As ever, you appear to deal only in dismissive cliches - "subjective is dismissing out-of-hand over a century's research and experience to justify your own approach to singing and lack of research

I'm defending my position against your relentless onslaught, Jim - I'm just a singer who sings things as he sees fit to sing them; in this I'm not different from any other singer. Like I say, if you don't like it, fine - but to use a barrage of Occult Revival Law in order to justify why your opinion is the correct one seems a little OTT. As for research, I'm researching all the time, it goes with the territory; one can't just sing Traditioonal Songs without researching them or being aware of their provenance. That's part of the fun, and thus can I say that (AFAIK) Child #102 has never been recorded by a traditional singer.

you have never at any time put forward and argument for why everybody else got it wrong and your pontifications (no great argument put forward for those either) are right.

I feel the revival is predicated on the myth that Folk Music is instrinically different from other music - as outlined in the 1954 Definition. As I've suggested elsewhere, there is nothing in the 1954 Defnition that can't be applied to any other genre of music, all of which are based on community and tradition. People are people; Music is music; Language is Language. I'm not suggesting that all music is, therefore, Folk Music*; rather that Folk Music is an idiomatic genre best understood musicologically as we would any other genre, and not in terms of a defination which tells us a much as the Horse Definition. That is what I believe to be true. I also believe that the Folk Myth, like the revival itself, is a manifestation of Imperialistic Class Condescension and reciprocal deference. Folk was defined from on high - not by the people who did it; its archives, methodology and infrastructure are entirely alien to the nature of the beast itself. You are a collector; you not part of the Tradition you claim to represent, though your perception of that tradition is a crucial factor in its existence. I believe there are still billions of species of marine life awaiting their correct name and status in the taxonomical scheme of things; until such a time, they just get on with it regardless.   

Like your approach to ballads - that's been done before

Isn't that in the nature of balladry though? To do things that have been done before? Like I say, I'm not trying to do anything new, rather seeing the ballads in terms of their own intrinsic freshness and how a more improvisatory approach works in practise. I can't think of anyone who's done anything quite like that in the revival, but I can think of plenty of Traditional Singers, from whom I take my cue. Each to their own though - where you see concensus and rules, I see idiosyncratic quirkiness and eccentricity. You're a Death Eater, Jim - still in service to the Dark Lord Manacle Cowl whose mission was the abolition of Joy on Earth. At least it was on the two or three occasions I saw him - I was depressed for days and one occasion was even moved to write a letter to Folk Roots under the name of Ralph Harris. It was published as 'Ewan Whose Army?' though sadly I no longer have a copy myself... I am a Fun Guy, not a Tyrant; I hate Tyrants and I hate Tyranny.

Dave Harker fell at the first fence thirty years ago with a similar approach - his out-with-the-baby and-the-bathwater technique and, as with you, his refusal to discuss his pronouncements tripped him up somewhat.

Well, I've got a copy of Harker's fabled Fakesong in the pile awaiting my attention (maybe once I'm done with Mike Barnes' examplary biography of Captain Beefheart which is costing me a small fortune in CDs as most of my vinyl got lost years ago, but then I've got Jeanette Leech's Seasons they Change and Drumbo's own book on Beefheart awaiting my attention too). I've skimmed it though, and found it remarkably uncontroversial given the reactions on here on Mudcat whenever it's mentioned. I found Georgina Boyes' Imagined Village far more harrowing as an account of the revival, confirming all my very worst fears, but most people don't seem to have an issue with this wholesale misappropriation, manipulation and reivention of working-class culture as being something it never was. It brought me out in hives; hence my Steamfolk idea, which was a personal salve to the issue really. Folk is a Myth; once you collect it, you only confirm that myth. Folk is also what people love; what people do; it's the creative work of thousands of singers and musicians who do it for JOY not occult correctness. They are Wizards and Witches - not Death Eaters.

If anything confirms your 'folkie' pedigree, it's your wonderful "TV evagelised Celtic Woman Sean Nos" - straight out of the American "Oirish" scene.

That was yours, Jim - which you confirm with your assesment of the Purity, Correctness and Authenticity of State Funded Irish Folk as oppose to bastardised versions we must suffer over here in the Third World multi-cultural UK. Personally, I know where I'd rather be if your churlish mutterings are anything to go by. As a cultural pragmatist I KNOW that Popular Culture Is What Popular Culture Does; you can't box it, preserve it, collect it, revive it, define it, or tell it what to do. You can observe it though, abd revel in the mutable beauty of the thing. It's like language and art, it's a living thriving TRADITION consequent on living thriving Human Individuals and the Communities to which they belong - be it Amy Winehouse, Davie Stewart, Eminem, Peter Bellamy, Robert Wyatt, Joe Heaney, Seamus Ennis, Bob Copper or Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

Taking you back up to that earlier asterisk (*), I think you can say the same of The Folk Scene, which celebrates FOLK in similar terms, but rarely with the sort of Hermetical Correctness you might insist upon. The trick is to just love what you love, do what you do, and let others do likewise without calling them prats for doing it. If you can do this then... yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!