Posted on BBC F&A site:

In response to your comments and questions about the Folk Awards, producer John has asked me to post this message on his behalf:

I have been fascinated by current message board discussions regarding 'The White Hare' debate, and I feel it is important to clarify a few points. There have been a number of questions asked, and in no particular order, here are my responses. Forgive me if I miss any specific point.

1. In the nominations round, we asked our panel to nominate up to three artists in each category - one of the categories being 'Best Traditional Track'. When the nominations were returned, members of the panel had cast their votes for 'The White Hare' under that category. (I should point out that the Performing Rights Society, and both versions of Seth's album 'Freedom Fields', credit the song as trad. arr. Seth Lakeman). Some panellists nominated 'The White Hare' for 'Best Original Song', but the majority included it under 'Best Traditional Track'. The number of nominations it received placed it firmly in the top 4 of the category, and thus it went forward into the second round of voting.

My personal definition of a 'traditional' track is any piece of music where we cannot identify the original author and where the song has passed through many hands in an oral tradition, as seems to be the case with Seth's version of 'The White Hare'. Seth and his band obviously came to the same conclusions, because on both versions of 'Freedom Fields', the song is credited as traditional. If it's not traditional, is it an original song? I would be much less comfortable if it were in the 'Best Original Song' category, because it has clearly come from different, unidentified sources. I can think of many wonderful songs, credited as traditional, which have been virtually re-written by the performers, and I think this is part of the process.

It is interesting that we had a similar dilemma last year with John Tams' 'Man of Constant Sorrow', which was in the 'Best Original Song' category, although the first verse was quite clearly heavily influenced by traditional versions of the song.

2. The process of deciding who gets which award is described in full on the Radio 2 Folk Awards website. As stated there, "the awards themselves are voted for by a panel of around 150 broadcasters, folk journalists, festival organisers, agents, promoters etc; people whose job it is to make judgements of one sort or another about folk music during their daily work. I have never asked musicians to vote because I think it is their role to make the music and other people's to judge. The voting is in two stages: the first round is open and the panel can vote for anyone they like in each of the designated categories. These votes are collated and the top four artists in each category declared as nominees. The same panel is then asked to vote again on this shortlist to choose an award winner in each category." To put it simply, those with the most votes in the first round become nominees, and the nominees with the most votes in the second round win.

I have never published the list of panellists because I don't want members of the panel open to lobbying by the better-off record companies and artists. I felt this would disadvantage smaller labels and artists who make their own CDs. However, I have no objections to members of the panel letting the public know that they are on our list if that is their choice.

3. It has been suggested on the message board that the awards must be fixed because the trophies are personalised. The awards are made by acclaimed sculptor Mick Kirkby-Geddes, who doesn't receive our order until the final votes are in and we know who has won in each category. This is the point when we discuss personalising the awards and it happens around mid-December.

4. As regards the picture on the 'Complaints' page of the Smooth Operations web site, it was put up as a joke and had been sitting there happily for 10 years. It was never intended as anything else and I'm sorry if it caused offence. None was meant, and in that spirit, I've asked our web team to remove the picture.

John Leonard
Executive Producer, BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards