I have no idea who the subject of this discussion is,
I agree almost complerely with your sentiments Jim but I do take issue with your "old codger" remark
I suspect that, like me and others, you benefitted from the advice and practical assistance from the older singers and researchers that were generous to offer their help when we first dipped our toe into the scene - they had been where we wanted to go and they had met and overcome the pitfalls of being new
More than at any time now, where there is a massive fog hanging over the identity of folk song, new people need help in finding their way through the pea-souper and make their choices by being given all the information available to make their choices
Nobody expects them to agree or follow everything they are told- we certainly didn't, but at least some of us were given a wide choice of options
he renaissance that is taking place in Ireland at present would never have happened if it hadn't been for te old fogeys like Willie Clancy, Seamus Ennis, Pddy Tunney and Joe Heaney, and researchers like Lomax, Sean O'Boyle, Hugh Shields, Tommy Munnelly, and even earlier Seamus Delargy - they all went where youngsters need to be given the chance to go

I can't find the quote but someone (Raggy I think) repeated the mantra that folk isn't what Jim or others want it to be
Whoever said it - yes it is' I'm afraid
I don't "want it to be" aything - it is what it has been researched, identified and defined as being as being for at lest 150 years and a small and diminishing number of folkies who might want it to be something else are not going to chnge that until they can agree and win support for what and who has replaced it - wandering around chanting "nobody knows what folk song is any more" really doesn't hack it - folk song is far too well defined and recorded for
Anybody with doubts migh look in the magnificent 8 volume Greig Duncan Folk Song Collection or the mammoth James M Carpenter, English Scots and American on line folk song collection (or even the tiny 'Penguin Book of English Folk Songs) to find folk songs
If anybody has an alternative, I'd live to hear it
Up to now, Humpty Dumpty's "word mean what I want them to mean" law seems to be ruling the roost - with the inevitable results

as going to post this yesterday but I thought I'd wait for the dust to settle (is it my imagination or has a thread ion Bert Lloyd disappeared - (maybe I've been overdoing the takeaway Guinness)
Jim

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