Bob Copper is 87, and he's probably better than ever these days. Martin Carthy at 60 or so is a craftier performer and a more accomplished musician tha he was forty years ago. Ewan MacColl showed no signs of peaking when he went and died on us.

That's what's special about folk music. Not that that isn't just as true of some people in other musics. What gets in the way of it is people trying to keep repeating what they were doing when they got noticed all those years ago. I don't mean singing the same songs, traditional singers always do that, I mean trying to be their own clones.