yes indeed Lenny used to hang around with jazz musicians, played jazz clubs as a preferred venue. his vices and definition of cool were from the era of be bop music.

He wan't a hippy - the folk/rock thing. He was hip - the jazz thing.

Lenny liked to pretend a veneer, an awareness of middle class sophistication and education in his stage act - but middle class values left him cold. His heart was at one with the hustlers and jazz players, and showbiz wannabes - thus the Arthur Godfrey talent show that someone mentioned.

No, when I said he had had an influence on the English folk club movement - I wasn't really talking about the music. God alone knows what he would have made of Martin Carthy. Although maybe Martin knew him - they must have both been gigging London at the same sort of time.

Lenny (both Bruce himself and the film) influenced a lot of English guys into thinking that it would be good to do something similar in England. There already were folk club acts who used comedy as part of their act. But the new phenomena was really that comedy acts like Hale and Pace started coming into folk clubs looking for a hip, intelligent socially aware audience that wasn't available to them anywhere else.

Before long these guys were the hottest acts on the folk club scene. Eventually the tv got to hear of the more lucky and successful ones, and the whole thing morphed into the alternative comedy scene. People formed comedy clubs, which still outstrip the folkscene in popularity. At the time of writing - a medium sort of comedy act can charge about three times more than the highest paid folksinger, and works for half as long.

A couple of years ago - I was talking to a member of Brownsville Banned, who were my favourite folk club comedy act from the 1970's. He was saying, we were just abit too early by about a year or so ....before the alternative comedy circuit got going.....

But when I recall the atmosphere at their packed folk club gigs of that era. I really can't think of anything I've liked better in a folk club.