Is some of the problem not with the folk clubs - in an upstair room, keeping themselves seperate from the community? So how can the average punter ever hear "folk music"?
I'm not a singer but a fiddler. And many pubs (though certainly not all) are happy enough to let me sit in a corner, or in the garden, and play for a while.
A few years ago I was in Oxford, in a pub garden on a beautiful warm afternoon. my son went to get the beers, and I sat and played. And a little girl came over and danced, till the beer arrived and we went back to talking. I hope she will always remember doing that. Isn't that the way music should be. And does it matter a damn what genre the music is? Isn't the important thing that people get involved in it? Surely that's what "folk" really means.

I believe we have two things to attempt. One is on the academic side, to keep alive the original music, words, style of performance, instruments - and the other the use of this marvelous wealth of material asa base from which to continually produce things new. Surely both fall into what we call "The Tradition"?

And Al, I think it's the folk clubs, not the academics, that can be a bit hoity-toity! We see many academics at sessions, not always the greatest performers, but usually with a big input to the music.