Thanks boys; the cheques are in the post (-mind you, the post isn't what it was...scope for a song there!). Glad I've got some friends out there. Regarding the lack of patter, I'm sure that when I start getting more regular dates (he said, dreamily), and can start to relax a bit more, I'll be full of it! Heard a good put down on the radio: "you've got more patter than a centipede with flip-flops". The song Dave was talking about is 'Andrew Rose'. It's a true story. Much of my material is either about, or based on, real people and real events, which is why I get so involved with the songs. I think it's wonderful that an 'ordinary' person can be remembered two or three centuries after their death, through a simple song.
I've just been ploughing through this thread, since WLD put me on to it. Amongst all the bickering and sniping, a few good points have been made, and I agree with some of them. A folk club used to be a good night out. Not just because the music was going through a fashionable phase - as the press keep telling us it is now, although I doubt whether many of the people writing this stuff have any real idea of what folk music is. (That question is a whole study in itself, but the point really is that the folk clubs are not what they were). I don't think it's a generational thing either, although this does have some bearing. There is a missing generation. Basically, it's the yuppy generation, who are not really interested in anything other than how well they are doing and how much money they have. No loss to us maybe, but it does leave a problematical gap between the old folkies (who were once the young folkies) and the current young folkies. Unfortunately, we live in a society where the young tend to be a bit shy - even wary - of the old. Not that 60 is old, but you know what I mean. So, although there is a young generation of singers, musicians and dancers, there is not enough contact between them and us. There shouldn't be a 'them and us', of course, but I think rhat will sort itself out in time. I could bang on for some time here (see what I mean about being 'full of it'?), but one point I would like to make is that the traditional format of resident group plus guest/floor singers worked. Having a resident who was of a sufficient standard to get paid for singing elsewhere, and would get up and do a spot each week, gave the club its identity and continuity. It didn't matter who the guest was, or how good the floor singers where, because the residents would build up a following who would turn up anyway. And I'm not the only person to have spotted the connection between the disappearance - to a large extent - of the traditional residents and the disappearance of the paying audience. I believe that the current fad (-I hope it's a fad or we're done for!) for singarounds as a general, rather than an occasional thing, is turning the folk clubs into something else. There's nothing in it for the punters; they want to see somebody up there doing a turn. Singarounds are for singers, and, incidentally, run the risk of developing into cliques. At the other extreme are the 'big name' clubs. This policy is unfair to performers who are trying to get established; how do you get to be a big name if you can't get bookings? You have to wonder how it would be for some of the established artists if they were starting out now. We'd probably never see them. Such a policy is also unfair to the smaller clubs who can't afford the aforementioned, and can only book unknowns who are not guarranteed to bring in enough of an audience to cover their fee. And it's also selling the punters short. Somebody said to me, discussing this about 25 years ago, "we get fed up seeing the same half-dozen big names all the time". Of course, we, the sigers, have the option of doing what singers used to do: we can start our own clubs. I'm thinking about it.......J.K.