i can't get much enthusiasm, for what is a folk song, Raggytash. i know that what i do will never be acknowledged as such. it hurt me when i was younger to realise that i didn't fit into the folk world anywhere, but really it doesn't matter. i do what i do, and i'm grateful that folk club audiences seem to like what i do in floor spots etc.

so if i were you, i shouldn't bother. it doesn't have to be important to us. Kate and all those other people, I'm sure, believe in what they do - just as I do. I've seen her sing in the session down at Fagans in Sheffield for free. Whatever anyone says, integrity doesn't fly out the window quite so easily.

You're right of course Jim that The Spinners etc. simplify folk music - rather in the same way that the Singing Together programmes did for us at school. All the grace notes and rhthymic complexity gets the elbow,
no doubt with much else that I don't pick up on.

Nevertheless I think you have to cut those guys some slack. They were having to learn other skills about making their project work, getting instruments in tune (who knew ANYTHING about guitars in those days!), PA systems, microphone and recording technique and getting publicity and gigs. All stuff that doesn't happen by magic. They had to do that for themselves - there were no performance colleges in those days.

I remember the late Derek Brimstone telling me, he was snowed in at Aviemore ski-ing resort for a week with The Spinners. Derek was really amused the way they took it in turns every day to make phone calls hustling radio stations to play The Spinners. Derek could remember the whole spiel....