"in my opinion,in the last 40 years the uk folk revival has become more like the commercial pop world, this has been as a result of a mistaken belief that folk music has to be mainstream, what generally happens when something becomes commercialised in an attempt to make it mainstream, is that it can change its character and lose some of its original qualities and lose   its closeness to its roots."

Do you think that's quite right? Perhaps it's more that the more commercial sounding records do better in the market place? But that's not the folk music genre as a whole lurching into Spice Girls land, that's just the few that do becoming picked up by radio stations and music buyers who prefer their music shiny and easy-listenable.

I think the overwhelming amount of music made in the Folk Music genre, as wide as that is nowadays, is significantly NOT particularly commercialised. Most of it, I'd say, is produced by people like you Dick, with (I imagine) absolutely no thought of getting nominated for a Beeb FA or similar. It's just the stuff that sounds like other stuff on the radio, tends to get picked up by people looking for things to play on the radio. It'd take a really major breakthrough - a folk world version of Nirvana's huge success or something - for people to look beyond a nice sounding guitar and an acceptable voice.

I don't think the folk world is full of people looking to make themselves famous. If so, they've chosen the wrong genre.