take your point Al, but they do their own arrangements of songs. Basically all we are saying is that he's good now, but once he has found his own voice he'll be even better.
I think we should be encouraging him to write.
I think your comment about him being 'cheated and deprived of being the greatest living folk musician' hit a few nerves because of this. Performing very good and accurate renditions of Chris Smither and Roger Brook songs and their arrangements of other songs will only take him so far.
I'm not excluding Roger Brooks and Gerry Lockran from English Folk, for what its worth I consider the Artic Monkeys to be folk music.