"The decades following Jones's accident were largely barren for British folk music..."

Having played my first gig in 1981, I fear I must bear my small share of responsibility for those barren years. So too must Kathryn Tickell, Eliza Carthy, Nancy Kerr, Pete Morton, Janet Russell, Coope, Boyes & Simpson, Brass Monkey and many, many more artists who emerged during the deluge of mediocrity in the decade or so following Nic's accident. The established acts were also putting out desperately ordinary stuff during this period, of course. Even Richard Thompson couldn't run to anything better than Hand of Kindness and Rumor and Sigh.

A few comments on the Guardian website about this, too...

Regarding open tunings, any musician is entitled to criticise their own past output but, even though I don't doubt that a musician of Nic's talents could have constructed excellent arrangements of Canadee-I-O, Billy Don't You Weep For Me or Ten Thousand Miles in EADGBE tuning, I can't help wondering whether they'd actually have sounded quite as sweet.