Jim,

Please can you provide the quote where I suggested "our" songs are irrelevant.....I really can't remember saying that.

I repeat (ad nauseam) that I have a healthy respect for traditional songs, it's just not the whole story.

Within the community I live in, 3 small villages in a rural part of North Yorks, not to far from 2 smallish towns, we are doing a lot of work to involve "non-folkies" in what we are doing at Kirkby Fleetham Folk Club. I know from talking to my friends and neighbours what they find accessible (and inaccessible) about "folk" music. Agreed this is not an academic study, but if we get it wrong, the club will not survive. The "folk" population alone is too small to sustain it. I am not talking here about putting on 60's/ 70's pop/rock dressed up as folk but music that could broadly be defined as "within the tradition" (occasionally leaning towards modern "acoustic") but well sung/ played and well presented.

This has ranged from trad unaccompanied singers (which goes down well if the performer is good enough and makes good choices around material....and really turns "non-folkies" off when done badly) to self penned singer songwriter/ guitarist types writing on traditional and/or local themes and lots of other variants. I guess we are trying hard to open the doors of the "lodge" and yes, this does mean some compromise, but probably not as much as you think.

Paul