Though I quoted a larger bit in the "Singing from Books : WHY?" thread, back in April, I thought the following bit had some relevance to this thread. It's from Jim Lloyd, the then new Director of the EFD&SS (UK), c. 1985, :

"There's the problem that we've grown into this idea of "excellence". When I was young, everybody had a party piece. That's stopped now. The level of performance has got so high, we can listen to the best in the world, you feel inadequate. The whole Arts structure is to have academies where you take people who are good and make them excellent, then everyone else who's mediocre sits around and watches them. With Folk, we're fighting against that. The basis of Folk is that it's communal, everyone can do it, and we have to get back to that. That's not to say you SHOULDN'T master the Art, as many old singers DID - too many people think you can just stand up a bit drunk and do it. There's more to it than THAT!!"

Also of relevance is that great Claudia Schmidt song called "WE HOLD BACK" ~ if it's not in the DT, I'll post it separately.

CheerS! R-J