I think that the ability to make recordings in a small studio and (fairly) cheaply produce your own CD has contributed to the increase in singer-songwriter bookings recently. Not that I'm yearning for the days when a musician had to impress one of a few recording labels in order to be heard at all, but I think a lot of people record their music today (whether original or traditional) without a lot of quality control.

Festival producers, folk DJs, folk club bookers, etc, are simply deluged with an incredible number of CDs from hopeful artists that are the musical equivalent of Snoopy's "It was a dark and a stormy night..." unsolicited manuscripts. Each week, we listen to Mary Cliff's folk music radio program "Traditions" here in DC, and wonder from what "tradition" the bulk of the music she's playing comes - much of it by solo songwriters with backup rock bands doing completely original songs to tunes that have no link to any roots music or traditions that we can discern.

But Mary is just playing CDs by the performers who are being booked by the local clubs, and CDs she's received in the mail, and CDs handed out by performers at the Folk Alliance. She, like most of the booking agents (many of whom are unpaid volunteers), can't possibly listen to and screen all of the material that's exploded onto the scene.

Even if self-produced, a lot of the original "songwhiners" have highly produced, slickly packaged recordings of the sort that used to have an airplay niche on "Alternative Rock" or "Album Oriented" FM radio, before Clear-Channel Communications began to buy up every radio station in the country and have nationally centralized playlists. What's the difference between Jewel and a 30-something blond songwriter with a plugged-in Ovation, a backup band and a folder full of personal angst songs? Except for a major label recording contract, not much - but one is called "Pop" and gets major airplay, and the other is handing out her CDs to people in a hotel hallway at the latest Folk Alliance conference.

A solo singer who combines traditional and recently written material may not sound "professional" to an Artistic Director who is more used to the flood of John Hiatt sound-alikes with their backup rock bands, or the latest Irish supergroup with mile-a-minute electric jigs and reels. Add to this the inevitable crop of traditional song recordings by well-meaning amateurs with limited self-awareness of their own musical abilities, and it's no wonder bookers tend to stick to the familiar, tried-and-true crowd pleasers (and their imitators) who combine flashy instrumental work and lyrics that a younger, free-spending demographic raised on Jewel, Joan Osborne, Julian Lennon, etc, can relate to.

As Theodore Sturgeon once said "99% of everything is crap" - and traditional or contemporary, there are a heck of a lot more recordings by performers of varying levels of talent to wade through when deciding who to book and who to reject...