Alright. I stand corrected.

I grant you that there is no way for ME to determine that Black people {meaning people with some African descent] had a 'great' [meaning significant] influence on British folk music prior to the 20th century.

But if you leave out the two words 'me' and the word 'significant' and also include the term 'folk culture', then I would say that researchers have documented that "the presence [of Black people] here [in Britain] goes back some 2,000 years and has been continuous since the beginning of the sixteenth century or earlier."

Because of that fact alone, and because the study of etymology, paintings, newspapers, and other literature {including Shakespeare's "Othello" and Johnson's "Masque of Blackness" {not to mention other forms of the performing arts, especially dance-and even setting aside the hot button topic of blackening up and Morris dancing} it seems that those who emphatically write that there was NO Black influence on the culture of the United Kingdom before the 20th century are refusing to study their own history.

As I said, I will grant you that it is far more difficult to ascertain what influence people of African descent had on British folk music-which is the topic of this thread. Given the musicalogy of African peoples, and our musical influence over time where ever we have been, and the historical documentation that Black people were continuously involved in music in the United Kingdom from the 17th century on, it would seem to me reasonable to conclude that people of African descent had SOME influence on music.   

And as to GUEST's 14 Apr 05 - 07:08 AM comment that "You cannot be Black and British (OK well only by Passport) But by Blood they will NEVER be British.", if that Guest is British {or even if Guest is not}it is possible that Guest might discover that one or more of his or her ancesters is an offspring of one of the numerous people of some African descent who merged within the White population.

After all, those Black people who were brought to the UK in the 16th century had and remained as personal 'servants' and manual laborers had to go somewhere-and all of them didn't only mate with other people of African descent, or die off without having offspring, or migrate to Sierra Leone, the Caribbean, Canada, United States, or elsewhere.