A few random thoughts.

1.       I enjoyed the book as a bit of reminiscence therapy although I think the field is too wide to have been truly captured in just one volume. As has been said, with the title "Singing from the floor" it seems odd that the emphasis was not on the floor singers but those who made a living singing from the "stage". The book might be a valuable contribution as a starting point but by no means the whole story. (It would be interesting to find out why people really stopped supporting the clubs. (Families, jobs, other hobbies?) I don't think the best answer can be found by asking the "stars" of the era or by asking here on Mudcat where those with a (nostalgic?) interest still lurk. Those who need to be asked are those who we can't ask because they're no longer part of the scene.)

2.       Personally I don't really care though whether folk music is popular or not. What matters to me is whether it's good and whether I enjoy listening/taking part – both subjective judgments. I sing, not because I want to be an entertainer or performer (I'm hopeless at both) but because I want to sing the songs as best I can; to keep them alive. Of course I hope that my "audiences", who are generally all singers who I respect, will appreciate my attempts but my first duty is to the song. (I'd much rather be good (one can but dream!) than be popular.)

3.       I do remember the days of big audiences in the late 60s and early 70s but I'm not sure that there were that many more singers/musicians then than now.   (True, there were more who could support themselves by performing because of the large audiences but many of them were fairly mediocre – a bit like the way these days everyone seems to have a CD: it's not a measure of quality, just of feasibility.) Our university folk club used to have weekly audiences of 200+ but those people weren't at the nightly pub sessions; there we had around 20-30, all actively singing/playing. Coincidentally, last night's singaround that I went to had only 22, but only 3 didn't sing (except in the choruses) – all the rest led at least one song. Tonight's "Irish" session will probably have about a dozen musicians and the rest of the people in the pub would be there anyway, they're certainly not there as an audience. So the "audience" has gone but perhaps not the performers. Is this linked to why it's easier to find singarounds and sessions now (full of participants but few "audience" members) than it is to find clubs which cater more for an audience?

4.       Most of the folk clubs I went to were in pubs. That was in the days when pubs had several smaller rooms and were looking for ways to fill them. These days it seems difficult to find a pub that isn't open plan with dining facilities and/or big screen TV sport. So where could clubs be these days? The open nature of a pub meant anyone could drop in; alternative, non-pub venues take a much greater commitment to visit. Prior to pub venues perhaps there were family gatherings, local fairs etc where people could gather and sing/play. Where are the open, informal venues now?   

My provisional conclusions (don't take these too seriously, the elements of truth are well hidden!!!).

a.        Folk clubs were a passing, fashionable trend dependent upon venue availability, the growing "youth rebellion" and, as with any fashion, pure chance. The music in them was home made (in a performance sense) by the members. There wasn't a huge mix of ages or even social groups in those clubs, the audiences were fairly homogenous just as they are now. After a relatively short time a new popular music emerged based on this music which was performed by someone who you were supposed to "follow" – this music was not home made although many still classed it as "folk".   It didn't easily fit into the small-venue folk clubs that started the movement because it relied on audience rather than participants and, leaving its roots, it quickly evolved away from the folk club music to become various types of "pop" music.   The audiences moved on although the singers stayed, or returned after family/work took them away for a while, to form singarounds

b.        There's little point trying to recreate what was a passing fad. Some of those who lived through the fashion have clung to it with varying degrees of success. The "traditional" crowd have migrated to singarounds/sessions, now mainly populated by aging ex-folk club members who grumble about how singer-songwriters killed the clubs, reminisce about the good old days before singer-songwriters and wonder where the youngsters are. (How many old folk went to their clubs when they were youngsters?) The aging "contemporary" crowd grumble about how the traditionalists don't like them and how they could have been famous if only they weren't discriminated against, occasionally visiting singarounds, where both they and the "traditionalists" feel uncomfortable at their presence, or going to open mic venues where they try to recreate the days when audiences would actually listen and stay for the evening rather than arrive to sing their own songs and then leave again (not realising that no-one really listened to them in the good old days either, they were just there for rest of the songs!!)

c.        BUT – we're still singing and the songs are still here. In addition, there are younger performers who are making their own music in their own way and at their own venues. Why should they want to or need to recreate folk clubs when they have their own cultural settings? It's not as though the clubs themselves were part of an ancient tradition, just some of the songs that passed through them. Thanks to recording facilities these young musicians will be able to pick out what is relevant to them from the material we leave behind just as the early revivalists picked out what was relevant to them from the material of the early collectors.