Sue

I think I read your piece on John Peel and so on. It was very interesting.

Jag

I think your last point may be right, and this seems odd given the general 'left-wing' thinking of those involved. Also the fact that many of these themselves made money out of their interest, ranging from the Lomaxes, who were notorious for it, through Lloyd and MacCall, to Peter Kennedy.

On the other hand, I don't think all music and song making would have been done for money, just as people today do these things just for the fun of it, or for religious purposes, say.

I think that maybe the idea of people doing it for money seems in confict with the view that 'real' folk music was passed down via an 'oral tradition'. Also maybe the idea of making money out of music is seen as difficult to reconcile with a Lloydian view that the history of 'folk music' reflects the emergence of new 'classes' within society as for example when the feudal system began to decline and so on.

The question also arises (semi-seriously) of whether a nice song collector visiting to take down whatever you sing and showing an interest in it is in some sense similar to the party lower down the cliff.

My view is that 'personal' and 'commercial' uses of music probably interacted. The fact of non-literate people pasting up ballad sheets in their houses seems to suggest that even the artefacts connected with commercial song-writing were seen as desirable, as well as the songs themselves.