This is what today's London Times says about 'Catters Sam and Ian (of 4-2-2- fame):
{ how do you like being called a brat act, guys?
RtS

Nowt so gear as folk It was only a few years ago that folk singers were regarded as a sad bunch of beardy Frank Dobson lookalikes singing about jolly plough boys and wild gypsy rovers. But the times they are a-changin'. Led by a new breed of feisty young designer-clad "folk babes", folk music is hipper than it has been for decades and, on Monday, Britain's first ever folk awards ceremony will take place.

At the head of the folk bratpack and expected to win major awards are Kate Rusby, 25, and Eliza Carthy, 24, whose most recent album, Red Rice, added drum and bass grooves to her traditional folk stylings.

Other brat acts in contention for awards include the brilliant young fiddle player Nancy Kerr and Tarras, the teenage band from the Borders, whose debut album Rising made a big impression last year. The equally youthful 4-2-2 from Yorkshire, winners of Radio 2's Young Folk Award, will also perform at the event. Their prize includes a prime slot at the prestigious Cambridge Folk Festival in July and a British Council-sponsored world tour.

"Folk music is built on tradition, but there are so many young acts coming through that it is quite humbling," says John Leonard. He says that audiences for the weekly Folk On 2 programme, which he produces for Radio 2, now touch 750,000. "There's more interest than ever and folk records are getting played across the BBC's airwaves by mainstream broadcasters. Folk has broken out of its ghetto."

But despite folk's increasing crossover potential, it is the several hundred folk clubs up and down the country which remain the backbone of the music. The BBC asked those who make a living from playing the circuit to vote for the Folk Club of the Year. The first winner is the Westhougton club in Lancashire.

"It's a very traditional folk club that has been there for ever," Leonard says. "But there are plenty of others like it. All of these clubs are run by enthusiastic amateurs who usually end up putting in their own money to keep it going. But the clubs have bred a kind of artist you don't find anywhere else in the world. The floor spots where people play for free give anyone an opportunity to sing and everybody gets a hearing, whether they are great or dreadful. The best people, like Kate Rusby, go on, but everybody starts from the same place."

Rusby certainly has gone on and is favourite to win in the Folk Album of the Year category for Sleepless, with its repertoire of "drowning ballads and castle-knocking-down songs," as she calls them.

She has an answer to those who question the continuing relevance of such songs, pointing out that what remains unchanging about the human condition is often more profound than that which we call progress. "The old ballads are full of stories about falling in and out of love, being born and dying. They've never seemed old-fashioned to me."

She brushes aside the suggestion that the "folk babes" such as herself and Carthy have rescued folk music from what looked like a slow but inexorable slide into oblivion. "Folk music has been there for hundreds of years. It doesn't need me or anybody else to be its saviour."

Carthy agrees, but is also on a mission to take the music to a wider audience. "If you don't want to sell loads of albums and prefer to sit around in tiny clubs, that's OK," she says. "But I can't do that because I live in the modern world. I approve of dragging the music into a contemporary context. It's about time folk was made more stylish."

The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards take place on Monday. The event will be broadcast at 8pm on Radio 2 on Feb 9