Guest P
Couldn't agree more.
If what you describe is correct (it has been my impression for a long time that it is), the folk scene needs to follow the example that the Jazz boom in Britain and the Irish Ballad boom set and learn from the mistakes, take the best of what is left to rebuild an interest in the music that you love.
I heard some wonderful jazz long after Bilk and the other showmen departed the scene.
Ireland produced some wonderful singing when the 'singing pullovers' moved on to more lucrative pastures.
Any future lies in an understanding and intelligent use of the folk repertoire, not in fifth- rate renditions of pop songs that have been long discarded by pop audiences and mass crowd-singing of pieces created for Hollywood Musicals of yesteryear.
Jim Carroll