Thank you Jeri & Kat for your kind words & Kat I'd share my kids with the rest of ya but they're very fast runners at the sound or mention of folk music, maybe someday. I'm just tickled that, at 10 & 12 they're both taking up instruments (probably to drown out Dad).
Hi Frank, another S/S that started as a teen, who I still to this day play maybe once a week is Laura Nyro, she was great even though maybe quasi-folk (I always thought of her as inner city folk).
Part of what I hear alot that drives me nuts is when the singer is or seems to be more important than the song. I've never heard the "4 Bitchin Babes" before but I hear about them being all over the place & how wonderful they are, so when they came on the radio just when I was getting out of the truck to go to work I stopped for a listen. I don't even remember what they sang, the harmonies were pretty good but the song really sucked, I thought what shit, they must have a great PR person or must be very very good at it themselves to have successfully pawned this crap on the public (OK you can all start beating me when this gets posted).
Lamarca & a few others posted about the repercussions the S/S have had on not only the traditional music but on folk music in general. I've always thought that in order for the S/S to get exposure, airplay, sell CDs or just gigs that they would sell themselves short & cheap. I don't know what put the Esteidford (bad spelling) under here in New England but it was once a great festival, then maybe 10 or 15 years ago they started bringing in S/S & dropping the caliber of talent they were known for. I saw Peter Bellamy there, Joe Heany, Frankie Armstrong, the Fisher family, Norman Kennedy & a just a whole world of other great people (not slighting us Yanks it's just that the real good ones were very common there) & it was just a friendly & a close festival. Then came the S/S (dum da dum dum) & eventually I couldn't be bothered going anymore along with alot of others I knew. Then not to long ago they seemed to have redirected the festival, maybe back to the way it was or at least towards a middle ground. So I went for the last few years & it was improving but I don't think it could pull itself up by the bootstraps anymore. Sandy or others let me know if you have any info on this, as this is only what appears to me & I don't know if this was really part of their dimise or if it just appeared to me that way. Barry