James Henry's message above really does reveal that he hasn't a grasp of the situation regarding field recordings and their relation to commerical album releases.

Firstly, James, my name is Geoff, not 'Geoffry'.

Secondly, he writes this:

>I was merely adding this observation to the general debate as an >indicator of the number of unauthorised recordings that must be >circulating of James and other Donegal fiddlers. It's surely not >beyond the realms of belief that sometime in the future (when we are >beyond worrying about it) some of these recordings are going to >resurface and be made available, at a price.

Whether we've stopped 'worrying about' it or not anyone who exploits such recordings commercially is nothing more than a bootlegger. And, it's also not beyond the bounds of possibility that increasingly sussed musicians have already copywritten their arrangements.

It's fine for private tapes to circulate, but not so if anyone attempts to exploit their commercial potential.

>I don't know what arrangement Feldman had with James but as you have >revealed money was offered and accepted. Who knows what agreements >are made between two people in a pub without the necessity of a >signature at the bottom of a contract? It used to be called a >gentlemans' agreement and was sealed by a shake of the hand. In >Kennedys' day this was possibly the way that agreements were also >conducted?

James, you clearly haven't taken in the information provided in one of my postings above. Yep, Feldman did pay James Byrne a derisory sum, but that, as far as James was concerned, was for a private recording, not for the commercial recording (the 'missing' Topic Donegal fiddle album) which Feldman was in the process of making.

One can only surmise whether Kennedy used similar techniques.