I hung on to see if there were any answers to the questions I asked Bryan and Richard in my last few postings - there weren't of course, and I should have known better than to expect any.
I'll have to assume that the Lewes Club would turn a large proportion of their evening over to non-singers, after all isn't that "what it's all about".
Similarly, I'll have to take it as read that Richard believes folk song to be inferior to all the other preforming arts I mentioned (or maybe that should be 'activities' - for the benefit of those who "reach for their gun at the mention of the word 'art'"). In the absence of information to the contrary, I'll also have to assume that he feels he owes nothing to the people who have taken the trouble to keep our folk songs alive and pass them on to us.
Incidentally Richard, whether we care to admit it or not, we all exercise judgement on other singers "That was a nice piece of singing", "She could have done this/that to it to make it work better", "That accompaniment was too loud", "Jesus, where did he get that crappy/superb text?.....". It's called having taste, and we'd stop thinking and feeling without it. Whether and how we give voice to that taste is a debatable point, but lets not pretend we don't have good/bad opinions on others' performances.
So if we apply standards we lose people - tough - if it means we improve our clubs maybe that's not altogether a bad thing. Do we really need people who are going to 'take their ball home' if somebody comments critically on their singing, or suggests that it might be necessary to hold a tune or learn the words before they stand up in front of an audience?
It's threads like this that make me realise how much we have lost over the last few decades. For all the shite thrown at MacColl and Seeger and their 'influencees', they really did 'bake exceedingly good cakes'. I never failed to come away from one of their evenings without my head and my ears buzzing with well researched (or thoughtfully written), excellently sung songs - all worked on in advance and brought up to a (at the very least) presentable standard. Admittedly, they didn't turn their clubs over to non-singers - they were selfish bastards like that, but, in order to make up for their selfishness, they did establish, help set up or or encourage the setting up of workshops to bring on new singers. I can't recall being involved with a club since the the late sixties which hasn't either organised a singers workshop or had one on hand if required.
The alternative here seems to be that we throw the clubs open to any 'Florence Foster Jenkins' who turns up "wanting to sing". After all, what does it matter if the resident evenings are made abysmal with poor singing; there'll be a guest along in a couple of weeks to pick up the pieces.
All this convinces me that it is not so much a case of 'dropping the baton', but more a competition to see how far into the ditch you can throw it.
It seems to me that unless standards are applied to improve the performances and the image of folk song at the clubs, where it matters the most, it will (deservedly) continue to have the piss taken out of it, will remain as a fifth-rate activity, and will die as a performing art (sorry - activity). Sure, it will survive in archives such as the V.W.M.L. and The National Sound Archive; it might gather a bit of dust there, but hopefully in a few decades time somebody might come along with a duster, clean it up and realise what a diamond we've thrown away.
Jim Carroll