I have to agree strongly with Don Meixner in his praise of the Corries and Paddy Bell after first seeing them in concert in Edinburgh in 1962. Their stage presence was electrifying and their range of material was phenomenal...and included tremendous versions of popular ballads like Huntingtower (see Child 232 appendix). And to hear 50,000 voices singing Williamson's Flower O' Scotland over the terraces of Hampden Park...whatdya want from folk music, if you don't enjoy folk singing it? Perhaps those people above who mentioned the word "snobbery" may be on to something. Same with the Clancys and Tommy Makem. They have done enormous work in keeping songs alive, and Makem has passed the same love of singing and preservation onto his sons. I should know...happily drunk and bawling out songs in Conor Makem's kitchen with the rest of the gang a couple of weeks ago. And from learning his first song - The Little Beggar Man - at the age of three, sixty years on Tommy is still doing amazing stuff. I highly recommend Ancient Pulsing, (Red Biddy Records, Dover NH) If you think these fellows are resting on their laurels, listen to just one track - Pegusus...Patrick Cavanagh's poem, read by Tommy, with Aine Minogue's harp and his own whistle as backing. The Corries, the Clancys and the Makems dull and passé? Only to jaded ears.