I may have come into folk music a little earlier than you. You'll find my description of Murphy as I saw him perform in 1967 in my first contribution to this thread.

At that time he fitted the folk clubs like a glove. By the mid 1970's the folk movement had changed . To be successful you had to Martin Carthy or Jasper Carrot. One lot wanted 'the tradtion' the other lot wanted a laugh every 45 seconds.

Brimstone, Lockran, Murphy, Jack Hudson - none of them were flavour of the month for the next decade. They suffered rejection.

That's not to excuse Noel. There is no excuse for the bad things he did. However it doesn't change the fact, on his day he could do a good gig.