"well all i know is that the people i took along to folk clubs really hated the trad singers and their songs. both sets of parents -"
Fine Al - sounds like a great reason not to go to a folk club (at least one where they specialise in folk songs)
"working classes people i took thought Ewan and Peggy preachy on subjects of which they knew nowt"
This working class person certainly didn't - neither did a lot of other working peole who I knew who listened and sang.
One of the finest singers I ever heard, Kevin Mitchell, painted high rise factory chimneystacks for a living util he retired.
"but your experience wasn't universally shared"
Neither is Beethoven or Shakespeare - what are you suggesting - replace them with Iron Maiden and Andrew Lloyd Webber?
This music was made by working people and served them as entertainment for centuries.
I have never had the slightest doubt all working people are capable of appreciating any form of art, given the opportunity nd incentive.
I was introduced to Dickens and Thomas Hardy by Walter Pardon, a carpenter from East Anglian farming stock
My father, a navvy, left me with a life-long love of Shakespeare whchich he got from his father, a merchant seamen i the last days of sail.
The latter, as a pastime, used to tell the plots of Shakespeare plays in broad Scouse to amuse anybody who would listen - he was invited to Stoke-on-Trant Grammar School to tell them to the students there a year or so before he died.
He was a founder-member of the Seaman's Branches of The Workers Education Association.
Us workers can do anything we choose if we put our minds to it!
Jim Carroll