"In which case, old man - you have misunderstood everything I've said here "
Understood everything you've said - watched the somersaults with growing wonderment, and now - really can't be bothered; circuses are like that, aren't they?
Anybody in doubt of what you have been saying (over three threads) is quite able to read them again and make up their own minds, should their stomachs be up to it.
Everything is put in a nutshell for me by your/Armstrong's/Broonzy's 'talking horse' - the last outpost of a deeply agendad folkie bereft of ideas - old bean.
Richard Spencer.
"Have you any plans to publish more of your collections - songs and their context? "
We recorded the speaker, Mikeen McCarthy over thirty years and got well more than 100 tapes of songs, stories, lore and information from him - about the song and story traditions, folklore, ballad selling, passing the songs on.... masses of, we believe, invaluable information on what we have been mud-wrestling over on this thread, and from a far more authorative source than any of us (the horse's mouth - pun intended).
Last year we did three programmes for Irish radio on Irish Travellers in London and the compiler, Paula Carroll (no relation) honed in on Mikeen and devoted an entire programme on him.
It has long been our ambition to turn our recordings of him into a book - an oral autobiography of a Travelling and his family in the days before they became urbanised and abandoned the old trades, along with a substantial collection of songs and stories - we certainly have more than enough material to do so.
Late last year we were awarded a considerable grant from The Arts Council of Ireland in order to get the last remaining tapes of Mikeen transcribed and the music of the songs written out. This has only been made possible by the fact that over here the traditional music enthusiasts spend more time playing, singing and appreciating the music and songs than they do denigrating them (as they appear to prefer on threads like this). It means our dream of publishing is now within reach - the only barrier being the feeling I get after all this garbage "Is it worth the effort - who gives a toss"?
Some time ago Bryan Creer was good enough to point out that it really wasn't our decision, and our real committment was to the people we recorded and those who might appreciate what we were lucky enough to find. So yes - we hope to get down to work as soon as the transcriptions are complete.
In the meantime, Pat and I have written some bits and pieces on Mikeen (and others we recorded) which anybody who is interested is welcome to - thanks for your comment.
Jim Carroll