i said - no more to say. but looking back - i love that bit about most of us just didn;t want to be paid - like as if being as talented as Alex or Derek was just a matter of choice, but of course real folksingers would disdain such shallowness.

I can see why he was pissed off at the young upstarts . people were turning up at folk clubs expecting the folk stuff they heard on the radio in the 1960's. exciting though it must have been to dig up some fusty old unmemorable folksong that had died out for bloody good reasons - it was /is frequently tough going on the poor sods listening. England's two folk journalists were calling Carthy England's Bob Dylan - so where was blowing in the wind?

Brimstone told me through that period, he would turn up after a melody maker folk page had built up a young upstart - to find a club that had been there for ten years had been decimated. i guess alex was having the same sort of experiences.

and as for facile - Derek could piss rings round most people as a guitarist and banjo player. i knew none of your gang who came anywhere near. you don't get that good as a diletante semi pro. you WORK to get that good.