None of this has any anything to do with either my approval nor my standards. I suggest that unless the clubs cease to allow themselves to be used as musical landfill sites, and unless what goes on there is performed to a basic standard, they will die. You have my suggestion of what those standards should be elsewhere on this thread, but here we go again - REMEMBERING THE WORDS, SINGING IN TUNE AND HAVING ENOUGH OF AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SONGS TO BE ABLE TO CONVEY THEM TO THE LISTENERS.
As far as what material is presented - let's argue about definition if you want but if you give yourself a name - in this case 'folk', you commit yourself to a type of music - god knows, it's become wide enough to cater for a large range of tastes, but as far as I can see, not as wide as - (sorry S O'P - you shouldn't have provided the perfect example in the first place):
"Blues, Shanties, Kipling, Cicely Fox Smith, Music Hall, George Formby, Pop, County, Dylan, Cohen, Cash, Medieval Latin, Beatles, Irish Jigs and Reels, Scottish Strathspeys, Gospel, Rock, Classical Guitar, Native American Chants, Operatic Arias and even the occasional Traditional Song and Ballad", most of which don't come anywhere the term 'folk'. Try pleasing all of the people all of the time and you end up pleasing no-one. I know this from bitter experience when two thirds of the club audiences disappeared in the 80s because folk clubs stopped presenting folk music, and basic standards were abandoned.
"It's a small and shrinking world and we have to live together."
What on earth does that mean - does that mean I can now go to a classical concert expecting east Anglian dance music, or to a recital of operatica arias and expect to enjoy an evening of Gordeanna McCulloch or Ellen Mitchell singing traditional ballads? If not, why not?
You seem to have gone silent on our earlier head-to-head; let's see how we do with this one.
Jim Carroll