You're right about the dates, though

I'm right about the other stuff too. By saying he wasn't concerned I'm saying he thought they were bollocks. He made no secret of that, which, together with the political legacy of his father and his over-fondness for Kipling's particular brand of jingoistic paternalism made people wary to say the least.

I don't know the interview to which you refer but I'd be surprised (& dismayed) if he was referring to the genuine working-class WMC Tradition that we see on W&SSC as oppose to that weird pastiche of it you find in certain regions of the folk world. Bottom line is, in over-estimating both the size and seriousness of the folk scene, not to mention its appreciation & tolerance of his genius, PB managed to piss a lot of people off.

*

My immediate response to the news of PB's tragic & untimely passing was to work up a solo version of William Lawes' Music, the Master of Thy Art is Dead (for John Tomkins, d. 1638) which I sang a couple of times hoping it would be obvious:

Music, the Master of thy Art is dead,
And with him all ravish'd sweets are fled;
then bear a part in thine own Tragedy:
Let's celebrate strange griefs with harmony.
Instead of teares shed on his mournful Hearse
Let's Howle sad notes
Stol'n from his own pure verse.

Peter Bellamy died on the same day as William Lawes, who met his own untimely end at the Battle of Rowton Heath near Chester 346 years earlier, aged 43.