1: "It only seems to be folk where the looters have taken over the shop."

Could not agree more, evidenced by - "To say it isn't folk according to some, the likes of Mumford & Son are doing quite nicely thank you out of what millions of people recognise as folk... We lemmings can't all be wrong eh? - It's the looters that think and tell others that they are folk - having listened to them "Folk" was a convenient "label" for their 100% commercial output.

2: "Music is relief from the world around you, not a process of achieving your aims."

Tell that to Simon Cowell.

3: Jim Carroll - Date: 29 Aug 14 - 03:59 AM

Excellent post agree with every word of it (Hope that hasn't been too much of a shock to your system)

4: "the midAtlantic adenoidal with a guitar has nearly disappeared!"

Not in Scotland he hasn't.

5: "We have two of the finest traditional music archives in Europe, if not the world (look up the Traditional Irish Music Archive).
Many thousands of youngsters are taking up the music and playing it in traditional styles or experimenting with it - room for all.
This has fed into the tourist industry, bringing thousands to Ireland to listen to, play and learn about (unadulterated) Traditional music each year.
This really hasn't been achieved by faffing around with definitions to please some of the people all of the time, but by someone saying "this is what we are and this is what we are about".
Song has some way to go yet to make up lost ground, but it seems to be getting there slowly.
Our collection has been taken up by our County Library and is due to go on line in the nest couple of months to cater for all tastes, singers, listeners, researchers, cultural and oral historians.... whoever.
We passed on a copy of our work to an authoritative singer friend in the North recently - his comment - "every County should have one".
With a bit of luck......"

And I bet very few if any of those songs or tunes would ever have been created with a view to them being "commercial".

6: ""The folk song revival has and will survive most things, but it won't last five minutes if if falls into the hands of people who don't actually like folk song, and that's the way it's heading"." - Ewan MacColl

Thanks again - 100% correct and in that bit about it being in "the hands of people who don't actually like folk song" - is where and why most "Folk Clubs" are failing - most are now havens for 50s, 60s and 70s failed wannabe "pop stars" who see a "Folk Club" as their last gasp chance to perform.

7: "My biggest difficulty is that the term 'folk' has become so debased as to be meaningless. It has ceased to become a useful label to help discover a particular type of music. When buying music meant ten minutes thumbing through the folk section of a record store that wasn't a problem, but now buying music means browsing through tens of thousands of albums on-line, and the term is used so broadly (especially by iTunes) that very little of what is there is the type of music I am seeking." - Howard Jones

Precisely!! The above illustrates perfectly how the "looters" have taken over the shop.

8: "I attended a regular club and I helped to run another - no problem with either - it gave me exactly what it said on the label.
I made a point of visiting as many other clubs as I could to keep me in touch with what was happening.
Gradually, I stopped going to the latter when they began to be used as dumping grounds for singers who had nothing to do with folk song and just took advantage of the democracy of the folk scene to strut their stuff.
Night after night I left half way through the evening, not having heard a folk song.
I have no idea what kind of music you like or play Al, and quite honestly, I don't care too much - as your arrogant attitude towards the music I know to be folk from half a century of listening and working in the genre, suggests a total disinterest for and ignorance of that music and the people who follow it - it is exactly that attitude that emptied the clubs."

Perfectly put.