The man is from a folk music-playing family,writes in a modern folk music style, on acoustic instruments, about the area where he is from-why on Earth isn't it folk music? What the hell else is it?
Why are some of you people so narrow minded about this? Honestly, why and how do you think to define him out of "your" chosen arena simply because you don't like what he does? What precious, horrible arrogance. And some of you have clearly never heard him, only heard of him, the fact that you have being enough to condemn him!
I went to see John Tams and Barry Coope at Glastonbury this year, and they played a set of what I would consider to be soft acoustic pop on synthesiser and guitar. It isn't what I like, really. Some people consider John Tams to be a folk hero, likewise people like Show of Hands, who again, I would say are pop or soft rock singers. But it isn't up to me. As far as they are concerned this is their interpretation of this genre and they place themselves within it because they feel an affinity to it. In a lot of ways they keep the scene and my job going, so fair enough, as far as I care what people wish to do outside of the mainstream is folk music if it isn't traditional.
The folk scene should surely be about supporting independence from the mainstream; it so happens that success can spring from that. So do we abandon people the minute that happens? Leave them for cultural dead? To be a folksinger must inevitably mean to be unable to make a living? Why?
Some guy on this board the other day said he wouldn't consider what I do most of the time to be English traditional music "in a thousand years". Twenty years, is all I say in response. Fifteen of those specialising in English traditional music, studying, evangelising, practising, in a way that I thought would benefit the scene that raised me. Not to mention the family...
I'm not saying that Seth has any sort of ambition beyond making his music and making a living out of it. But he is one of our's, and he is not harming us beyond creating opportunities for us to harm ourselves like doomed stereotypes in forums like this. Like the music or leave it, but you shouldn't confuse personal taste with righteousness of purpose. If you don't like the diversity of the folk scene maybe it is that that isn't for you. Maybe you're not a folkie either.
I don't think I am any more. Most folk music on the scene leaves me cold, but I don't presume to dictate what others should be doing any more. Traditional music is something else, will survive, that's what I care about.
I'm sorry this isn't written very well. But I find these kind of prejudices infuriating.
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