"who have secure jobs or pensions rather than those getting by on short term work or 'the gig economy'.
You want to try living on a state pension
I do so out of necessity - the 'giggers' do so out of personal choice and most of them also hold down 'day jobs'
This is getting somewhat personal
The left wre the saviour of our folk songs because by and larg they recognised it as 'The Voice of the People'
Sharp was a Fabian Socialist, the current revival was launched by the Workers Music Association - later to become 'Topic Records'
MacColl was singing for pennies from a Manchester cinema queue and went on to help form a breadline agit-prop Theatre - (probably the best in British history) and became a playwright feted by Shaw, Yeats and many of the leading literary figures
He, Peggy, Bert Lloyd and others went on to launch the second folk revival which filled so many lives with pleasure and a sense of achievement
The Lomax's dredged the U.S. prisons for their material and left a treasure store of American music - I can think of no greater contributor to American (and world-wide culture
His reward was to be chased from his home country by the Right wing McCarthy witch-hunts - singers like Pete Seeger were not so lucky and fell victim to that outburst of American democracy.
I knew many of those dedicated people and find this sour-grapes right-wing attack rather distasteful - they did what they did because of tehir commitment to the music - I never knew their politics to in any way intrude on that

I have no problem with a poet being remunerated - I welcome it - most are not
In my experience, shepherd, lad workers, labourers were not paid for playing at dances, most of them did so for the sheer pleasure of doing so - money has only recently become an issue and has, in my opinion, done as much damage as 'the Folk Boom, in killing off the democracy of the music and replacing it with a need to 'make a name'
This at the time folk song in Britain is sinking out of sight and needs all the volunteer dedicated support it can get

The best example of the old attitude to playing was related to us by radio broadcaster Ciaran Mac Mathuna, who scoured Ireland looking for songs and music at a time when there was very little money for such luxuries
One night he recorded an old fiddle player farmer in Kerry and, at the end of the session said, "Well now there's the business of a small recording fee"
The old man thought for a minute and said, "Well, there's no money in the house right now, but I'm taking a bullock to the market in the morning if you don't mind waiting"
That has been our experience through our thirty odd years of collecting - payment was an anathema, raher than an objective
Jim Carroll