The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #145654   Message #4181566
Posted By: Brian Peters
14-Sep-23 - 04:50 AM
Thread Name: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
If, and only if, Leadbelly was "Policy."

... A "Policy" of exclusion is about the only way to manufacture the false consensus nobody needs.


The point is that the Policy was adopted at the Singers' Club in order to persuade recent recruits from the skiffle movement to look closer to home than America for material. This was successful, in that it spawned a second revival of English folk song and music in the 1950s and 60s, but for which a lot of us wouldn't be where we are now. It broadened, rather than narrowed, the available repertoire, so although superficially exclusionary it led to an expansion in people's horizons. I don't recognise a 'false consensus'.

Anyway, we were as you say discussing Lloyd in this thread. The big deal in his case is not really the matter of differing opinions. What we're dissecting here are individual cases, in order to learn just how far his interventions went. For those of us interested in traditional song, this is quite important.