"they pay what they can afford to pay."
Yes, but when the audience turns out to be three men and a dog, talking about "what they can afford to pay" is addressing the wrong question.

"folkies" who sneer at Kate Rusby, Seth Lakeman or Show of Hands who go out and do the business
Tom's thesis seems to be that if you aren't KR, SL or SoH, you can't do the business.

In the early days of the folk revival people came to hear an unknown guest at their local folk club out of a sense of adventure and because they liked the music, and because the whole folk scene had an air of youthful subversion about it.

Now we are living in a celebrity culture. If the artist hasn't been on TV, the Proms or at least Radio 2, nobody wants to know. Not enough anyway.

Anahata