Suibhne O'Piobaireachd

We do have a wonderful heritage here which is not found on our commercial media very much in the same way as it is in your country. I for one am very proud of our indigenous music which does exist and is very much alive away from American Idiot or Prancing with the Stars.

You obviously have never been to our folk festivals in North Carolina or Virginia.
We have folk performers like Doc Watson, Jean Ritchie, Dirk Powell, and lesser known traditional balladeers who are still with us and delighting their smaller audiences.

There is a difference between commercial pop music and folk music. The first is made for money. The second stems from a definable culture. We have Appalachian singers and players, blues musicians (yes, this is folk music), and other representatives of ethnic and folk music cultures here in the States. They don't get the recognition they deserve but some of us are very proud of their contributions.

If Irish music were to be presented as Dennis Day (although he was a fine singer)or Arthur Godfrey, it would be as misleading as your characterization of American pop music being representative of folk music. Even the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem (who I think were great entertainers) are hardly wholly representative of the Irish music "Tradition" (there's that word again).

I think that as far as pop music in the States goes, P.P. and M. and the Weavers brought it up to superior musical level. They were not intended to be traditional folk by any stretch of the imagination and Pete Seeger no longer calls himself a "folk singer".

Is Scottish folk music represented by Harry Lauder? English folk music by "Knees Up Mother Brown?"

Your examples seem to belie a real interest in folk music as you seem to show a denial of its existence.

Frank