"they may think that it might affect their career(s) in that they will receive fewer bookings"
You mean 'censorship for their own good - come ooooon!!
Whatever the Critics, MacColl and Seeger and others of that ilk might have been accused of, it certainly wasn't of not nailing their colours to the mast, if they were happy to let their political inclinations be known and to openly express them in song - it ends there; no club prepared to books them has any right to interfere with their choice of material - if you don't like what they do, don't book 'em - they are/were creative and interpretive artists, not juke boxes.
If the organisers feel that booking such people might harm the club – again, don't book 'em.
"But the denunciation of one's audience, in speech"
Totally agree - but have already pointed this out to be a not-very-common occurrence being used here to prove a generality.
I've only ever seen it happen once before; at a CND concert in Camden Town Hall, when a very well known American singer/songwriter harangued his audience for their opposition to nuclear weapons.
"I just can't begin to understand what this Frank person thought that Biafra had to do with his audience in any way whatsoever"
Can't you really, how odd! I'd have thought it was a subject that concerned every sentient human being and was well worthy of being brought to the attention of as many people as possible, an any shape or form.
Would your not understanding the expression of the horrors of war, Irish and Scottish independence, opposition to the enclosures (heard Harry Cox do that a lot), to the effect of class divisions on choosing suitors (Harry again), to conditions in the mines, mills, going to sea, public hangings, law breaking to feed starving families..... all subjects of songs?
Walter Pardon sang a number of family songs on the re-formation of the Agricultural Workers Union in East Anglia - were they no-go areas too?
Where do you stand on Guthrie songs like Tom Joad, or Plane Crash at Los Gatos, or Jesus Christ?
To what extent and to how far back does your "not understanding" go, I wonder; perhaps singing political songs should come with a cut-off point - no such songs to be sung more than 100 years old maybe?
I'm often curious how American Civil Rights songs feature in discussions like these - personally I never think of that period without remembering 'Back of the Bus' or 'Birmingham Sunday'. I'm quite sure these songs upset the rednecks who were still stringing up blacks, bombing churches and beating up would-be voters - again, all subjects of political songs.
I have heard the argument for restricting clubs to just traditional material, but I have always agreed totally with MacColl's argument that confining the revival to the past turns them into museums.
Unless that is what you wish to do, you have to accept any subject that concerns singers is fair game and to act otherwise is censorship.
Will:
"the assumption that folk singers should sing about current politics just because they're folk singers."
Something else I've very rarely encountered, certainly not since the 'flower power' days when 'peace' was probably the most meaningless word in the English language.
Lack of involvement for me is one of the common features of much singing today, irrespective of type of song, style rather than content seems to be very much the order of the day as far as I can see.
Jim Carroll