"no one is asking how we make up for not paying Joseph Taylor, Harry Cox et al are they?"
I agree entirely, but faced with the situation as it stands at present the question at hand is what do we do about it now.
We were never in a position to pay our singers and we made that clear from day 1. What we agreed with them was that any money arising from the recordings we made should be theirs by right, and as far as this was possible we stuck to that.
We also agreed with them - in writing - that in the case of us not being able to contact them, ( particularly the situation with the Travellers) the money should be ploughed back into the music somehow.
We have honoured this agreement by donating all proceeds to The National Sound Archive in London or The Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin.
In some ways it is an academic point as any money arising from the use of recordings has been so pitifully small that it didn't really matter - I think you'll find that the avarage punter would be more inclined to buy Martin Carthy singing The Barley Straw rather than Harry Cox - the same goes for Christie Moore's Well Below The Valley rather than John Reilly's.
My motive in raising the question was to suggest that cash needs to be raised to preserve and make available the songs and music of people most of whom are now dead.
None of the singers we ever recorded ever raised the question of payment; we had to do that.
The attitude of singers we met was summed up by Irish broadcaster Cairán MacMathúna's story of recording an old Kerry fiddle player for one of his programmes.
After the session, MacMathúna said, "There will be a recording fee for this".
The old man thought for a minute and said, "I don't have any money in the house at the moment, but I'm taking a bullock to the mart in the morning, so if you come back tomorow I should be able to pay you then".
Jim Carroll