Even my pointed thoughts?

What I said about profit reflected anti-capitalist views on the state of the music industry, actually.

I'm not here because of Pete and Woody. I consider them to be significant songwriters from an entirely different tradition in which I have some interest in certain aspects, especially in Appalachian, Shaker and Sacred Harp singing, playing and dance. My influences , however, stem from my own tradition which had its first revival at the end of the 19th century, and from Northern Europe where it didn't need reviving all that much.

Thirty odd years ago in Britain, many on the so-called 'folk scene' (i.e. products of the second revival) involved themselves in benefits for striking shipyard workers, builders fighting the lump, miners and steelworkers whose jobs were threatened, refugees from vile regimes in Latin America and Southern Africa, and police repression of ethnic minorities on our streets, and many a song was written.

There's very little of that now. Life's harder without a lot of scope for idealism. Today the struggles are for the right to play anywhere at all and to survive as a musician in the face of globalised homogenisation of culture and a grasping, non-caring, money-grabbing musbiz.

Whatever is the place of a publication such as Rise Up Singing? All it seems to me to do is fossilise a long-gone era, a historical archive. America does have living traditions, localised, vibrant and out there, rooted in its communities but I don't think I've ever read a word about them in this forum.