"Presenting made up information and passing it off as true is unpardonable."
I am referring to to Lloyd making up songs and passing them off as tradtional, I do not think there is anything wrong with that, in fact Lloyd did us a favour, he enriched our repertoire, at that time it is possible and in my opinion probable, that those songs that lloyd collected or wrote, would not have been sung, if Lloyd had been honest. Lloyds actions have to be seen in the context of the time that they were done, it is sad comment on the UK revival at that time.
Tradtional song has always been made up, altered[consciously or unconciously], that is the nature of a living TRADTION.
Nick Dow says"I would have been devastated if he had been proved to be making some of it up".
ok, lets take the song While Gamekeepers lie sleeping, a fragment of a song generally speaking, apart from the version Bob Roberts sings, which has an interesting storyline, I believe although i cannot prove[anymore than anyone can prove Lloyd wrote the recruited collier] Bob Roberts made it up, I am not devastated, I sing the song on its merits, because it is the best version, that should in my opinion be the criteria for singing a song.. its merits.
Bob Roberts [tradtional singer] sang the song and by not saying anything about its origins gave the impression it was traditional, has or did anyone criticise/ criticised Roberts for doing this, I dont think so, yet people are crticising for Bert for POSSIBLY doing something similiar.
Nick Dow says "If I can do anything at all it's because I have learned from people who can do it better"
here he speaks the truth
like myself he listened to traditional singers as well as revival singers and guitarist like Jones and Carthy, and his blues style has also resulted in listening as he says to" people who can do it better"
but rarely do people in other fields other than UK TRAD get so upset about The so called passing off of songs which are in fact composed and then passed off as trad songs, yet they forget that all songs were composed at some point and many trad songs have been altered by anonymous writers sometimes accidentally, sometimes deliberately, the nature of a healthy tradition is that it evolves and incorprates new songs.
I repeat, no one criticises Bob Roberts[trad singer] for improving songs and not admitting to it, yet we have a lot of talk about Lloyd, double standards?