uk folk clubs high standard

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 05 May 19 - 10:53 AM

I's afraid that it does not follow that, because a person with an interest in 'folk' declines in one context to get involved in theoretical debates about definitions of folk that they are like an electrician who claims not to to 'understand' electricity. The suggestion is a non sequitur, or, more likely, a couple of non sequiturs cobbled together.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 May 19 - 11:02 AM

Exactly, Pseudonymous. I also love the Marvel Comic Universe and have no superpowers. Well, apart from endless patience and something I should not really brag about in mixed company...

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 May 19 - 11:40 AM

"What job description is that, Jim? "
If you run a folk club you learn what folk song is - same if you interminably argue about it
Try applying it to florists or greengrocers or Irionmongers - or even hip-hop or Grand Opera
If folk so inferior or unimportant that it doesn't deserve recognition ?
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 May 19 - 11:41 AM

I don't run a folk club any more.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 05 May 19 - 11:44 AM

@ Dave the Gnome: :)

@ Jim Carroll: "If(s) folk so inferior or unimportant that it doesn't deserve recognition ?" Rhetorical question. Seems to imply that somebody has advanced an argument to that effect, but as far as I can see nobody on this thread has.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 May 19 - 12:21 PM

Eeeeee. Tha's got for't lowf.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 May 19 - 12:22 PM

"I don't run a folk club any more."
Only half an answer - read the rest of the line
"Rhetorical question."
Nope - I specified what I was referring to exactly - stop wriggling
Why do those pursuits I listed merit an identification and not folk songs ?
I have asked this before and what nobody has done is answered it
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 May 19 - 12:51 PM

Sorryo, Jim?. No idea WTF you are on about.

Only half an answer? I was not responding to a question. Just stating a fact in response to your "job description" comment.

Just what rhetorical question am I supposed to be wriggling at? Either you or I need to start taking more water with it coz I have now lost the plot altogether!

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 May 19 - 01:52 PM

And I was just pointing out your pontificating
If you adovocate for non folk foik clubs you are as responsible as any active organiser Dave - heat - kitchen and all that
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 May 19 - 02:24 PM

It's kinda surprising that since (on his say-so) Jim spent years embedded in the greatest folk club of all time, and has moved to a place with the most discernng audiences and the strongest pool of local talent in the world, that he hasn't managed to open a local club that anybody wants to set foot in. Whereas more than one poster here managed it for decades on end in the dreary philistine talentless wastelands of England.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 05 May 19 - 02:36 PM

I think Jim's denial (I think it is a denial) that he had posed a rhetorical question, namely " Is folk so inferior or unimportant that it doesn't deserve recognition?" and Jim's subsequent comment about "wriggling" was aimed at me, not at D the G.

However, it plainly was a rhetorical question.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 May 19 - 02:49 PM

Ah, ok. Missed that Pseudonymous. In my defense, it can be difficult to follow Jim's posts at times.

Jim

you are as responsible as any active organiser

Which bit of "I don't run a folk club any more" is so difficult to understand?

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 May 19 - 04:16 PM

So how about it?

We knock the donovan and Gordon Lightfoot on the head ; chuck away the guitars and sing very old ballads unaccompanied. I can kick it off with Marty Robbins El Paso. After that you're on your own.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 May 19 - 04:29 PM

I happen to like colours and catch the wind.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 03:17 AM

"Which bit of "I don't run a folk club any more" is so difficult to understand?"
Maybe I should have specified - didn't think it necessary - I obviously overestimated
You, as someone who advocates enthusiastically for non-folk dross at folk clubs, is just as responsible or the damage being done to genuine folk song as is the club organiser who books such dross
Does that help ?
It seems a long-winded way of putting something which is fairly obvious, but needs must...

" Jim spent years embedded in the greatest folk club of all time,"
Was it ?
I didn't say so - I said it was the best one I attended, but I didn't attend them all
I said the same about the Song Circle I attend


Have we reached the point where distorting what I say has become essential Jack ?
"Rhetorical"
Now we are arguing semantics - all helps to avoid the real points I suppose !

I have never advocated for unaccompanied song either Al
Tsk-tsk
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 May 19 - 03:43 AM

Ah, OK. So the audience (IE me) is responsible for the decline of folk clubs. That makes sense. We wanted to hear a more varied repertoire of songs in different surroundings so the organisers gave us what we wanted. Tsk, tsk. Silly organisers. Fancy, wanting to let people discover new music instead of sticking to the same old songs, venues and performers. I don't know what they were thinking of...

For the umpteenth time, Jim.

The number of clubs began to decline in the 1980s, in the face of changing musical and social trends.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 May 19 - 03:51 AM

Oh, and for what it is worth, I have never "enthusiastically advocated" any dross. It may be debatable whether some of the music I am enthusiastic about is folk or not, but it is all good music. You may have noticed that the biggest criticism I ever level at something I do not like is "it's not my cup of tea", yet you readily dismiss the tastes of others as inferior to yours. Folk elitism at its worse.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 04:56 AM

"We wanted to hear a more varied repertoire of songs in different surroundings so the organisers gave us what we wanted. "
There was never a survey of what the audience wanted - or if theer was, can you point out how, when and were
The clubs were taken over
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 May 19 - 05:10 AM

Dave, lets face it - you booked dross.

Everybody knows that what your audience really craved was long ballads sung with no accompaniment.

You let the side down. If it weren't for moral failures like you, every mucky dingy backroom of a pub would have an English folk club: wo full of of real folk music fans, standing shoulder to shoulder hanging onto every word of an accompanied ballad. You could hear a pin drop.

In fact one week someone dropped a pin. I think it was Leonard Cohen.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 19 - 05:14 AM

it might be what some people want, there is no statistical evidence either way.
while it is very flattering to receive a good review as i did at Hadleigh folk club, like all reviews it was subjective, however there were 40 plus people in the audience.
the truth is that while i drew some people to the club you could have an artist who did very different material who might draw different people and some of the people who attended my gig might stay away for someone different.
the truth is we never have info about those that stay away.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 19 - 05:28 AM

In my opinion, Jim does not fully grasp the meaning of the term 'rhetorical question'. This is why, when he for some reason decides to disagree with my pointing out this feature of his style of writing, he claims that I am engaging in a semantic argument.

I was looking at his style of writing because another poster raised the topic, suggesting, validly I felt, that Jim's style was provocative. Eg Vic Smith 03 May, 12.04 pm.   Another poster commented on the way Jim addresses us. Somebody else described Jim's approach as 'bluster'. The point has generally been made that Jim tends to write as if he were expressing facts when he is setting forth opinions.

Therefore, I - and some other posters - have been noting some of the stylistic features of Jim's posts. These are often features associated with persuasive and expressive uses of language, rather than factual statements. I have noted emotive imagery based on excrement. We have emotive nouns such as 'dross'. His use of the term 'excuses' has been noted by somebody further up the thread.

I think the point that Jim's language is provocative was well-made. And I think his metaphors based on battle and conflict demonstrate that this is how he conceives of the thread. I do not know who he thinks he will persuade by this somewhat aggressive approach. But it won't be me.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 06 May 19 - 05:33 AM

Sorry, the above post was from me.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 05:36 AM

"Everybody knows that what your audience really craved was long ballads sung with no accompaniment."
Facetiousness is not particularly helpful here A and it certainly isn't working in your favour
When this downturn happened the scene was in a healthy position - magazines a stack of radio coverage, and fairly steady audiences
The clubs I regularly attended had a steady level of audiences - long ballads and all - he scene was fairly steady
The immediate effect of your 'changes' was a gradual downturn in attendances and eventually an exodus by those who had come to hrear folk song - a decline from over 15 hundred clubs to Daved 160 odd
If you don't like long ballads you're in the wrong game in folk song - that's the what they are - folk-song at its very best
My advice - if you're a vegetarian, don't shop at a butchers - if you don't like folk song, go somewhere else
You are now being deliberately dishonest about accompaniment - nobody has ever advocated exclusively unaccompanied singing here and the clubs that went in for it then were few and far between
MacColl was right when he said that folk song would only die if it fell into the hands of those who neither liked it or understood it
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 19 - 05:57 AM

Sorry not sure who Jim is calling 'deliberately dishonest' but the tone of Jim's post has put me on their side. I don't think they are being any such thing.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Howard Jones
Date: 06 May 19 - 06:01 AM

We can debate the causes of the 1980s decline until the cows come home, the fact is we don't really know. It was probably a perfect storm of multiple factors, including (in my case anyway) being at a time in my life when young children and work commitments stopped me going our as often as I had when younger. I suspect that punk took over from folk as the voice of social outrage, as well as providing a platform for 3-chord trick merchants who might otherwise have gone into folk. I don't recall the clubs I went to changing the sort of music they put on (which included ballads) but that probably reveals me as a moral degenerate who doesn't understand folk music but knows what they like, and who went to the wrong sort of clubs.

It doesn't really matter now. It happened, there's nothing we can do about it. What does matter is the state of the scene now. It is different, it is smaller, the proportion of singarounds to 'proper' folk clubs seems to be much higher, but in the remaining old-style clubs seem to be still putting on a good range of folk music performed by the same mix of professional, semi-pro and entirely amateur musicians performing at a generally high standard. There are also other outlets for folk besides these old-style clubs. Young people are enthusiastically involved. But for Jim, who seems to regard himself as the custodian of the flame, none of this matters - we have all abandoned real folk music and should be ashamed of ourselves.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 May 19 - 06:20 AM

You don't need an audience survey, Jim. They vote with their feet. Once again, all together now, with feeling...

The number of clubs began to decline in the 1980s, in the face of changing musical and social trends.

Al, take no notice of the man behind the curtain. Your post was a joy to read :-) Yes, I should have made sure I only listened to folk dross instead of non folk dross. I single handedly brought down the folk scene when I first listened to Tull's "Songs from the wood" in 1977. Mea Culpa.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Iains
Date: 06 May 19 - 06:27 AM

This article seems vaguely pertinent to me. How broad is the church and who is allowed to define it?

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/07/happy-memories-regrets-and-bitching-history-british-folk-clubs

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 06:40 AM

"They vote with their feet. Once again, all together now, with feeling..."
They did indeed Dave - and walked away from the clubs
The figures again - from over 1500 to 160 something - no magazines, hardly any media presence a couple of folk labels....
That was a fairly convincing result
And still you persist in defending it
Whatever you were hoping to achieve (if you even thought about it) you failed miserably, and damaged folk song severely, possibly irreparably
You should be proud
The 'changing musical trends' had nothing to do with the folk revival, which was in itself, bucking the trends anyway, and came into being in order to do just that
Nothing radical was happening musically in the eighties - if the revival was prone to 'musical trends' it would have disappeared in the sixties and seventies when music was undergoing a revolution - instead, taht is when it came into its own having seperated itself from the Music Industry 'trendmakers' pretty well completely
"We can debate the causes of the 1980s decline until the cows come home, the fact is we don't really know. "
No we can't Howard, but we can make an intelligent guess and try to do something about it
" I don't think they are being any such thing."
Al is persistently bringing up 'unaccompanied songs" which is his issue, nobody else's
I don't want anybody to be on 'my side' - I would like an honest debate based on what has actually been suggested
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 06 May 19 - 06:41 AM

@ Iains: and is pink nail varnish folk or not-folk (Maccoll according to the article you linked to was of the latter view, and told a woman off for wearing it). Would he have accepted red, I wonder?

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Iains
Date: 06 May 19 - 07:04 AM

Given his political background highly likely.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 07:08 AM

'Singing From the Floor' is crammed with such mythological crap - try reading it
It's entirely based on gossip
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 07:24 AM

"Given his political background highly likely."
So left wingers disapprove of lipstick
I think
you mean religious nuts who keep quoting the scriptures don't you (which would be you, judging by the Brexit thread)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Iains
Date: 06 May 19 - 07:35 AM

'Singing From the Floor' is crammed with such mythological crap - try reading it
It's entirely based on gossip
Jim



This is a book is stuffed with such wonderful stories, recounted by the people who were there at every level of music-making: players, producers, writers, comedians, friends and fans.
The reviewer


Hmmmmm! Who to believe?
Here is a starter for 10.

The reviewer Erica Wagner Wagner was literary editor of The Times between 1996 and June 2013. She also reviews regularly for The New York Times. Wagner was selected to be one of the judges for the Man Booker Prize in both 2002 and 2014

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Howard Jones
Date: 06 May 19 - 07:46 AM

No magazines? There's fRoots of course, which despite its fascination with World Music also covers UK folk. There's also the excellent Living Tradition. English Dance & Song is I think still settling in under its new editor, but is nevertheless mostly a good read. There are still plenty of local magazines although many have gone online, for obvious reasons, but some continue in print (if that matters to you).

There is still an hour-long weekly folk programme on Radio 2, and a few of the local radio folk programmes have survived. Regrettably, many others have been lost to BBC cuts, but folk hasn't been singled out for these. On the plus side, even if you live outside their broadcasting area local programmes can be listened to online. There are also podcasts which go out only online.

I don't recall ever seeing very much folk on TV since the Spinners lost their show, but excellent programmes come up from time to time. Whatever you may think of the Folk Awards, they are broadcast in full on TV as well as radio. Scottish and Irish music are better served by their regional broadcasters and these programmes can be seen online. There is a huge amount of folk on Youtube. To say there is "no media presence" is nonsense.

"A couple of folk labels". More nonsense. Here's a list from Mike Harding: http://mikehardingfolkshow.com/links-pages/record-labels/ . As he admits, it's not complete (for example, it doesn't have Rootbeats records who release Leveret's CDs, among other artists). However that misses the point - CDs are easier and cheaper to make than ever before, and many performers release their own CDs. Besides CDs are old technology, streaming is the future.

You really must get out more.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Howard Jones
Date: 06 May 19 - 08:21 AM

I should test clickies first

Mike Harding Folk Show

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 08:24 AM

Three Magazines out of at least a dozen Howard, and, according to Rod Stradling, Dance and Song abandoned serious folk content some time ago
I was a regularl subscriber to The Living Tradition until it bacame to fanzine for my taste and to took me half-a-dozen copies of Folk Roots to decide it wasn't 'My Kind of Folk'
Interestingly, you omitted The Journal, which, of all the publications, continues to fly the flag
The radio output has been decimated and serious programmes on TV such as the Arena Series and 'Beats of the Heart' - and all those us gave us serious and thoughtful and enjoyable views of music and tradition in general have all gone
Turning BBC 2 on two Sundays ago and getting that wonderful Sam Henry programme was like stepping out of a time machine, but we were quickly brought back to reality with the dreadful 'Folk Bling' follow up (that was from Ulster anyway, which has maintained a level of respect for folk)
It's all but gone Howard, and, while this complacency and animosity towards the real thing persistes, will stay gone

Gossip Iains - I've just pulled it off the shelf to remind me how much so
Anybody who believes that MacColl's audiences would be so docile as to accept MacCol's criticising somebody's lipstick has to have as great a contempt of humanity
Scraping the bottom of the necrophobic barrell I'm afraid
You don't have to 'believe' anybody - a little logic or common sense does the trick
Whoever Erica Wagner is - she has no history in folk song whatever
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 08:36 AM

Incidentally
Erica Wagner had nothing to do with the writing of the book so her qualifications are irrelevant
She was just repeating the gossip - from someone who had a huge chip on her shoulder because either MacColl or Lloydonce described her stage performance as "bucolic" (I seem to remember that was Berty anyway
Stories such as these proliferate - over the thirty years I had dealings with the club I never once saw MacColl (or anybody) behave in the manner described - nor do I recall a situation in which such behaviour would have been tolerated without widely reported criticism
It to the demise of MacColl for this particular urban myth to surface
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 06 May 19 - 08:51 AM

Erica Wagner is not claiming a history in folk song; she was writing a review of a book by Sheffield-based J P Bean. You can read extracts from the book on Amazon. It is largely based on interviews with people who were around at the time. The quotation about the nail polish is from Shirley Collins, as it happens. The book appears to deal with changes in the folk scene: it comments that the audiences got older and older and that it was difficult for new people to go as it felt cliquey. It looks like a book worth reading, by the way, so thanks for the link.   

I looked up 'flow sweet river'. It isn't a folk song. And it is to be supposed that it was never presented by Maccoll as such.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 06 May 19 - 09:19 AM

The "Wheelbarrow Song" garbage?? - show some respect for the dead!!!

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 19 - 09:34 AM

my apologies to notts county fans

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 10:10 AM

"'flow sweet river'. "
Sweet Thanes Flow Softly" was written for a dramatised adaptation of 'Romeo and Juliet' set in the East End of London, for the then schools programmes - 'Down the Lane' was written for the same production
Neither were folk songs

Collins's story was supposed to have happened 65 years ago
I doubt if the audiences would have tolerated such an event, even then and, from the photographs at the time, he would have insulted most of the women on the scene at the time
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 19 - 10:38 AM

Why would Shirley make it up. Anyway it does not alter the fact that Ewan was a fine songwriter and a good performer

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 May 19 - 11:18 AM

hardly any media presence

Folk music has more media presence now than it ever had. On national radio and TV. Never heard of the Radio 2 folk awards? Seen the spate of folk documentaries on TV? Listen to the 6 music folk podcasts?

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Howard Jones
Date: 06 May 19 - 11:24 AM

I omitted the Journal because it is a serious academic journal rather than a general interest magazine. Whether or not you approve of their content, we still have three national print folk magazines, plus the Journal. There are plenty more on the internet, including Rod's Musical Traditions.

Yes of course there could be more on the radio and TV. However it's not just folk which is affected, all the 'minority' music interests are feeling the squeeze. Nevertheless from time to time folk programmes still appear - only recently BBC Radio 3 had a programme on folk dance music, and Shirley Collins was on Radio 2 talking about her collecting trips with Alan Lomax. Many of these programmes can still be heard or watched on catch-up, whereas previously they would have been heard once and then forgotten, unless someone had managed to tape them. But the broadcast media are old technology, there is plenty on the internet, and that's where young people look for new music.

You seem to be a glass-half-empty sort of person. The decline which began in the 80s has been halted, and possibly reversed. Most importantly, there are plenty of young people who are enthusiastic about folk music. They have plenty of opportunities to find it, more than my generation had. I had been going to folk clubs for 10 years before I discovered that the tradition had not died out with Cecil Sharp but was still alive less than a couple of hours' drive from where I lived. Now, Walter Pardon and Sam Larner are on Youtube and Spotify. That's why I'm optimistic for the future.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 May 19 - 11:30 AM

Well said, Howard.

The decline which began in the 80s has been halted, and possibly reversed.

I have been saying this until I am blue in the face. It is what the wiki article I linked confirmed. Thank you for providing further proof that not all is rotten in the state of folk.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 19 - 11:39 AM

Folk music has more media presence now than it ever had. On national radio and TV. Never heard of the Radio 2 folk awards? Seen the spate of folk documentaries on TV? Listen to the 6 music folk podcasts?
Of course it hasn't Dave - pure fantasy
The media folk awards have little to do with folk song
Where are the half-dozen weekly programmes folk - Bert's Programmes, the ones I mentioned above ?
Where are the folk courses ?
Crappy, industry driven awards are signs of further deterioration - they have little to do with real folk - just dedicated to the few who 'make it'
Sorry to burst your bubble Dave - stop making things up
You have yet to acknowledge the dire discrepancy between 1,500 + clubs and your 160ish
If that isn't a sign of how bad things have become, I don't know what you need
Nor have you mentioned the effects the driving out of folk song proper from the scene has had on 'The Voice of the People'
Don't you care ?

"Why would Shirley make it up."
Just told you why Dick - MacColl and Seeger refused to become part of the folk 'luvvies' and dedicated his time to working with less experienced singers and promoting folk song - while those knocking him were getting on with their own careers
In all the time I associated with them, I never once heard either of them slag off fellow performers publicly - noot once
Even in private Ewan was very guarded in his criticism of others,
I know there was a time Ewan and Bert didn't get on; I once said I didn't think much of Bert's ballad singing; he jumped to Bert's defence and said he didn't like discussing colleagues singing unless they were there
As far as I know, he never did
I've been a dozens of public performances where others have done it to him
One of the worst examples was at Peggy's first public outing after Ewan's death
She had agreed to sing voluntarily at 'The Red and Green Umbrella Show in Hampstead when a young talentless navel-gazer fired off about Ewan's "finger-in-ear pretentiousness"
Ewan could be a pain in the arse on occasion but as I said, he never ran fellow performers publicly

Nuff of this - anti MacColl necrophobia has no place here
Jim

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 May 19 - 11:48 AM

When I die, I've insisted there be no funeral, memorial gig, wake, or whatever.

I think the thing is to slip away unnoticed.

Ewan was always nice and pleasant to me.

I'm sure people will think of millions rubbish things to say about me. The idea of prefacing it with a funeral saying a load of bullshit about what a pleasure it was to know me. I find quite distressing.

Still, theres not much you can do about it.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 May 19 - 11:49 AM

Where are the half-dozen weekly programmes folk

You tell me. I don't remember them. Unless you are referring to the Spinners TV programme and similar folk dross ;-)

Of course it hasn't Dave - pure fantasy

To use your own hyperbole, are you calling me a liar?

It seems that, once again, there is one law for Jim and one for everyone else.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 19 - 12:07 PM

I think folk music definitely does have a greater media presence than ever before. At the click of a button I can access vast swathes of it from a range of cultures.

Subject: RE: uk folk clubs high standard
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 06 May 19 - 12:20 PM

Sorry that was me.