I was disappointed at the somewhat limp-wristed response to Peggy Seeger's statement that there was no longer a passed-on tradition - Owen Hand, Louis Killen, Red Sullivan, Cyril Tawney – for crying out loud. As worthy as (some of) these singers are/were, not even their best friends would describe them as traditional singers. Like the rest of us they came to the tradition second hand; I doubt if any of them would claim to be of part of the tradition; rather than having borrowing from it (in fact I know from personal discussion that at least two of them definitely didn't).
Of course the tradition is dead – long dead. I consider myself lucky to have been around in time to hear its last dim echoes, but even then its was from singers well advanced in years and past their best, people like Harry Cox, Sam Larner, Charlie Wills – and the great Walter Pardon, who gave the revival (that's what we've got) a transfusion of material and examples of singing that could have given the revival its second wind and kept the songs going for another generation or so. As far as I have seen the jury's still out deciding whether that transfusion took; but as far as I can see the prognosis isn't hopeful.
The last time I visited a folk club in the UK it was a little like visiting an elderly relative in sheltered accommodation who wasn't quite sure where they were and why.
The sooner we come to realize that the tradition is a thing of the past and decide what we are going to do with our legacy, the better, as far as I can see.
Jim Carroll