Thanks Jim - that's as eloquent and elegant an exposition of a point of view as anyone could wish for. I wonder if I might probe your viewpoint a little further - purely in the cause of research, you understand? I'll just hop up on the Judgement Seat beside you and insert a couple of small probes... hold still... there - that didn't hurt now, did it...

You mentioned some time ago, in another thread, that one of the aims of MacColl's Critics Group was to encourage performers and writers to produce their own materials within the style of the tradition. EM himself wrote several songs which are now considered classics. Does such material, in your opinion, find a true place in the canon - or does the (c) stamp - there for all to witness - debar it from a place? I suppose what I'm asking here is: is the canon there to be preserved in its "present" state (whatever "present" might mean), or can it grow?

I'm a sucker for melody, and one of the reasons that I've flitted between musical genres is the lure of a good tune, wherever it comes from. So to take an Irish example, where do composers like Carolan fit? Does a three hundred years old history allow the man in? To take a more modern example, I'm passionate about the small pipes playing of Billy Pigg, and I can still be utterly moved by his playing of "The Wild Hills Of Whannies". But I also recall working my way through his composition "Bill Charlton's Fancy" (on tenor banjo, so you probably wouldn't let it in!). However, there it is, in the Northumbrian Piper's Tune Book - "Bill Charlton's Fancy (Pigg)." And a great tune it is too, with variations that get wilder and wilder as they go on!

Now, would you consider such examples as the thin end of some sort of non-folk wedge? Because - if you let them in - where does it all end? Just curious...

Regards,

Will