It has always amazed me how little regard the great british public pays to folk music and folk musicians and as a result how you can still get to see the most amazingly talented people at small, low price gigs. The top names in folk music still have to work excedingly hard to make a modest living and they really are the very small tip of a huge iceberg of people who are out there performing in pubs, clubs, festivals, groups of friends.

If you are thinking about whether you can make a living do something you want to do anyway I think you must first establish that you have sufficient talent and charisma to make people around you want to see you perform then look to widen the circle in which you are successful, rather than look at whether people who moved in a different world 40 years ago and who were truly exceptional are making big bucks.

Play because you enjoy it, or because you have something important to say. If you are incredibly lucky as well as exceptionally gifted you may make money out of it but you cant know that without being out there doing it.
love robbie