It was all different on this side of the Pond, Murray. I won't talk about the first folk revival led by Cecil Sharp et al; I'll leave that to the experts since I wasn't around at the time.

We had a revival in the 50's too. There was a lot going on then. (I was born in '51, so I don't claim to have had much to do with it!) There was, for instance, the Copper family of Sussex, who were 'discovered' by the BBC and made a lot of radio appearances. (We didn't have any independant local stations like you have in the States, it was everywhere, or not at all.) Then there were the black people coming in from the West Indies, who brought a completely new kind of music to Britain. The Spinners were one of the new bands which sprang up from people who liked the trad style, but weren't necessarily part of the Tradition themselves. There was also something called skiffle, which was (very loosely) based on American skiffle (whatever that was; I've never been able to find any to listen to),

Lonnie Donegan was the best-known of these. He was a banjo and guitar player with a professional jazz band, who started off by doing a few numbers in the break. He took songs by Leadbelly, like Rock Island Line, altered them slightly, and recorded them with the credit 'new words and new music: Donegan'. A lot of the successful skiffle musicians went into mainstream pop or Country & Western in the end; a few went into Rock'n'roll.

By the 60's things had moved on; electric folk had arrived, Julie Felix was on tv, and so on and so forth. And in 1969 I made my first public appearance ...

Well, I'd better rest my fingers now, so they'll be in tip-top pickin' form. Let's hear from the rest of you!

Steve