well , as you say Jim - we obviously need to separate the memory of Ewan from the relevance of his ideas.

So you're the expert.

Take initially what you believe to be the most important idea. the most relevant to us.

Start a thread about this idea. And we can debate it.

Bear in mind though. There's been a time elapse. we're not talking about immutable truths. We are discussing the music of a swiftly changing society that transforms itself faster than any of us can really keep track of.

I've been a jobbing musician for nearly fifty years - working for working class audiences all that time. I consider myself a folk singer. I've had to work out my own aesthetic, and its far distant from the one Ewan came up with.
Tonight I sat through a retrospective on TV of the Old Grey Whistle Test programme. All the songs had one thing in common - if you placed them before a working class audience - they wouldn't know the words of one of them.

Martin Carthy once said , just because you're English it doesn't mean you understand English folksong. So what is it, if its nowt to do with working class English people? Is it like the Old Grey Whistle Test music - just something middle class people can get the hang of?