Welcome to FolkSoc! The 2024/25 committee put together this page to inform keen members of our society’s legacy, spanning over 65 years.
Did you know…
- FolkSoc is one of Britain’s first folk clubs, founded by renowned poet Hamish Henderson, in 1958?
- It started as a folk-song society?
- It went by the name of Crown Folk Club in the 1960s?
- It owned its own Edinburgh flat????
Read on for a comprehensive history of the society, and learn a bit about the FolkSoccers who have gone before….
Edinburgh University Folk-Song Society (now Edinburgh University Folk and Traditional Music Society, or “FolkSoc”) was officially born on the 18th April 1958. This inaugural meeting was born from several impromptu ceilidhs in living rooms and kitchens around Edinburgh, with many who we now know to be leading lights of the folk revival.
Hamish Henderson, the celebrated poet, songwriter, folklorist and collector at the School of Scottish Studies, sought out singers and tradition bearers from within the student body – some of whom were originally bewildered by the attention. “We didn’t know what a folk song was in ’57,” Dolly MacLennan remembers. “Everything was a folk song!” With his interest and encouragement, and that of other staff, students and locals, the society was formed.
Stuart MacGregor was the first president and described the society as a “’folk-song workshop in which student balladmakers and singers could learn their craft, swap songs and ex-tend their knowledge of the traditional music of Scotland and other countries”.
From Hamish’s book “Alias MacAlias” we know that this first official meeting was held in the SRC Hall, Old College, and that the following meeting was ‘themed’ with Love Songs, the next with North-American Folk songs, and the fourth was a public ceilidh with Hamish’s colleague, Calum MacLean, as MC.
Follow this link to hear an archive recording of one of the earliest FolkSoc welcoming speeches!
Introduction to Edinburgh University Folk Song Society, 1959.
After this the official records slip into obscurity as Hamish and his colleagues retreated in involvement (although still often attended) and the student members took over, each president influencing the atmosphere with his or her own musical preferences and the society taking its cues from the current fashions in the folk world. FolkSoc’s early meetings were quite intimate and like traditional ceilidhs, with maybe a dozen or so performers. But they gradually built up until,
by the mid-’60s, the membership stood at several hundred with a core of about 30 performers. The society was wealthy beyond its wildest dreams. Virtually all of the performers then were singers, as was the case at folk clubs across the country.
Due to the size of the membership, the Friday night meetings were run as a ‘disciplined concert’ in a big university-owned hall on the corner of Marshall Street, with the President responsible for deciding the running order of those who wished to perform, and occasionally booking professionals.
However, as this set-up was intimidating for some and couldn’t include everyone, a less formal session was established on another night, which encompassed singarounds, instrumental lessons and workshops. These sessions took place in a university-owned flat in the now-demolished buildings of Potterrow, which was given over for the society’s use!
As it went from strength to strength, FolkSoc was able to put on popular events during the Edinburgh Fringe, and to visit and host other Scottish folk clubs. It was very well integrated with the broader Edinburgh folk scene, with local performers coming and going between different clubs.
One such club had met in the Crown Pub on Lothian Street, before the pub closed and the building was bought by the university. By the mid ’60s FolkSoc had moved to this ex-pub location after Potterrow had been demolished and other venues had been tried and found lacking. Soon it began being referred to as the Crown Folk Club, and this name stuck even after it had relocated again – this time to the characterful Lady Glenorchy’s Church crypt / basement, Drummond Street.
Throughout the 70s, the infrastructure of FolkSoc was strengthened, and with the money brought in from a series of extremely successful concerts in the Fringe, The Crown Folk Club (as it was still called) was able to book many big names (including Planxty, Billy Connolly and Jean Redpath – herself a former FolkSoc member) and became a much loved venue. In fact, it was far more of a community folk club at this point than a solely student body.
During the mid 80’s a venue change (to rooms at The Pleasance) and a wholesale change in the team of organisers, led to the society becoming more student-focussed. This, in turn, brought an end to the regular concerts and the Fringe involvement. One constant during this time was Edgar Ashton – a stalwart of FolkSoc for 25 years. Edgar was not a musician himself, but he played the tape recorder to great effect. He recorded a huge number of the FolkSoc gatherings over the years, and made comprehensive lists of what was played or sung each night. On his death “The Edgar Ashton Collection” was given over to The School of Scottish Studies.
FolkSoc during the 1990’s became more about tunes than songs. This reflected a general trend in Scottish folk music, with the young artists and bands of the time concentrating on instrumental music. Singer Scott Gardiner recalls his introduction to FolkSoc: “all we sung in the first two hours was a verse and a half of the Welly Boot Song, I wasna sure if my £2 (membership fee) had been well spent.”
Throughout the 65 years FolkSoc has travelled to participate in musical events over the country, and has alliances with the Folk Societies of many universities across the UK and Ireland – and beyond! It is a FolkSoc tradition to attend Orkney Folk Festival in May – and we have done so every year since 2000!
Although FolkSoc’s repertoire has changed and adapted with fashions and fads, one consistency has been how broad a definition of ‘folk music’ has been used. Throughout the last fifty years, FolkSoc has provided a stage for people to indulge their favourites, whether it be Gaelic waulking songs, jazz, Romanian drinking songs or bluegrass. Phil Taylor summed up the anything-goes attitude thus:
“If you think it’s a folk song you can sing it. If we don’t think it’s a folk song we might not like it, but you can still sing it!”