I am old enough to have gone to genuine 'hootenannies'..in the early 60's...and we did very little of the Joan Baez, Kingston Trio ,etc. stuff, mostly because of one or two people who knew some of the really 'trad' stuff and started me down the road to learning about it...I know maybe 3 or 4 people under 30 who are doing REALLY traditional music...out of 70 or 80 regulars in our group! My own son is 15, and he is into all the pop bands...he just looks at my autoharp with an air of amusement, and can barely tolerate an acapella ballad in his presence.

Those of the younger generation who DO get into bands like Tim Jaques mentions are often AWESOME musicians, but there are so few who do anything but Celtic and Bluegrass...or maybe Cajun...and they tend to do everything 40 or 50 decibels louder than is necessary. I went to see 'Silly Wizard' and 'The Tannahill Weavers' a few years back, and was barely able to sit thru it..!!!

(I did like the 'early' Battlefield Band ...and Ossian, because they came close to making a lot of the music sound like the way it was written, instead of just amplified variations on traditional melodies..)

hmmm...*smile*...do I sound like I have strong opinions??Naahhh.....!! Age? well I am almost 59, and have come by my opinions honestly..(I wrestled 2 banjo players and an acedemic folklorist for 'em..)

interesting discussion...I'm glad Petra started it, although I'm not sure how much all this is contributing to her original question...