I've just seen too many brilliant artists excluded from the English folk revival - some of them dead now like Dougie and Roger Brooks.

rochdale cowboys- of course all country music based artists are halfwits - some like Jack Hudson have to put up with the sneers of being a 'pseudo yank' - that's how sneering!

the point is that Carthy and a dozen others less talented believe they can empathise with a period in history when working people were treated like pigs.And so we get the current crop of songwriters singing of rosy cheeked maidens at the hiring fair, and the currently very popular Kate Rusby thing about a collier ladddy going off to fight. In it way dressing these characters up in a Laura Ashley dress is the ultimate insult to generations who lived too hard.

one in 3 marriages end in divorce, binge drinking is an epidemic. But its quite a while since the rigours of factory overseer's lash impinged on anyone. So who IS singing the folk music for today George Jones or Martin Carthy?

I'm entitled to ask an intelligent question. theres no bitterness, unless its for the neglected geniuses who entrusted their talent to a folk revival that turned their back on them. the only bitterness is in your bluster.