"Nobody is being dishonest or stating that 'Sam' etc are irrelevant. For heaven's sake!"
Explain this
"Sam Larner, Scan Tester, Phil Tanner etc were part of a lifestyle and ofcommunities which no longer exist, and their songs were a part of that lost way of lifese. "
You might explain this as well
"And now it seems Jim is agreeing with me, because he is apparently referring to people not linking folk music with the result that it died."
"Though 'the tradition' was pretty much on its way out by his time as far as I can see."
The tradition was dying when Sharp and his collegues were collecting - the BBC carried out a 'mopping up' campaign in the early 1950s from people who were largely remembering songs from a tradition that had died
In the late fifties the revival used the recordings to escape from the pop pap - few of the revival singers had learned their songs traditionally but used the BBC recordings and books like 'The Penguin Book of Folk Songs'
Even Walter Pardon had not really been part of a living tradition - that disappeared when he was a young child
He systematically wrote down his family songs (we have his books) and memorised the tunes on a melodeon
"I think it would be almost impossible to find out how many folk clubs there currently are in the UK today; "
An accurate figure isn't particularly important - the inescapable fact is that the number of clubs have shrunk to a massive degree and those involved in running them are mainly of 'a certain age'
Many of the youngsters people throw up as up-and-coming are the 'names' who have had a degree of success - it seems the dogsbodies and instigators with a feel for the tradition are not being replaced at the rate they need to be
No matter how many clubs there are, those catering for folk song proper are a minority of a shrinking number
Nobody seems interested in addressing that point and the effect it has on the future access to traditional song
My generation - right though the 'Swingin' Sixties' took great pleasure from listening to and singing long ballads, transportation songs, bawdy songs, songs about press gangs and work at sea and going to war.....
We weren't freaks or intellectuals ploutering in the past - we were ordinary youngsters enjoying the creations of our forefathers - pretty well the same as some of us took (and still take) pleasure in reading Dickens and Hardy or watching plays by Shakespeare
I see Irish youngsters in their thousands beginning to get the same pleasure from creations of the past and making it their own now - why can't that happen back home I wonder
That's part of the responsibility we took on when we came to folk song
Jim Carroll