Banjiman
"It is the image (being perpetuated by the BBC at the moment) of fingers in ears, woolly jumpers and 97 verse unaccompanied ballads that puts people off)."
Balls! Folk music as I (and the dictionaries) know it, covers tragic, comic, fast, slow, lyrical, narrative, melodic, angular... dozens of musical and poetic forms. The subjects include bawdry, eroticism, rural idylls, murder, seduction, rape, political and social struggle, social misalliance, ritual, satire, high comedy and low farce, crime, birth, marriage, death, industrial labour, seafaring, military, war, work, pleasure.... you name it, its there in the repertoire. If you can point out any other song-form which covers such a wide and varied spectrum, please do so. If the Beeb's idea of folk song is yours, I'm afraid its not for you and you really should look elswhere else for your diversion.
Since when did we have to rely on no-nothings from the BBC for our image? As far as folk music is concerned, any influence for the good dissipated with the departure of Maddeau Stewart, Marie Slocum, Charles Parker, Philip Donellan and Bert Lloyd. There really are no grounds for blaming the demise on the image project by today's Beeb tossers; the – the fault lies squarely with the club scene itself.
The clubs deteriorated after the electric experiment petered out; when one of the leading 'electric folkies' stood up at the National Festival at Loughborough and said "folk music no longer has any attraction for me.... nowadays I'm only in it for the money". It went with the disappearance of the mini-choirs (who fought the valiant fight to make every folk-song sound the same). The club audience exodus came when it was possible to spend a night at a folk club without hearing a folk-song; when the term 'folk' became a cultural dustbin in which to dump virtually every other song form; – I know; I was part of that exodus.
If the BBC image of "woolly jumpers and 97 verse unaccompanied ballads" was the cause of the decline, it should be possible for you to point out the clubs responsible – perhaps you could name us a few names!

"Jim, why not start your own club then putting on just "trad folk", if your theory is correct it should be packed out? I'd gladly visit once in a while and I'd gladly eat my words above."
Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt-and forty years worth of pleasure (and enough good memories to last four lifetimes). For twenty years I was very much part of a club that pulled in audiences for the real thing (in all, it survived on the real thing for nearly forty years, right up to the death of MacColl). I am still motoring along on the petrol that those years put in my tank, and hope to continue to do so till Alzheimer's takes a firm grip.

"if I didn't call it a folk club, I could double the attendance."
Fine; if you are unhappy with the term, especially if it doesn't describe what goes on in your club, call it something else.

"Having said that I believe (some) trad song is worth preserving, but it will have to rub shoulders with songs that people know they want to listen to."
Why....? Because the 'folk' clubs today are attracting a miniscule fraction of the audiences of, say, for the super-groups and boy bands, why don't you throw your doors open to them? Absurd suggestion of course – you present the music you wish to because you think it important enough to do so. Folk music should be allowed to stand or fall on its own merits; there should be no necessity to re-invent the language to incorporate other music and please the crowds; folk music has never been a mass entertainment, and it probably never will be. We're in it for the music – not for the popularity (or the money).
I now live in Ireland where fifteen years ago folk music was being sneered at by the media as 'diddly-di music'. Nowadays, I can switch on the radio or television and hear good music at least a dozen times a week. This county alone has four venues dedicated mainly to traditional music. The town I live in hosts an annual week-long summer school dedicated to teaching traditional music; it has just had its (extremely generous) Arts Council grant increased by 10%, with an added bonus of €30,000 plus for the provision of teaching venues.
We have several musicians taking classes of dozens of youngsters throughout the year, ensuring that the music will be passed on at least to the next generation.
Ireland boasts at least two national, world-class archives of folk music and song, and numerous smaller ones scattered throughout the country. This time next year we hope to have a local one up and running here in West Clare.
None of this has been handed on a plate; it has been fought for my people like Seamus Delargy, Nicholas Carolan, Breandan Breathnach, Tom Munnelly and a handful of others who dedicated time and effort to preserving and passing on the music.
Things here are by no means perfect – but they are well on the way to being much better – and we've managed to 'pass it on' which is really what it's all about.
Gulliver - with respect - what goes on in the 'FOLK' clubs has everything to do with what the definition of 'FOLK'.
Richard, you are quite right of course; there are some FOLK clubs trying to present Folk song.
I take hope from your own personal repertoire list that there are still some people singing folk songs.
Jim Carroll