the downturn in the eighties

The cause was unfunny "comedians" and failed popsinger snigger-snoggers. Any sort of noise with some vague connection to someone who had a cousin who once owned an acoustic guitar, to the extent that the word "f*lk" (and "f*lk club" in particular) became so terminally damaged that punters ran very fast indeed (mostly into the Crown & Anchor, to Dingwalls or to festivals and ceilidhs).

Come the mid-90s, the old guard's offspring + motivated mates came to the fore (Eliza Carthy, Nancy Kerr, Barnaby Stradling, Andy Cutting, Saul Rose . . . that sort of ilk . . . came to the fore, followed by Nancy Wallace, Matt Quinn, the brothers Sutton, the sisters Askew, the Oates siblings and similar bright young progeny.

For over a decade, these artists have been filling venues, enthusing others into emulating their achievements and fast-tracking the tradition at breakneck speed into the future. Which isn't all that different from what Jim Carroll and his associated Critics started off four decades ago.

Déjà vu? Not really as there is such a sense of doing something new with what has been inherited.

There's nothing wrong with what occurs in one little town in Sussex (as far as I know, I can only speak from personal experience of the Royal Oak, never having been to the Lewes Arms or whatever it's called nowadays), but it's a very small part of what's stirring out there.