I haven't seen the book, but I'm glad it's out, that it's getting reviewed in mainstream publications and that it's readily available at a reasonable price from places like Amazon. It's another way to keep this music out of the museum...

Incidently, here's a link to Charlotte Greig's review

Slightly off-topic, but I can't see anyone in this thread "dissing people who work passionately and hard at communicating folk music in a populist fashion" as you put it, WLD- are you refering to the likes of Eliza Carthy, Kate Rusby and Seth Lakeman? I'm glad they're out there doing what they do. Except for Eliza, they're not really to my taste, but I wouldn't begrudge them their success. Likewise, it's great that Bellowhead are touring reasonably sized non-folk venues this autumn.

If on the other hand, you mean my 'mewling singer songwriter' comment - that's based on my limited experience of folk clubs, where I had to sit through some godawful, mediocre singer songwriters and 'funny' performers, who in a more mainstream venue would have been booed off. Hopefully they weren't typical of songwriters on the folk scene, but if that kind of thing is what you mean by 'communicating folk in a populist fashion' there's a hell of a long way to go. Having said that, I wouldn't mind being given some examples of these sorts of performers who are worth listening to. I am aware of people writing new stuff in a folk style who are really good - Alasdair Roberts and Sharron Kraus spring to mind... not convinced how far they are part of the folk scene though - I think they are largely independent of it.

Cheers

Nigel