Captain Birdseye wrote: "I am taking a tiny step towards introducing an aspect of American culture ,to English Folk clubs."

But, as people have already said, that aspect of American culture has developed for a particular reason.

"professional folksingers are lowerpaid than catering staff".

I'm not so sure about that. Catering staff (not the owners of the business, but rather the people on the floor) tend to be paid hourly like most other people. Unlike professional or semi-professional performers, travelling expenses and the like tend not to come into it: you're paid for actual job against the time you actually do it - work per hour. On that basis, I'm not really sure about many professional or semi-professional performers get paid £5.73 to, say, £7.50 for an hour-long set.

I'd rather buy a cd, t-shirt than give a tip. Given that the likes of a minimum wage were so long in coming in the UK, I think it's pretty messed-up that you want to bring over a custom from America that is pretty much out-of-step with the rest of America's employment rights in the first place.