Yeh true enuff Richard. yeh the songwriter who has never played anyone else's songs, so he doesn't actually know what a song consists of, has played a not inconsiderable role in the demise of the folkclubs.. .... Who killed Cock Robin?


I admit I never saw anyone do it to Silvo.   I don't really want to go into it with other players, but let's just say I saw too much of it. often times when I'd travelled a distance to see players, some protector of the tradition would be there rattling his mouth off in the background in a most annoying fashion.

Lets face it with Dylan and his like, folk music got a break. Most people then as now didn't go to folk clubs. Previous to that, folkmusic was heading to be a turn off for a lot of people.

'singing together' was better than doing sums, but it had its 'off' weeks. TV programmes like Folk cellar seemed to involve some pretty weird characters - people in rugby shirts singing Cosher Bailey with a fixed anal smile, ladies with sub operatic voices that would have been better off sub aqua, anti war songs about the mushroom clouds that would inevitably carry us all off. Pretty grim fare.

Then for a summers lease les Cousins was the center of a cultural revolution in the ordinary folks view of folkmusic. And for that brief period - it looked as though one could earn a living, from folkmusic. People like Brimstone and Lockran carried on the spirit of Greek Street 1966 heroically for while.

But now we are left with, what we are left with.