Gargoyle
"it is a country used, abused....and as migration statistics tell.....refused. Two weeks was enough for me.....I could not imagine the drugery being wed to it for eternity."
I've often been accused of living in the past but...... The times they are a-changing. After visiting Ireland for thirty odd years, we moved here 9 years ago from a land of 'users and abusers' and haven't regretted a second of it. Not to put too fine a point on it - I can see why it holds no attraction for the US (prime U & As themselves) as it has no oil, - sorry - and unless they find some, I presume we will be left in peace.
Meanwhile - back at the ranch. Those of us who collect do not do so because we like hoarding bright shiny objects, we do so for the love of the songs, music and stories defined here (not 'my' nor 'a' but 'the' definition - and the door I came through some 4 decades ago):
"Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.
The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular and art music and it can likewise be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community.
The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the re-fashioning and re-creation of the music by the community that gives it its folk character."
If you still have this in its raw form (and all the information that goes with it, you have my undivided envy), but the only things we are being shown over here are the Lomax/Rounder recordings (made how long ago?)
Look forward to being disabused.
Jim Carroll