Although I am not always a fan of the music I hear on "Traditions," I am a great fan of the program and of the woman who has supported live folk music in Washington through this show for nearly 30 years.
"Traditions" is a labor of love for which DJ Mary Cliff gets almost no support from WETA-FM. She does the show basically on her own time -- keeps her personal collection of records at home and schlepps it to the station every Saturday night, makes up a playlist to post on the station's website, answers phone calls from her listeners, announces EVERY performance she knows about (not just those of well-known singers and groups, or of big commercial venues), and generally puts in loads of time so that we can listen to folk music on public radio in DC. I have no doubt that if she weren't so persistent, if she weren't the shop steward for the station -- and the longest surviving staff member there -- WETA would long since have deep-sixed "Traditions" along with all the other good programming they've jettisoned over the years.
Sure, "Traditions" could be more traditional. (Although I'd personally vote for any number of "dreary" Irish traditional ballads over some of the truly wretched can't-write-poetry and can't-sing-in-tune performers/groups that appear with some frequency). Sure, Mary could ramble less. But it's Mary's program, and as I said, it is her personal effort that keeps it on the air. Rather than "review" the program, we ought to be supporting it -- at pledge time with our $$, and by thanking Mary for her efforts and making suggestions about what we'd like to hear.
As for me, I say three cheers to an intrepid woman who has stood up for alternative programming on a station that has long since gone the tedious way of endless news, talk, and "top 40" classical numbers for the rest of its programming. On Saturday nights, this NPR station belongs to real people.