"Jim, much as I hate to say this, you are just holding hoops up and the more I jump,"
Now, it seems, people are re-inventing dictionary definitions to suit a declining interest in folk song
I hope to god that this forum is not representative of what is happening elsewhere.

"All of that is your opinion and interpretation, Jim! "
No it isn't Steve - I observed the exodus from the scene and am still in touch with many who walked away from it - people who began to feel unwelcome when they sang unaccompanied songs, or "unappropriated" long ballads (as they have been described here) or boring "sepia" folk songs (as the also have been described here.
Dave put up 186 folk clubs along with a list of non-folk star performers as "a successful" folk song scene.
The term "tradition" I took from the dictionary - to describe the drift from folk song as "a traditio" insults the English language and the intelligence
If Steve's "religious cause" insult is anything to go by, the research side of folk song is in as bad a state as the cli=ubs, but at least thety are putting up projects like the maginficent Carpenter Collection - let's hope the future generations will respect it far more that the contributors here have, it's far to dominated by "inappropriate" long ballads for the present crowd
One wonders what people like Norman Buchan, Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson would have made of all this depressing nonsense
When we interviewed Ewan back in the early eighties he put it in a nutshell - "folk song will only die if it falls into the hands of people who don't like it or don't understand it"
We've had examples of that in one form or the other over these discussions
Dave
I have asked you a simple question - you claim that Galway Girl is 'folky' - I ask you to present a folk song that sounds anything like that
If you consider that "a hoop" then we really are finished here - if you are unable to do that, then my point is made - it has nothing whatever to do with folk song
I have bust a gut responding to every point that has been put up - I have got nothing in return
You are doing exactly what you accuse me of - shame on you for suggesting otherwise
You have answered nothing
Jim Carroll