Howard Jones: There are plenty of young musicians performing excellent music, they are just not (on the whole) doing it in the folk clubs. They don't want to be part of the turgid and boring folk scene that far too many clubs have turned into, and which are inhabited largely by people old enough to be their parents and grandparents - any more than we did when we were young. They are finding their own opportunities and venues to perform, including festivals, house concerts and the more vibrant folk clubs which still maintain good standards of performance.

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Absolutely, a point I've made here many times when this subject comes around for the nth time!

Dave The Gnome: Jim - I could list at least the names of at least 20 performers under the age of 30 that I have seen at Swinton and other clubs that I have attended but what would be the point? You will not have heard of any of them and accuse me of making it up.

I've probably listed at least that number of excellent sub-30 performers here in the last couple of years, often with links to examples of their performances.

Big Al: The army is there Jim, because 'folk'   are there.Folk music is not the hothouse flower requiring seminars from professors and aficionados.

It is a tide arising in breast of humankind. The will to perform, the will to create. And ordinary people from all societies have this within them.

The reason you can't pinpoint who was the original Wild Rover is because he was of no interest to the class of people who attend seminars on folk music.

And somewhere his distant inheritor is writing the follow up with a nose flute a triangle and a synthesiser. And none of us know where he is, or who he is. He's part of the invisible army. Don't sneer at him. His distant relations wrote all your favourite ballads.

Spot on! :-)