"Instead of getting young people to play and getting people involved long term in their heritage while it was cool it generated really good bands who played good arrangements of folk songs. Great at the time, but given a decade or two it's just what those smelly old hippies were into."

I think that this summation, while not flattering, is possibly fairly accurate. Kids are *by and large* never into what was cool for their Grandparents. Bar fits of retro chic, they create their own cool and so they should too. On top of that the revival spawned an entire multi-tentacled 'genre' of easy listening acoustic music which adopted the 'folk' label. So while the popular and commercial elements of singer / songwriter contemporary folk endure still, the traditional material which initially inspired the revival, ultimately ended up submerged and largely forgotten within the genre. More recently there appears to be a growing trend for young bands to return to the well-spring - which is all well and good. Yet it will pass, as do all popular trends. In the long term however, this flush of fresh interest could represent a useful turning point in encouraging the powers that be, to recognise traditional music as a valid area of public interest worthy of some formal backing and support to ensure that it doesn't get lost to public view again. Hells bells, if I had to read bluddy Susan Cooper and Ted Hughs 'for my own good', why not a bit of traditional song?

"Add to this a slightly curatorial approach which tries to perfectly preserve music in a state in which it was never encountered and stifles creativity, and you've got a massive turn off."

I tend to disagree on this point. I've found the folk traditionalists I've encountered on this forum and in person, to be extremely encouraging and supportive. Sure there are 'characters' amongst them and some will express annoyance at things not being done in a way they might prefer - for the *musics* sake. But I came in with an attitude of wanting to learn about something I found new and interesting, and I hope some due respect for others who have probably been working with traditional music in one way or another, for longer than I've been alive. In any event I think with any creative discipline, it's simple sense to get the foundations down before experimenting.