For me, this thread is a peep into the contempt in which the individual singer is held as a creative or interpretive performer.
M. Mario put it fairly clearly when he said that the performer has "practically no rights in the eyes of the public". And that apparently is how it stands nowadays.
If I go to Linda Kelly's club I will be faced with her 'massed choirs of (whatever they call themselves)" because they "positively encourage" the audience to join in - no matter what a visiting singer might want. How bloody arrogantly repressive can you get?
As far as I am concerned it is the singers who make the running in terms of their own performances - not some tasteless organiser. It is they who should decide whether they want the audience to join in and are perfectly capable of indicating their wishes in the matter; they should not have to cope with some crass decision made beforehand on their behalf.
Of course, they can always go cap-in-hand and request permission to be allowed to perform their songs solo. But then they would have to contend with Richard Bridge's superb:
"It must be wonderful to be so aware of your superiority that the rest cannot and must not join in with you. " Or M Mario and his friends who have somehow voted themselves the right to join in with whatever they choose, giving the performer no say in the matter whatever.
This is treating the singers as little more than performing animals with no choice whatever in how their songs are performed or received.
Contrary to Bryan Creer's 'fence sitting' act, it is the job of the club organisers to present the visiting singer with as much freedom as possible within the policy of the club to perform their songs as they wish without having to fight an audience desperately trying to sound (at best) like The Humming Chorus from Madam Butterfly.
I think I was given the most unnecessary piece of advice I have ever recieved on this thread when Linda Kelly said "Best not come to our club Jim," - I wouldn't go within a hundred miles of a club that imposes such a repressive and restrictive policy on visiting singers. Somebody explain to me what these legendary 'folk police' I keep hearing about are - on second thoughts, don't bother - I think I get the message.
Jim Carroll