DAVE ,The person who did the bookings was, ged todd not you, if you wish to not improve, that is rather sad and bears out something jim has said elsewhere that one of the reasons for folk clubs losing attendance is the attitude of peopkle like you, who are apparantly happy ..in your own words to not improbve mediocrity.
jim was actually saying that the [if i understand him correctly] that the pursuit of a pleasant sound rather than the importance of clarity of lyrics particularly in narrative ballds turns the music into wallpaper music. i would agree with that.
i believe that if people wish to show off their instrumental dexterity they should do it on instrumentals
to be fair to jon doran, his vocals were much clearer than the clip of the girl singer and on listening a second time there was only one word that was not clear. i believe jon doran has lot of potential so does that other singer, but my advice would be to jon to listen to performers like martyn wyndham read who never let the accompaniment dominate the singing, if the performer is doing a narrative ballad do the instrumental at the beginning or the end.the words of a narrative ballad are the most important thing .in an instrumentalvariation of the tune dynamics and feeling are more important than playing at full blast all the time