Jim you don't think you are being overly harsh then when you say that professionals have been partly responsible for the demise of interest in that which you consider to be Folk. I have yet to meet a traditional singer who does not have a wide interest in all forms of music. Old Bill House played Cornet in a brass band, Bob Copper loved the Blues etc. etc. and above all I have yet to meet a singer who does not know how to enjoy himself. The collector who decries a singer because he or she sings a country and western song alongside a 19th century song and values both accordingly is frowned upon. It's a poor Folklorist who is not part sociologist. The old songs that fall into that definition of Folk that leaves me a bit baffled, were never sung in glorious isolation. They may have been collected that way. I have not had the benefit of very much formal education. I was on the road at 17, so anything I know about songs and the Folk Arts I have had to teach myself, and my spelling is still atrocious and turn of phrase is strongly influenced by my book reading especially Bert Lloyd. So where are we with a rear-guard action, or even re-action when we consider Bert's wonderful view of a universal classless global music, that may become nobler than its antecedents? (Thank God for the spell checker!) You see things are not as bad as you think-honestly!
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