Dave

That should have read

THERE WAS NO INSULT INTENDED TO YOUR GOOD SELF>

Richard

I'm not sure I have a hostility. I suppose I first heard a song like Geordie done by Joan Baez and I think most people can dig it that way.

Then you hear Carthy's version (is it Karpeles, he reckons to have got it from) and the approach seems obscurantist Calculated to throw the average listener off the scent of a good folksong experience.

Similarly Baez's version on of Henry martin seems like a rattling good song. By the time its become Lofty Tall Ships (from sam Larner I believe) - its like a lyrical fragment - rather than awhole song. I don't know if you've ever seen a complete works of Shelley - but its as though, someone has said bollocks to prometheus Unbound and the Mask of Anarchy - the real poetry is all these twatty little fragments.

Of course Carthy redeems himself a million times over by being possibly the greatest guiar player of our generation. But add some cack handed sod trying to duplicate his work or singing the words from a loose leaf folder, unaccompanied and in and out of key like a fiddlers elbow - and you've got a complete hit job on folk music.

Some of my problem could stem from being an ex remedial teacher. Make things as simple as you can. Simplify them. Don't change yur mind halfway through the lesson.

I rather envy these blokes who can make a living from being complex subtle and all the rest of it! Pure jealousy really!