i was just listening to Josh white's 25 minute discursive version of John Henry - Josh ambles playfully through half a dozen songs and playing styles, demonstrating total mastery of his material.

i just feel it should be more like that than amateur hour. and we should all aim for that. we don't achieve that - but its what we should aim for.

in England of course we have this problem - there is this huge difference between what traditional singers sound like, and what the public expect from professional entertainers. i guess its the same in America.

however the distance is so marked that 'serious' folksingers like Carthy try to emulate a traditional version of a song like Geordie, and its different from the sprightly version like Joan Baez, who presumably would regard herself as folk song populariser like Josh.

what i'm saying is that the professional examples in England are sometimes halting and ragged sounding. and i think people confuse the studied raggedness of Carthy and the late Peter Bellamy for being rough and ready.

personally, give me slick and professional every time. but thats probably cos i'm old and i grew up with the popularisers like Seeger PPM, Sonny and Brownie - largely American - i suppose. mind you we had our popularisers - the Spinners, The Corries, and much despised they were!

the English folkscene is a bit schizophrenic!