Either I've been very lucky or you've been very unlucky, Al. I've never heard a rubbish version of Blackwaterside; I've heard three or four truly brilliant ones, though.

Musket:

I had been playing folk for over 30 years

How did you know? What is 'playing folk' as far as you're concerned? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with singing folksongs.

(I'd been playing folk for five years when I discovered traditional songs. I really resent having had to wait five years.)

That said, I disagree slightly with Jim, inasmuch as I think the 'acoustic night'/'open mic' type of folk club is an institution in its own right - lots of people go to that kind of FC and know, by and large, what to expect. And they're fun, if you like that kind of thing. It's just that it's an institution with little or no connection to traditional music, and generally with an attitude to your actual folksongs somewhere between indifference and outright hostility - and I think that's a damn shame.