My, my my
It hasn't taken long to did MacColl up and guve him his ritual kicking
Had MacColl behaved towards fellow enthusiasts the way you people are still behaving towards him thirty years after his death, he would have deserved every inch of the hatred that has been poured over his head
In the twenty years I knew Ewan, I never once heard him attack a colleague, certainly not publicly, and very occasionally when he reciprocated to the stories
He regarded such behaviour beneath contempt, as I do now - people who behave like this need to crawl back into the sewers they crawled out of.
MacColl's main flaw was that if he was asked his opinion he gave it without pulled punches - he said what he felt, and usually offered friendly advice with it
I saw it over and over again at the Singers Club - singers from the floor would ask him what they thought of their performance - if it was good, he said it was good - and often ended up with a booking, If it wasn't he said so and said why he thought that
THat is not what hey wanted - they wanted to be told that they were the best thing since sliced bread

MacColl never "taught" anybody - when he was approached by singers to start classes, he refused
Instead, he offered to help set up a self-help group where singers would work on each other's singing using friendly, positive criticism and advice - he chared the sessions, no more
At the end of the work he would quite often talk on an aspect of folk song - he didn't write much but those talks contained some of the finest dissertations on traditional song I have ever heard and merit revisiting - If I have my way, one day they will, but I doubt if they will interest anybody here with their contemptuous attitude to folk song proper.
I have recordings of over 100 of these meetings which, I hope, have now found a home among serious lovers of folk song.
This really is the pits and the fact that you are not ashamed of yourselves hakes you what you are and explains why the club scene has become what it is.

"but have yet to find a coherent intellectual argument"
There's hardly been room for one Stanron - this has been almost entirely a case of attack and defence - not much room for intellect in that situation
I've said what I believe folk song to be - the songs created to reflect the experiences and feelings of working people down the centuries - to repeat - 'The Voice of the People'
I have offered what I believe to be the two best analyses of British and International flolk song in the form of then and thirteen haldf hour radio programmes respectively accompanied by an hour long programme of the finest examples traditional styles
I was nearly crushed to death in the stampede - not!!!
I put up what our last traditional singer had to say about his art - far superior to anything that has been offered here - I have been underwhelmed by the response
I put up Ian Campbell's view of how contemporary songs were necessary to the folk scene - I was deafened by the silence
Shirley Collins class analysis of her songs have yet to elicit a comment.
Discussing folk song proper on this forum has always been a minefield of "folk-police", "finger-in-eat" abuse - discussing MacColl's ideas rather than his name change and war record has been out of the question, as displayed here in oll its glory.
Do you honestly expect an intellectual discussion in these circumstances - not in this squalid cock-pit I'm afraid.

I've said over and over again what I expect from a folk club - I can offer a few dozen examples from our archive of recordings, but not to this mob of stone-throwers.
I expect a folk club to live up to the name it chooses to sell itself under - an evening of reasonably performed traditional songs coupled with new songs that have used traditional forms in their construction - I spent twenty odd years of my life in London viiting clubs like that - The Singers, The Herga, The Stratford Cub at The Railway, Croydon, The Empress of Russia (at its best), The West Lond Traditional Club and The Tradition Folk Club
Before that there Was The Wayfarers in Manchester, any of Harry Boardman's clubs (I was resident at a couple of those)
I still get a blast from the past in Dublin when I go to The Goil?n - now getting out of the qustion because of the price of accommodation there.
The most hopeful sign on the horizon for over twenty-odd years in 'The Night Before Larry Was Stretched' at the Cobblestones - glorious nights run by youngsters mainly in their twenties (and tolerating us oldies with respect), bring both love and skill to traditional songs without pretension and without the scrabbling search for stardom that id now part of the British scene.

There's been a great deal of personal abuse here and there's even been open displays of hatred for the traditional songs and, most disgustingly the "tit-trousered boring old farts" who were generous enough to pass them on
I think the OP got a sound enough answer to his question - they are no longer folk clubs - that's what happened to them
How can you have folk clubs which no longer cater for folk songs?
Jim Carroll