Sorry, being old enough to remember when Lewes had the reputation of being a good club, I found the The Snail's Q&A thoroughly depressing and confirming all my worst fears about what has happened to the clubs. Why the hell would anybody want to listen to badly performed crap? Club organisers who promote such attitudes under the banner of folk song have rung the death knell of live performances; as far as I am concerned it shows a deep contempt for the songs and for the people who kept them alive down the centuries, also for all those revival singers, club organisers, collectors and researchers who have put in the effort to make songs available to as wide an audience as possible in a form that can be appreciated.
For me, the only way for the songs to survive is for them to be treated with the respect they merit; to expect anything but competent, thoughtful performances (at the very least) from those who sing in public is a total sell-out.
I believe that it lies within the abilities of all but a very few people to sing well. Some do so with ease, others have to work that much harder at it, but every singer who wants to make a half-decent job of singing has to put in time and effort to make the songs their own. Once the work has been done and the problems, technical and interpretive, have been solved, there is no greater pleasure than to have the song work, both for the singer and for the audience. If performers can't be bothered to do the work, let them stay at home and watch The Bill!
If the attitude expressed by the Snail is a prevalent one, the clubs have no more significance than karaoke sessions and the sooner they stop calling themselves folk clubs, the better.
Jim Carroll
PS No, to my knowledge the Beatles were not banned from folk clubs in Liverpool. They did perform occasionally in the interval at The Cavern when it was a jazz club and, on the couple of occasions I saw them, were treated with the polite indifference they merited.
Had they turned up at folk clubs, any organisers worth their salt would have shown them the door (unless they had come to listen).