I doubt Vaughan Wliiams et al turned traditional ballads into anything other than traditional ballads. Their crime according to Jim is that they didn't wear their trousers up to their tits or claim to have learned them at their mother's knee. Arrangements are presentation. The pity is, Jim's lifetime of valuable work in a particular field of folk music isn't well served by his comical dismissal of western folk music in general on the basis he wants to reserve the word folk for a narrow genre that has merged successfully with other styles fairly successfully everywhere apart from in his head. Mind you, he always gives good entertainment and that can't be a bad thing. A pity his act gate crashes serious threads starting with genuine questions or propositions but there you go. There's a thread about under exposed artistes doing the rounds and he starts chirping about people who have been dead years and never in a million years were they "under exposed." Both MacColl and Pardon enjoyed being well known in their field. Writing a folk standard. Beauty is as ever in the ear of the beholder. I heard a song again last night that a good friend wrote and it is still in my head this morning. I might ask him for the words. This is how it starts....
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