Well, I thought I was getting a burning sensation in the shell-likes, and logging back on to this thread I realise why. My name's been taken in vain a few times here, so I really ought to respond.

Firstly, yes, I do bestride some of the same stages as Al and we're both performers on the same circuit. 'Serious Artist' versus 'Silly Sod'? Well, I think of myself as an entertainer whether I'm doing 'The Demon Lover' or 'Shame, Shame, Shame' (Jimmy Reed, not Shirley & Company), and I'm sure Al would describe himself similarly.

However, on more academic matters, SA said:

"Getting back to something Brian said earlier...
1. The 'Folk Process' is demonstrable. Take a look at Bronson.
2. Nobody's believed in 'collective composition' for decades.
What is The Folk Process if it isn't collective composition?"

Simple answer is that the folk process is the way in which an existing song evolves. 'Collective composition' is a theory regarding the origins of folk songs and tales that originated with German scholars, including the brothers Grimm, who developed the concept of the Volkslied. Some of F. J. Child's colleagues and followers were convinced by the idea that the ballads had been created by the collective improvization of a group of singers and dancers, but although Child himself flirted with the idea, he eventually wrote that "they do not compose themselves as William Grimm has said... a man and not a people has composed them". A major academic controversy erupted over this question, and as a result the theory of communal composition has had no significant adherents in recent decades.

Although it's true that Child believed that oral transmission and 'folk process' would inevitably result in the degeneration of the ballad, others such as G. H. Gerould believed that "communal recreation" tended to actually improve ballads - that old Sharpian idea of the pebble being smoothed by the action of the waves. That the 'folk process' consists of nothing more than (to quote SA) "the sum total of bad memories and mondegreens" has not been the consensus of folklorists for decades, and I can't remember ever seeing that position argued on Mudcat. The 1954 definition, whatever its other merits and failings, specifically allows for constructive communal recreation in describing "variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group".

Anyway, I'm off now to fry some chips, then away to Glossop Labour Club for a few tunes, so no time now to compare and contrast the Aspeys and the folk music of Yugoslavia. TTFN.

PS: Howard Jones is quite right; I can't think of even the most traditionalist of performers, or venues, that filters repertoire through the 1954 filter.

PPS: Nice to see this one's a bit more civilized than previous 1954 threads!