Yes its an odd paradox that the very thing that Child etc. valued - their joy at finding an Elizabethan folksong preserved in isolation in a remote community of the The Appalachians, is the very thing that threatens the revival.

I've never lived anywhere where where I couldn't get to a folk club if I wanted. When I lived in Nottingham, I remember saying on Mudcat that I could get to a folk club seven nights a week, and being greeted with total disbelief. In fact most nights there was a choice of venues.

Having said that, English folkies are a very varied bunch. Most of them totally out of sympathy with the views on what constitutes folk music held by the bloke living next door. They all yearn for universality - but their pernickety views are the very things that keep the movement small and provincial and politically insignificant.

I have noticed that most people earning a living from folk music - keep a tight rein on expressing their opinions for fear of alienating an audience that is constantly threatening to disappear. In a way MacColl's outspokeness is really what makes him sound like a voice from the past

In the 1950's and 1960's , there was such a profusion of people who felt in accord with 'folk'. It was hip to think of yourself as being part of an exclusive set, and why not prune away a few of the excess branches with acid remark an accusations on invalidity....its a luxury professional folksingers haven't permitted themselves for about thirty years now.