"I seem to remember Martin Carthy (at one of the National festivals at Sutton Bonington) saying he doesn't sing Fanny Blair any more, because he no longer thinks Young Higgins was innocent?"
Jesus ,what crap.
Martin is a fine performer, But his views are just his views, his thoughts are always worth considering, but they are not some sort of Gospel
The song Tom Dooley,It transpires that he was innocent, so do we not sing the song? my answer is sing the song, then either point this out in the introduction[as Doc Watson does] or add another verse as I have done, songs are living entities, and to quote Martin Carthy again, the only harm that can be done to a folk song is not to sing it.
so can this politically correct piffle, stop