"Your renditions of Raglan Road, Peggy Gordon, and Arthur McBride give you solid cred, and the fact that you play them in a (sort of) Mississippi folk-blues style makes them interesting and original arrangements. Just the thing that's needed to keep them out of the museums, and plenty relevant to folk music." - michaelr re: Big Al

Raglan Road a relatively "new song" which for all its exposure is not a "folk song" {A 1946 poem by Patrick Kavanagh put to an old tune published by Edward Walsh in 1847}, compared to Peggy Gordon and Arthur McBride which are both traditional "folk songs".

The performance of Raglan Road played "in a (sort of) Mississippi folk-blues style" illustrates perfectly that the "the mid-Atlantic adenoidal rendition with guitar accompaniment" is very much alive and flourishing. It is a great pity that there are so few "natural" singing voices about these days, I can never understand why singers feel that they "must" put on an accent to perform a song.

As for such arrangements being required "to keep them out of the museums" it might be remembered that "sung, unaccompanied" both Peggy Gordon and Arthur McBride have been around and have been sung for over 190 years without ever having been consigned to any museum. With regard to the "new song" of the three, just Luke Kelly singing Raglan Road unaccompanied would guarantee that song's impact and popularity and would have any singer take it up and add it to his repertoire and carry it forward.