Actually Ruth, I think you'll find that there are no samples of the voices of Coope Boyes & Simpson anywhere, apart from one tiny sample which lasts only for seconds, somewhere, but you have to go through many buttons to reach it.

Georgina herself posted it, on a thread backalong.

And if you'll excuse me, for I know I am not worthy to even breathe in YOUR folk world, but I KNOW of many people who have been blown away by the voices of Coope Boyes and Simpson when I have played them their music. They have never heard them before, they know nothing of the 'hidden' world of folk music either...but they have gone on to buy their CDs from that one listen of some of mine.

I have also had people come over to my Myspace page and tell me that they too have bought music, that previously they have known nothing about, purely from hearing it playing on my page. I have also discovered some amazing music myself this way from the pages of others.

The internet is a very powerful tool for sending music out in seconds around the world. Coope Boyes & Simpson's main site is wonderful, filled with highly interesting articles, many of which Georgina has written. I was reading one that Sam sent me just the other day, about 'power and gender' in folk songs actually...

I drop Lester a line over at Folkwaves now and again and beg him for that Myspace page....and one day...being always the optimist...I hope they'll get there. And when they do....WOW! Wake Up World!!

You may be happy for theirs and others music to be kept within the controlling walls of the folk world..I'd far rather it reached the ears and minds of many more people.

On the rare occasions I've been to folk clubs, I see a Sea Of Grey, nowt wrong with grey hair, don't get me wrong...but I do NOT see young people there. Likewise with many gigs I attend too. No-one under 40....It worries me terribly!

Unless this music is more widely known about, enthused about and shared about, then it may well begin to die out with the present generation. The younger people in the folk world, I think, struggle to get their names out there, because of the ridiculous attitude that persists to this day, of having to have been on the circuit for at least 10 years or more before you're taken seriously etc...

Many are not given the support they should be given. I'm speechless, and fuming, that Sidmouth have NOT got The Demon Barbers again this year, I was speechless they didn't have them last year to be honest...They are doing a huge amount for traditional music and dance and they bring the young people in, in DROVES, just as Seth Lakeman does...and as Show of Hands are now doing more and more as well.

I watched Steve Knightley at Exeter University recently and he went down a storm with an audience that was made up almost entirely of young people! They went wild for his songs and for the message within his songs...Steve knows what he's doing and Show of Hands support younger acts all the time, as do many other artists....

So...why don't you and Diane take your holier than thou "We know best" attitudes far, far away from me.

Coope Boyes and Simpson ARE doing brilliantly within a smallish world, but again their voices will reach far more people and people of a very different generation if they put them on the internet. When we saw them a while back at Frome the only children there....were mine...and the young people, I could count on the fingers of one hand....Yet their music, their hard work, their intelligence etc...should be reaching thousands and thousands of people, in my opinion.

And ANYTHING I can do, by writing about them, to encourage and enthuse people to listen to their music, whenever I can and wherever I so choose, I will do, with or without YOUR consent.

Thank you both for your concern though.


Lizzie