of some raised eyebrows and tutting in the audience. I thought it would be worth expanding on my thoughts here.
I describe myself as a “militant Radio 2″ listener. Throughout my life it has always been there; be it Terry Wogan at Breakfast, Johnnie Walker in the evening, Ken Bruce, Chris Evans or even the occasionally-impartial Jeremy Vine. To listen to another station would be, for me, treacherous.
It’s very easy to have a go at the coverage Radio 2 gives to Folk (I’m going to use the words “Folk” and “Trad” interchangeably here) by making reference to the Mike Harding show and the Folk Awards. Common issues are often “it’s always the same bands”, “it’s so Anglocentric” etc. etc. – the last comment being particularly common here in Scotland. I’m not going to comment on that as, surprisingly, I don’t particularly go out of my way to listen to the Mike Harding show or indeed the Folk Awards any more than I go out of my way to listen to similar shows on Radio Scotland. I tend to be a very “mainstream” Radio listener so it is from that perspective that I comment.

I have been delighted to hear the “normalisation” of Folk music as a result of Radio 2. A couple of years ago, I tuned into Simon Mayo’s drivetime show (who at that point was standing in for Chris Evans) to hear LAU giving a live session and interview. At the Radio 2 concert in Hyde Park last year Bellowhead were one of the headline acts and the one that all the DJs (and a lot of the callers) said they were looking forward to the most. In addition, over the last few years, the profile of the Folk Awards has become incrementally higher (having previously being hidden in an the evening slot) to the extent that this year the whole ceremony was broadcast live on Radio 2 and also on TV via the BBC’s red button. Simon Mayo’s drivetime show was even broadcast from there, with a re-arrangement of the schedule to accommodate it. All of the Radio 2 DJs were commenting on the ceremony before and after, with both Chris Evans (the former “enfant terrible” of both the BBC and Channel 4) and (the eternally beautiful) Moira Stewart waxing lyrical about it. People also commented on how many celebrities came out of the woodwork as “folk fans” either simply attending the ceremony or presenting awards (comedian Frank Skinner, for a start).
It’s also worth mentioning that if you listen to Simon Mayo’s “all requests Friday” show you’ll hear a number of Folkie “beds” (a bed=background music while folk chat, for those of you not familiar with radio parlance) including a very identifiable one from Ashley Hutching’s “Morris On” album. Surely no mainstream personality would be stupid enough to be positive about Morris Dancing!? Perhaps times are changing. We’ve had Kate Rusby on the “A” playlist, Karine Polwart on the Jeremy Vine show talking about the newly commissioned “Radio Ballads” (produced by John Tams who also produced an alternative “Nine Lessons and Carols” for Radio 2 during Christmas 2010). I could go on (I haven’t for example mentioned the extensive coverage of Celtic Connections).
So, when Mike Harding said (paraphrase) “Radio 2 is doing more for folk music than anyone else”, it would be easy to start jumping on anti-BBC, anti-Radio 2 or (god forbid) anti-English bandwagons but I won’t do that. I agree with Mike.
Paul Murray presents the folk programme on the internet station, Fresh Air Radio, and is web-master with TMF members, Edinburgh Youth Gaitherin. The views expressed are his own.