Dunno about that.

I don't mind being labelled as a folkie, (got a beard incidentally) yet I don't think I'm too clever to be taken in by hype. I'm thick as shit and taken in by shiny objects. I have every gadget that comes out, and if it says Apple on it I queue to get one.

I do try in my own little way to prick the bubble of pomposity, and sadly I do find a lot of the ruddy stuff in the stereotypes I referred to above....

Record producers make lots out of folk, (assuming I admit that folk is a genre...) In fact, scroll up to the original list. A few zillion $$ there over the years.

Trust me, if the word essential is used, there is an assumption that it is there for a purpose, and if it really were essential then Cowell would be there, just like it was fashionable in the '70s and early '80s for folk club based comedy to appear on Top of the Pops. (Mike Harding, Jasper Carrot, Billy Connolly, Tony Capstick, Fred Wedlock.)

Every dog has his day.

Enjoy what you enjoy, I do. I just don't reckon it is essential. I recall a few months ago getting all upbeat, saying folk tradition as a musical art is having a renaissance due to the young turks and those who followed.

Wow, you should have seen the reaction here on the mudcat thingy.

We wonder if dinosaurs had feathers or scales? They certainly had and still have a chip on their shoulder. Alive and kicking on this very forum. I reckon David Attenborough should pontificate on how life can carry on in the strangest of environments when the animals in question are doing their best to become extinct.

ps. I enjoyed the (American) list. Lots of nostalgia for a bygone age there...