Re 'quaint':

What I actually said was that "some of those ideas seem quaint now". That is not to deny that some (or many) of the ideas were valuable at the time, and may indeed be useful now.

But to me it seems quaint to look back on a time when a single pedagogue could hold a group of acolytes in such thrall. Even in my early days on the Manchester folk scene (1980s) there were people around who still believed in the gospel of Ewan as if there were no other valid approach. Back in the heyday of the Critics Group it was probably true that MacColl knew much more about the subject than anyone else (excepting Bert, of course), and newcomers must have marvelled at his depth of knowledge and been delighted to have him share it. These days we have democratization of information, and anyone who is so inspired can get hold fairly easily of any number of the source recordings and documents that in those days were available only to the most dedicated researchers. Young singers have it all at their fingertips, and they are not deferential to the older generation, though they may respect us.

Vic was kind enough to give a plug to a recent venture of mine involving young performers (incidentally, Vic, my own sons are 21 and 27, so less of the 'old enough to be their grandfather', thank you!). If I were to say to any of those singers, "Sorry, but you're doing it all wrong, this is how you should do it", they would laugh in my face. They respect the way I do it, but are quite capable of developing their own style and approach. I might well say to them (as people like Roy Harris and Martin Carthy once said to me, to their eternal credit): "Ah, but have you heard Phil Tanner's version of that one?", but that's as far as I'd want to go in prescribing anything - and they've most likely heard Phil Tanner already anyway. Put me in front of a song workshop and I'll try to pass on what I know - but not, I hope dictate.

I also find the idea of applying Stanislavski to folk song performance rather quaint (and I wonder how much longer Stanislavski will hold sway in the acting profession, after seeing the recent documentary on Mike Leigh). No-one believes more strongly than I do in the value of looking hard at a ballad and trying to get to the beating heart of it, but this 'sing as an actor' business is over-rated IMO. I don't buy the idea that attempting to perform say 'Little Musgrave' from the point of view of the three main protagonists is going to affect materially the perception of the story by the listener, and the example presented in the programme didn't convince me. I'm interested to hear about Jim's recording of alternative approaches to 'The Gypsy Laddie', but do ballad singers really get bored by singing the same ballad over and over and feeling the same emotions? I know I don't. Would it be useful to sing 'Long Lankin' from the point of view of the false nurse? I don't think so.

My wife, who's just heard the programme, remarked that the 'method acting' approach came across as a device presented by someone with a background in theatre, to impress by mystification. It might have had some value as a means of getting singers to really think about their songs but, again, I can't see younger singers wanting to go through all that. And they, after all, are the future of this kind of music.