Well there's a saying in the music business - if it were easy, every bugger would be doing it.

At college The spinners used to turn up and do a professional gig. As far as I was concerned in those days (the 1960's) the answer was blowing in the wind (man!), so I wasn't really enamoured. Although I can remember being impressed with Hughie's version of Matty Groves.

I suppose it was the 1980's (when I had been, allegedly, a professional musician a number of years) that I grew to respect The Spinners dedication ....and achievement. Even started going to their final gigs. Their work on cd was available at every service station for a quid or less.

The stupid uniforms, the rather wet singalongs, the angularity and simplification of complex folksong forms....they were really clever compromises. They were the intelligent ones - not me (man!...stupid hippy). Because of the compromises they devised a way to make living out of performing a wide range of folksongs. They were the ones who performed The Bleacher Lass of Kelvinhaugh on Pebble Mill at One - and brought a beautiful folksong into millions of homes.

That's an achievement.