Thanks for this Jim. May I say I have the greatest respect for your feelings, and understand entirely why you take the stance you do.

That said, if one merely does a 'replace' operation on any of your posts, and substitutes the word 'tradtion/al' for 'folk' all of the disagreement disappears at once.

I think the most telling contribution on this page comes from Sue Allen: "The IFMC morphed at a later date - snip - into the International Council for Traditional Music."

That says it all for me.

As I've said, I wasn't involved in this music in the 80s - but I don't think it was the admission on non-54 music into folk clubs that caused the decline. From the start of the revival many clubs admitted blues and skiffle and music hall and all sorts - and I don't think the repertoire changed in the 80s, or since. If you look at the national picture over the whole half century the songs have come and gone out of fashion, but the styles are largely the same.

Other factors have affected the health of clubs.

Maybe you are basing your views on your own experience in the clubs you frequented. As I say I wasn't there in the middle - but I hear much the same stuff in clubs now as I did in the 60s and 70s. All that's changed is that we say trad when we used to say folk.

Tom