"how adaptable or intolerant would he be...???"
He would probably have shoved his head in the gas oven as I feel like doing sometimes - though I do take issue with your "diversity"
Abandonment is the word which springs to mind
Might MacColl think things you don't like in modern folk,"
What's modern folk - define it for me?
MacColl would have loved the internet as it exists at present - he talked about it with anticipation when he was alive -
The first thing he and Peggy did when they suddenly became relatively wealthy when one of Ewan's love songs for Peggy hit the charts big-time was to instal a recording studio in their hoe
They produced a series of ballad albums that were the best ever produced as far as I'm concerned and a load of other masterpieces
As far as technology in general, I hope he would have treated it circumspectly as I do
We are involved in an art form that doesn't need amplification (unless you want to put it in a concert hall - I certainly don't
Instrumentation the same - used with taste, it's fine used indiscriminately it's destructive
Our tradition is based around the most intricate, versatile, democratic and the most readily available musical instrument there is - the voice
Accompaniment can enhance it sometimes but most of the time it is totally unnecessary and can be a diabolic hindrance to good singing - even (and sometimes especially) in the hands of a good musician.
I used to sing some of my 300 songs with an accompanist - when I came to leve here I thought I'd have to abandon them
Not the case - I can sow sing them all unaccompanied and make as equal a job with them as i could twenty years ago
Nowadays, too many singers accompany their instruments rather than the other way around - they ruin perfectly good singing of perfectly good songs by catering for unnecessary accompaniment
If you think anty of this technology is way above anything in a folk club we exist on different planes
The most important, and sometimes the only thing a singer needs with him/her is an attentive listening audience
If you don't understand that you don't understand folk singing
Jim