We've got a bit sidetracked here into the question of what is and is not acceptable in a folk club, which isn't really what Colin Randall was talking about.

The debate about the word 'Folk' has been going on since I got involved with this music forty years ago, and probably long before that. At various times the term has been pronounced terminally off-putting to potential audiences outside the magic circle, so less baggage-laden alternatives like 'Roots', 'Acoustic', 'Open Mike', etc. have been proposed. Many of us (of a particular persuasion) preferred 'Traditional' to 'Folk' all along. But then every so often - most recently 10-15 years ago - our cultural influencers start telling us that 'folk is cool again' and we all get excited. Now Colin reports that it's out of vogue once more. Well, whatever - fashions change, and it's always been a niche taste anyway.

'Folk' has been a deeply ambiguous term at least since it was applied for marketing purposes to American singer / song-writers of the Dylan / Paxton era, as opposed to its former meaning of old songs passed down traditionally amongst the rural working class. In more recent times, the record industry has regularly applied the term to any act featuring an acoustic instrument or two. So, is 'folk' to be defined by its musical characteristics, by the style in which it's performed, by the method through which it's transmitted, or by the kind of venue in which it's presented? There's never been a consensus on that, but performers and venues alike will still need some kind of label that signals broadly what kind of music is to be expected.

The reasons different people give for being put off by 'folk' are sometimes contradictory: for some, the word conjures up red-faced heartiness; to others it spells fey and wifty-wafty. The folk club itself will, for some, mean a church-like atmosphere in which any outward signs of enjoyment are frowned upon; for others, a safe space in which audiences actually listen. More to the point, 'folk' is surely seen by many young people as something that the old folks do. That hasn't stopped some really talented young musicians getting wildly enthused by it (often though not always through childhood exposure from parents), but even they are very conscious of the ageing demographic sat in front of them. I propose no remedies, other than the often-discussed hope that more young people will take up the mantle of organising the kind of venues - not necessarily 'clubs' of course - where folk music (or whatever it's called) can be enjoyed in years to come.

As an aside, Walter Pardon did of course sing more than a few Music Hall songs, though according to Jim Carroll (who knew him and interviewed him at length) he drew an aesthetic distinction between those and the older songs in his repertoire.