ABSTRACT
The ‘narrative frames’ imposed a schema and instilled values via specific masculinised vernacular practices, such as the clubs more often than not being placed in male socialising places and spaces, the largely male-dominated middle-class hierarchies in folk clubs, together with the almost complete absence of an LGBT+ voice. To create a musical marginality which only replicated activities and opinions of the centre, rather than the contexts of those margins, was tantamount to deceit, rather than solidarity. Therefore folk clubs could never be described as counter-hegemonic spaces while adherence to an authoritarian masculine cultural encoding pervaded. In spite of women positively contributing to both British folk revivals via collecting, dancing, singing, playing and writing about folk music, the song canon displayed how the subject matter of women was rarely, if ever, accorded equal status. Most male folkies were projecting into folk performances those particular kinds of masculine-interpreted social and musical fantasies that gratified their folk ‘historical’ inclinations.
