Well to be honest, I think Mike HAS hit upon a malaise, which is holing the folk song movement below the waterline. Whichever country you live in.

Its a terrific contradiction if you are playing the music of the people, and yet the only music that gets critical attention or airplay is produced by 'stars'. Mike (as I read his original post) is a committed musician - he turns up at this forum expecting debate about the creative process, and he thinks we're all a it 'starstruck'.

I think you're probably right, Mike.

Shimrod's point - what am I proposing. I'm not sure myself, just voicing a vague discontent with the way things are going, or rather the way they're not going.

All I can say is. You know that song Common People by Pulp. Its the best song about being a reasonably intelligent nobody in England today, what sociologists called 'anomie' - society's a machine and its turning us all into nuts. the English folksong movement should be producing songs like that.....instead we've got the same old, same old ....songs about blacksmiths, fishermen fighting the bitter swell, poachers........its all about as exciting and relevant as a corner of the Edinburgh Wool Shop. You could contain the present English folk movement onto half a shelf and call it rural crafts.

To paraphrase Waylon Jennings, Are you sure Ewan done it this way?