My previous post on minimum standards refers. I am largely impressed by the arguments advanced in this thread, and would endorse Jim C's post of 05.08, supra.

Wanting to sing is not enough. The basic ability to play your instrument in tune ; to have a reasonable command of the words, from memory ; to empathise with and 'read' your audience

    (e.g., in a folk club which might specialise in contemporary
    song

    [dreadful term - don't misunderstand me - I am
    not condemning this style of song, just that descriptive term]

    there's not a great deal of point in singing from the
    Tradition ; and if a club be principally a club which
    specialises in song from the Tradition, it might not be a good
    idea to sing that song wot I wrote on a piece of shit paper
    during the first interval)

without it seems like you've the poker up your arse; are the minimum standards, for me. I add another criterion which you may read later in this post.

I have never understood this 'good enough/near enough for folk', even from Alex Campbell in his heyday. The music which we all, on the 'Cat, love, deserves a leetle more reverence than this approach ; and, no, I ain't saying that you have to be a fucking Segovia before you play guitar in a Folk Club.

I can cringe, now, thinking back to when I first started. As the result of having had a "Sam Larner" moment (infra) I packed in playing bass guitar in a beat group (that ages me, don't it ?). Having had my "Sam Larner" moment - seeing Martin Carthy at The Navigation, Lancashire Hill, Stockport, October 9th 1966, I borrowed a guitar, but hadn't a clue what to do with the two extra
strings :-).

It might be, it almost certainly is, that perhaps audiences weren't as critical then as they seem to be now. Note that I speak only for myself, here. Perhaps it is as well ; I can remember times I got down off the stage thinking "I made a right balls of that and I don't half feel a big tit because of it".

I think, though, that by dint of hard graft and much practice, and a burgeoning love for songs from the Tradition which endures to this day, I did attain the minimum standard (above, and Jim's post of 0508).

Another part of the minimum standard, again, only for me : If you have an ego, the folk scene ain't a good place for it. I have heard Ewan McColl described as having an ego. I never saw this - respect and love of, and for, OUR music, yes ; and the expectation that those who had come to share it, when he and Peggy were in concert, would by their sheer presence, share that love and respect.

At the risk of thread drift, I have noticed that kids, dogs and farts have one thing in common : everyone thinks that their own are wonderful.