You can't look at the individual in isolation, a folk song is the sum of a number of individuals' creativity. What bit of this don't you agree with?

I disagree that such a procedure is any different from what happens in any other music and that it might be dubbed The Folk Process as a consequence. You must look at the individual in isolation otherwise fall victim to the entrenched romanticism attending the notions of community, anon and, dare I say, traditional so beloved of Folkies. If you believe this to be the case too, we have no argument, but hold on...   

To go back to an earlier example, we have simply no way of knowing how much of John England's version of "Seeds of Love" was his own creation and how much of it came from the singers he learned it from.

Seeds of Love has many elements in common with other traditional songs; it is comprised of those elements, and others, assembled with great ingenuity by the singer, much as any singer does in the working out of his own version of an existing song, or creating a new song from particular elements, as is evidently the case here. Does the melody exist elsewhere? Has Seeds of Love ever been collected from a source independent of John England? If not, then I suggest Seeds of Love is John England's creation and that the mechanism of The Tradition and The Folk Process is not one of anonymous unwitting communality (as suggested by the 1954 Definition) but one of very careful, purposeful masterful craftsmanship of given individuals. It is not some random Darwinian survival of the fittest a has been suggested; on the contrary, it is the result of master craftsmanship and a meticulous attention to musical detail.   

You haven't answered my other question: when the words you have used to describe the music at your club are perfectly adequate, what is added by throwing the label "folk" over it all?

It's not me that does that, Howard - it is in the very nature of Folk to do that because whatever genres the individual Folk Musician might aspire to, it is generally only in Folk Contexts they might find an audience - and an appreciative one at that. We're not talking about professionals here, rather passionate amateurs, variously gifted, who bring their unique talents to the fold. Thus Folk isn't a type of music - it's the context in which they do the type of music they play. I'm not proposing this as some fantasy - it happens in every folk club I've ever been to a greater or lesser extent. Even in the Professional Folk World, Folk Artists regularly push the boat into other areas and yet they remain popular with Folk audiences. Do hip-hop audiences dig the rap versions of folk songs various Folk Artists have given us of late? Does Tim Westwood play The Imagined Village on his radio show? With few crossovers, Folk remains quite contentedly sealed and those artists who reach out to snatch at other genres invariably do so in the name of folk. That's what Roots was all about - as evidenced by the sort of musics covered by the magazine fRoots or else played on Folk on 2, precious little of which would qualify as Folk according to the 1954 Definition but remains Folk nevertheless.

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If you post a video in this discussion, introducing it with Here's another new Jim Eldon video - the last English Traditional Singer & an example to us all:, one naturally assumes you are posting something you would like others to think of as a traditional song.

Very fundamental to the nature of Traditional Singers is that they are not duty bound to sing only Traditional Songs, but also might reach out and grab what they can and absorb them into their idiomatic repertoire where they are transfigured with respect of a tradition without actually being traditional in the 1954 sense.

If you didn't want people to think that you think this song is traditional, you should introduce with something like Here's another great Jim Eldon video I'd like to share. Not traditional at all, but entertaining nonetheless.

In the words of Pontius Pilate: I have written what I have written.

I have to say, SS, it gets harder and harder to refrain from ad hominem attacks against you when faced with this kind of thing.

Don't blame me for own lack of understanding when all I've done is to be so good as to spend my precious time clarifying something which should be fairly obvious, especially to a self-confessed member of the traditional music community.

Let's see if I can do this politely: What in the world were you thinking?

I've explained what I was thinking - I've explained it until I'm blue in the face; most of my posts on this infernal thread have been in answer to the questions of others. Go back and read them.

Why are you wasting everyone's time?

On the contrary - it is my time that's being wasted here simply by having the good grace to response to posts such as this one. No one is soliciting your response, JP - I only write here when solicited to do so.

If you don't think that song is traditional, why did you spend any time at all defending it by blathering on about individual creativity being part of the folk process and tradition?

Why? Because for one thing you asked me to do so and for another because without individual creativity there would be no folk process or tradition in the first place.

Otherwise - it is my firm conviction that Jim Eldon is a very important figure in the field of Tradition English Folk Song and what he does matters a good deal. It is also my firm conviction that the Tradition isn't dead, that it lives on in people such as Jim Eldon and countless others whose names aren't even known outside of their respective folk clubs - no doubt even yourself. What I see is a very beautiful community of individual singers learning & singing traditional songs - even people who've only sang once or twice in public, newcomers, old and young, their lives transformed with respect of a tradition that they themselves are transforming simply by the singing of it. I see that it still has great potency, and that potency is of supreme importance.