Do you honestly believe that there's such a thing as authenticity?

Yeah - er - sort of, though I am on record as saying authenticity is the reserve of Model Railway Enthusiasts in the hope they would at least recognise a real train shoukld they ever see one. In certain respects, carefully culivating one's repertoir of E. Trads & Ballads is like maintaining your 00-scale model of Battersby Junction circa 1935; you know what fits and what doesn't, what belongs & what might be considered extraneous - in terms of Tradition that is, rather than Revival, which we've been talking about over there. My first delight in Folk Music is listening to field-recordings of Traditional Singers - my second delight is gathering with likeminded & disparate curmudgeonly souls in filthy back rooms and have a good old blow by way of a singaround. Into this I might drop a ballad or two, but really I prefer to listen to others really - to join in the choruses - especially from those more erudite, experienced, and (to be honest) more dedicated than I. Through careful research there emerges a whiff of the authentic - in a good singaround, if I've drunk enough, the experience is a transcendant catharsis which gratifies that part of me that wishes he lived 150 years ago in the sort of bucolic idyll they keep telling us never existed (the Imagined Village perhaps?) but which lingers yet in the wild places and comes alive in the presence of, say, John J, when he sings Thousands or More. I might add that on the way home from such a gathering we'll be listening to hip-hop very loudly on the car stereo as I can very quickly get Folked Out on account of my love of general reality. One of the reasons I don't do Sidmouth or Whitby is that after week I'd be hurling myself of the nearest cliff - and even the festivals we do do (and perform at with no little dedication to our craft) there must always be escape - a panic button if you like, to get me back to reality, if only for an hour or so, that I might refresh. I love the old songs in the same way I love medieval misericords - so authenticity does matter. That said I agree more recent songs might carry the same vibe - Sing John Ball, or Bring Us A Barrel, or Scowie's When All Men Sing and many of Bellamy's settings (not least of Bob Copper's The Old Songs) etc. etc. which at least are a celebration of the authentic, if not authentic in themselves.

Maybe that's enough...