Can I just add to this is that what runs through these arguments like 'Blackpool runs through rick' is that our definition of "folk" should be based on personal tastes rather than what it is.
This is nonsensical and if it was applied to any other form of music "I don't like classical music so let's extend the term to include jazz and music hall" it would be laughed out of court
The future of our music depends on ir being taken seriously. by the potential listener, by the media, by those who control the purse-strings of the art world, by the student.... by society as a whole.
Shakespeare can survive and thrive without majority popular support, Dickens will continue to be read for centuries, though I have only met one person (Walter Pardon) who read all his novels....
An art form doesn't have to reach the top of the charts to remain significant, but it does have to be taken seriously.
I'm sorry to constantly hark baek to what is happening here, but Irish Traditional Music has been guaranteed two generations worth of future, first because a small number of enthusiasts smashed it's 'diddly di' stigma and later because thousands of young people took it at face value, smashed their way through the 'peer-pressure' problem and began playing like virtuosos
Twenty odd years ago we thought it would die when we did - not now, we don't
What is happening nowadays may not always be to our own personal tastes but I have never seen such a healthy and hopeful scene
jim carroll