Azizi

it seems that Americans (from the USA and from Canada?) are more open to people singing along with a performer at more "informal" concerts than are people from the UK. Is that a fair statement?

No it isn't. It should be born in mind that Jim lives in the Republic of Ireland which is not only a separate nation but is culturally different from the UK. Linda is actively involved in the UK folk scene as, in fact, am I whereas Jim rarely goes to UK clubs and gains most of his information at second hand, quite a lot of it by a highly selective reading of Mudcat posts filtered through his own prejudices.

I wouldn't bother were it not for two things. First, I believe that folk clubs and associated sessions and singarounds represent the core of what English folk music is now about (I'll leave others to speak for Scotland, Ireland and Wales) so it hurts me when a strange unholy alliance between Sinister Supository on one hand and Jim on the other seem determined to destroy its reputation and undermine the work of the many folk club organisers who give up their time purely for the love of the music. Second, Jim is a significant figure in the British folk revival. We would all be the poorer without the work he has done with the travellers and with Walter Pardon, whose songs I hear on a weekly basis. It is desperately sad to see him so blinded by his own intransigent attitude to all the good music that is going on these days.

Earlier CupOfTea said "Hush up and listen to this hair raising ballad--sing along on this old chestnut everyone knows".

I've just come away from an excellent evening where both of those happened from one performer. Everybody sat transfixed by the ballad and then joined in the "old chestnut".