sorry bot that steve! but my wife's very ill and I am up late - you don't get sparkling wit at 2.40 am!

I was going to bed, and then it struck me.

hasit never occurred to Jim that you don't get to be Ralph McTell without singing and playing hundreds of folk songs. certainly many more than the Copper family have in those exercise books.

you don't get to be that good a guitar accompanist - without spending hours of practice on ethnic styles. Many more than Peggy Seeger has done.

lookat his most famous song - that has a hybrid of several folk styles - streets of London . on the C chord he is he is playing piedmont east coast style, then when he rolls into the e shape - its a sort of Broonzy roll.

his Derek Bentley song - that is a tuning D major - sometines called vestapol - a corruption of Sebastopol. it came originally in the 19th century from England.

McTell has fascinated and drawn more people into folk music than Charles Parkers disciples have ever done - and yet you and they seem to think they are superior to them.
he's done it without being rude and telling anyone he is superior - he's just got on with it.