It's interesting that Jag says 'working men and women' since our most recent discussion of occupations which might count as 'folk' and which were too far up the social scale was mostly a list of male occupations.

For me there is a lot in what Jag says in his post of 4.38, though I think that one has to add ideology to the causes of attraction. In saying this I don't seek to denegrate left-wing beliefs, as I would situate myself on some sort of left/green position, merely to point out that these beliefs may lead to selective vision on occasion. Consciously or unconsciously.

I know Roud does provide examples of pub singing in the olden days based on contemporary accounts. I'll check the reference for this.

There was a post raising the question of group as opposed to individual singing earlier in this thread, and I had hoped that the discussion would contintue but the thread got lost in the cross fire and I could not find it.

On work songs, I was looking recently at a picture of a weaver with a broadsheet pinned to his loom. It might have been in Palmer's book of history through broadsheets. But the chap seems to have been working more or less alone.

Work songs like chanties were group affairs, but there are already several threads on these.

But generally, it is precisely because Roud does give pictures of what working people through the ages did actually listen to and sing, a full picture as opposed to a limited selective one that Jim Carroll objects to it. And he does so in tones which, for me, tend to belittle the tastes of our ancestors (but not his, as he would appear to identify as Irish).