Phil beer could piss rings round virtually any other trad musician

Hmmm, yes, some . . .

As I remarked much higher in the thread, he's up for Musician Of The Year and, based on the opposition, only John McCusker is a serious rival. Not that I have anything whatsoever against Martin Simpson or Tom McConville but how it works is what have they actually DONE in the past 12 months.

What I'd personally like to see is musicians involved in diverse, wide-ranging and interesting projects that the mainstream never hears about. Like Karen Tweed, Sam Sweeney, Elle Osborne, (non-W:C, not that I have anything against them either) Saul Rose, John Dipper, Adam Bushell, Laura Cannell, the Brothers Sutton, Emma Reid, Chris Walshaw . . . people like that who are not exactly R2, are they? And jolly marvellous old blokes like Reg Hall, Keith Kendrick, Pete Coe, Brian Peters John Adams or Chris Foster. R3, yes, maybe, but absolutely non-Smoothie. Context is all.