weelittledrummer

With all respect, Snail - I do think you miss the point. Dick has a head full of ideas and they define him as an artist. He has a perfect right to those ideas.

Of course, on both counts. I have been a great admirer of Dick for over thirty years and have several of his records. I am particularly fond of "There's no one with endurance like the man who sells insurance".

His ideas seem a little confused and contradictory, for instance -

most people who have seen me perform know that I sing traditional and contemporary folk songs.

as a matter of fact I sing Sweet Thames, I introduce it as a song written by Ewan Maccoll.
no need to say whether it is a Folksong.
neither do I introduce any traditional songs as folksongs.

but that's his problem.

The trouble comes when he starts laying down the law on what can and can't be performed in folk clubs. You must not sing Beatles songs because the audience have paid to hear folk music.

At the Lewes Arms, which is pretty well towards the traditional end of the spectrum, you will hear songs by Graeme Miles, Ewan MacColl, Brian Bedford, Barry Temple, Dave Webber, Sylvia Watts, Lennon/McCartney, Sting.... and poems by Cicely Fox Smith and Rudyard Kipling set to music. You will probably not here Streets of London or The Fields of Athenry.

I expect we would like to sing some of his songs as well but we will never be able to because, until they have been folk processed, nobody is allowed to sing them in folk clubs and if nobody is going to sing them then they never will get processed.

P.S. Sorry, but if Britney insists on the pipe, we can't book her. We had a no smoking policy even before the ban.