Scottish folk music is now ruled by a "media mafia" it's depressing and empty, just bands trying to get famous......like pop you've now got to know the right people and lick the right arses.
The folk academies up here turn out groups which all sound the same and who murder all the good songs and tunes in the same manner.
Folk music was never about technical ability, it is about raw emotion, the magic ingredient.
In the days even before the revival, I can remember pub and small ceilidh singers who were magic on legs.

Jim I was not pointing at the singers club, one of my personal favourites Gordeanna McCulloch joined many years ago one of the best folk singers Scotland ever produced, with only two CDs to her name, but she devoted her life to teaching and singing all over the country, keeping the tradition alive.
Chorus singing and the groups who performed it were treated with derision, not by the clubs, but by the new breed of would be celebrity performers, who were dedicated only to making a name for themselves.

MacColl knew what it was all about.