It comes over as pure sour grapes when Sean sounds off about elitism and then refuses to back it up with facts.

I have no sour grapes, Jim; I have got on with my music in quiet humility for the past 35 years and I'm very proud of my modest CV which covers my passions in medieval, traditional & experimental music, and often unites all three, like when one of my compositions was featured on a Sonic Arts Network CD alongside my lifelong hero Karlheinz Stockhausen who is as much an inspiration as Phil Tanner. I have, in fact, rejected more Arts Council money than I've ever (directly / indirectly) received on the grounds that I regard arts funding as fundamentally immoral. What draws me to Folk is its essentially feral nature; it's what people do as part of life, and it is maintained and guided by the passions of a few dedicated souls - be they collectors, archivists, record producers, club organisers, festival organisers, shop owners, DJs, radio hosts, punters et al. I regard Folk organisations and degree courses with wry suspicion simply because in my experience Folk Degree and Folk Organisation are oxymoronic to the nature of the beast. I bear no grudges and count myself very lucky indeed to even enjoy the level of respected obscurity that I do.

I don't believe in cultural life-support; I like museums though, and I'm aware of a huge dichotomy / gulf / dialectic of social class issues that differentiates The Tradition from The Revival. I can't help this; I am a working class Marxist by birth though I refute the rights of any self-styled intelligentsia to speak for the proletariat in terms of their life, labour, struggle or art. That is why I insist that Traditional Folk Song & Ballad is the equal of any music on this planet and its value lies in the creative genius of the working-class men and women who made it that way no matter what the Revivalist have to say on the matter over the years. There has been as much cultural condescension as there has been reciprocal deference; this is the way of Folklore.

I think it's best summed up in Kipling's The Land; I find it supremely ironic that some see this as some sort of socialist polemic, when it is, quite obviously, a celebration of the continued servility of the rural working-class under feudalism. If anything underwrites the revival - yes, even to this day - it is ongoing fuedal issues that have never been resolved, and never will because Folk Music is no longer an aspect of working class culture, which has found better things to do with its precious leisure time.