Glueman - could it be you're getting Hatfield and the North mixed up with Kilburn and the High Roads?

Nigel - Problem with professionalism is that it lends itself to these very qualities - i.e. the slick, soulless razzamatazz of showbiz - which are a complete anathema to the notion a Folk Music, the context of which is just as essential as the content. The sort of idiosyncratic genius we see in Snock & Jim Eldon isn't something we see a lot of, but to my tired old ears any sort of idiosyncrasy is a boon in this day and age!

I've also got issues with the embourgeoisment of folk music as far as aesthetical / critical criteria are concerned; hence, presumably, the original 'ghastly' quote from someone who wouldn't know folk music if you rammed a Black Sea Fiddle up his arse.

However, just because one sings in folk clubs and singarounds doesn't make one a musician any more than the fact of one messing about with herbs, spices, vegetables & fowl in the kitchen makes one a cook. One also makes bread, but one is no baker; one also fixes the leaky pipe in the bathroom as often as necessary, but one isn't a plumber. Surely this is the essence of Folk Music; the purposefully pragmatic crack & the simple joyous necessity of doing the thing however so short our various efforts might fall of a few entirely misplaced benchmarks.

Now back to John Jacob Niles: http://www.myspace.com/johnjacobniles01