"Modernise or die"
"IMHO, if we are serious about wanting our music to survive into the next generation but one, then we need to make it relevant to those who hear it."
Peter,
That's how I read this - if I mistook your meaning I apologise.
Have no objection to experimentation whatsoever, as long as it is recognised as just that. I enjoy George Butterworth's 'Banks of Green Willow' enormously but it ain't folk and it in no way helps to guarantee survival.
I can still remember the embarrassing attempts to popularise my other great musical love - classical music
I believe that folk music can survive without attempted kisses-of-life which turn out to be cul-de-sacs.
Here in Ireland we are in the middle of a rise in popularity of a music that hasn't strayed too far from its roots as to become unrecogognisable - who knows.....?
Jim Carroll