Really enjoying getting a little insight into some of the personal Trad autobiographies here. Keep up the stories...

Couple of things that's interesting. Seems lot's of you learned your craft early on through family routes. Fewer of us seem to have 'discovered' the music by ourselves...

I certainly relate to Matt Milton there, with your Hip-Hop intro.
Though I was never a producer of music of any kind, electronica was my main bag during teens and twenties. Which is possibly as far from the core ethos of unacommpanied Trad Song as it's possible to get, being all modern and synthetic and all... ;-)
In fact I still get a real kick out of good solid electronic music, but I've got a feeling that Trad Song is with me to stay now it's found me.

And Sinister Supporters alchemical image, also remind me of a similar personal metaphor I mentioned elsewhere: it feels like I've gone for a rummage in some storytale grandmothers loft, and discovered an enchanted trunk of magically animated ancient photographs. Which when they recieve the breath of life-giving pneuma, each become a living gateway into a unique timeless world, inhabited by figures fullfilling their personal microcosmic and inevitable destinies.
Too captivating...