Celtic Music in the Wider World

SUE WILSON reflects on the lessons to be drawn for Scottish musicians from the Womex world music convention in Gateshead

SINCE ITS FABLED invention as a marketing strap-line by a group of music-industry mavericks meeting at London’s Empress of Russia pub in June 1987, world music has acquired an official dictionary definition:

“Used initially by ethnomusicologists to refer to the diverse local musics of the world, ‘world music’ has also become a term for any commercially available music of non-Western origin, and for musics of ethnic minorities; it is also applied to contemporary fusions or collaborations with local ‘traditional ’ or ‘roots’ musics and Western pop and rock musics.” (Oxford Dictionary of Musical Terms)

Not exactly elegant, perhaps, but for the purposes of traditional or roots-based Scottish music, there are no exclusionary clauses here, however much the “folk” and “world” labels may be perceived – from inside and out – as representing two distinct constituencies.

This separation is partly a matter of historical circumstance, and partly of tastes, politics and attitudes, but the current rapid growth of the world music scene, with its inbuilt international reach and hard-won expertise in all aspects of independent music-making, offers both valuable lessons and a wealth of potential opportunities for Scottish musicians – and, arguably, for Highland musicians in particular.

World music’s thriving state of health in 2005 was abundantly demonstrated at the recent Womex convention in Gateshead. Founded in 1994, and taking place in a different European city each year, Womex is the sector’s largest gathering of industry professionals, this year taking over Norman Foster’s splendid new Sage building for its first UK visit.

Scotland’s first trip to Womex thus provided plenty of food for thought, but one thing it left in no doubt whatsoever is that in our music, we have a truly world-class product to promote.

Over four days, more than 2100 delegates from 84 countries (including 400 journalists) met, talked, did deals, shopped for gigs, distribution, licensing and airplay, browsed the 200-plus stands at the trade-fair, sampled the 41 official Womex showcase concerts and twelve OffWomex fringe gigs, and generally networked like crazy.

For the first time – given that it was happening just down the road – the event was graced by an official delegation from Scotland, with a trade stand jointly sponsored by the Scottish Arts Council, British Council Scotland, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, who also co-hosted a well-attended drinks reception.

The 22-piece supergroup The Unusual Suspects flew the flag in one of those prized showcase slots – chosen from over 600 contenders – while the OffWomex line-up included the Chris Stout Quintet, led by the outstanding young Shetland fiddler, and the part-Scottish Michael McGoldrick Band, signed to Glasgow label Vertical Records.

Among a range of other Scottish organisations, there were also representatives from the Performing Arts Network, the Hebridean Celtic Festival, the new Perth Concert Hall and the Shetland Arts Trust. What with the stacks of CDs and promo material from other artists, agents, festivals and record labels piled on the stand, it seemed like a pretty impressive package.

It quickly became apparent, though, that Scotland will need to make a lot more noise before it achieves any significant impact within this vast and diverse marketplace, as veteran world music broadcaster Charlie Gillett makes clear.

“Most of the people you’ll find at Womex don’t think very much about British music at all, let alone its component elements,” he says bluntly. “It’s not attracting the attention of world music DJs and record labels, so it’s just not reaching those audiences.”

“I’m really only starting to learn here about the different folk traditions of the British Isles,” admits Womex director Christoph Borkowsky Akbar. “Until now, we’ve tended not to make a big distinction between them.”

Even where there isn’t outright indifference, Scottish artists evidently have some seriously outdated perceptions to overcome. Ros Rigby, programming director at The Sage, recalls that when Akbar first saw The Unusual Suspects during the venue’s opening season last year, “he was really amazed by the audience – not just that so many people wanted to come and see this kind of music, but that they weren’t all wearing kilts.”

From Scotland’s perspective, this might seem more than a little perplexing. After all, it was world music’s popularisation of non-mainstream, roots-based sounds that helped prompt a new generation of Scottish musicians and audiences to take a fresh look at their own traditions, feeding directly into today’s ongoing folk revival.

International influences have been a major driving-force in the music’s development ever since, as Scottish tunes and instruments have learned to dance hand-in-hand with Scandinavian, East European, Balkan, Breton, Galician, African, Caribbean and Latin styles.

The fact that this evolution has so far impinged so minimally on the world music industry is partly down to the earlier professionalisation of the folk and Celtic scene.

Thanks to the devoted labours of artists and enthusiasts during the 1960s and 1970s, by the time world music came along in the 1980s, Scottish musicians were seen as being – compared, say, to their African or South American counterparts – pretty well served already, in terms of touring circuits, recording opportunities and media exposure.

This original divergence was also exacerbated by a certain amount of insular sniffiness on the folk world’s part, epitomised by the hostile outcry provoked when ‘Folk Roots’ magazine expanded into world music in the early 1990s.

Also underlying this Celtic/world divide, then and now, is a blurry, somewhat murky, and often contradictory morass of largely unspoken ideological agendas – mostly emanating, in this case, from the world music side.

Baldly stated, the arbiters of that sector have created it as one of the few arenas where being from a rich, white, Western country puts you at a disadvantage. And however much Scots may prefer to identify with the colonised, in this context the taint of British imperialism loses us yet more points – not quite as bad as being American, but a fairly close second.

This latter factor is instructively underlined by the prominence of Nordic sounds within the world music spectrum. In contrast to the Celtic scene’s lukewarm response, musicians from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark (all as rich, white, and Western as you like) astutely hitched their fortunes to the world music bandwagon from the outset, thereby vastly increasing their access to international audiences.

This was graphically underlined by the scale of their presence at Womex: the Scottish stand was dwarfed by that of the Danish Folk Council alone. It also highlights the privileging of non-Anglophone traditions within world music – one specific area where Gaelic artists could feasibly score.

The Nordic countries’ geographical and cultural proximity to the UK and Ireland, meanwhile, has also furnished a welcome for their music on the folk circuit, proving that it is possible to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Fundamentally, of course, the world music agenda is an entirely righteous one. Amongst other things, it seeks to redress glaring artistic and economic imbalances, create a platform for minority voices, nourish local traditions, develop non-corporate networks and infrastructure, and foster cross-cultural understanding.

And while these objectives, for obvious reasons, are primarily targeted towards developing countries, every one of them will strike a chord with Highland and island musicians.

The Unusual Suspects … earned themselves a standing ovation – which, I’m reliably informed, never happens at Womex.

The same consonance was repeatedly evident among the issues under discussion at Womex, both in the formal conference presentations and in the bars.

How do you make local festivals both creatively and financially sustainable? How can the independent sector best share skills, knowledge, resources, lobbying power? How do you penetrate the still all-important American market? How can music be used most effectively as an engine of economic regeneration?

Most saliently of all, how can non-mainstream music make the most of new digital technologies, from the Internet to ProTools and beyond? The world music industry encompasses a vast pool of leading-edge expertise in such matters, and as Akbar – along with Womex’s presence in the UK – suggests, its attitudes towards folk and Celtic music are beginning to open up.

“I think that as the professionals on both sides are growing up, as it were, the networks are starting to mix, and different perspectives are emerging – and having a big Scottish representation here can only accelerate that,” he says.

“Also, the distance between the professionals is often much bigger than it is between the musicians: it’s the musicians getting together that really leads the way.”

Scotland’s first trip to Womex thus provided plenty of food for thought, but one thing it left in no doubt whatsoever is that in our music, we have a truly world-class product to promote.

As will be clear by now, The Unusual Suspects – representing a fair cross-section of the current Scottish scene – had some major obstacles to surmount in winning over a Womex audience, and just 45 minutes to do it.

Suffice to say, they earned themselves a standing ovation – which, I’m reliably informed, never happens at Womex. With the applause quickly followed up by offers of potential gigs from as far afield as India and China, the Suspects’ joint leader, Corrina Hewat, sees this as proof positive of Scottish music’s potential to transcend barriers.

“Whatever the preconceptions you’re up against,” she says, “if you can just get people to hear this music in its real, live form, then it basically does the job for you.”

Sue Wilson is a freelance writer.

© Sue Wilson, 2005

Link

• Womex website