Sorry for my part in the thread drift. I've started a new thread about what makes a good traddish folk club. You can all get back the pressing question of books, good or bad...

By the way, I'm not very good at learning the words to songs. And even when I learn them in order to sing them on a particular night, they're invariably gone a few days later. However, I'm not personally prepared to go into a club/singaround with the words in front of me any more (though I have done this in the past). Not sure why, but for me it just doesn't feel right. I wouldn't seek to impose this on others, it's just that for me, if a song's worth singing, it's worth learning. If I want to sing something, I have to practice it (usually in the car) plenty of times first - fort the sake of getting the tune somewhere near right and getting the "feel" of the song right as much as anything else. Inevitably, with repetition, the words seem to rub off on me one way or another. However, if I haven't had the time to learn & practice, I go to the singaround to sit and listen and join in the odd chorus.