It's interesting how the bigotry and small-mindedness is coming not from the "elitist" traditional music gang, but from people like GUEST who seem to be bubbling over with contempt for anyone who prefers traditional music. Speaking for myself, I gravitate to traditional music because it is more interesting, more beautiful and more powerful than most stuff available now. However, it's important to stress the qualifying word "most". All the great traditional songs were created by somebody, even Lord Randall. As somebody else pointed out, the traditional songs we know today have survived because they were important enough to somebody to learn and pass them on. There are fine songwriters active today, just as there have always been, and I will go out of my way to listen to them, and I will spend more money than I should on their CDs. However, what I do not have time for is the whiney, self-indulgent, tuneless, and musically ignorant type of musician that is so common at some festivals. These are the folks that, if you ask them if they know any traditional songs, would look at you as if you had suggested they might want to indulge in unnatural acts with small, furry animals.

I also don't understand why, to follow up on an earlier post on this thread, if you like Ricky Skaggs, Roseanne Cash or Kathy Moffat (as I do), it should be necessary to denigrate sea shanties or traditional music from, say, the British Isles or New England.

Anyway, back to the thread topic. I have sometimes found it depressing to find myself, at 46, among the younger crowd at folk events. We don't have too many folk clubs in Canada, so I can't comment on the folk club scene, but I have noticed the phenomenon at various festivals. However, there are some encouraging signs too. If you want to see a good mix of ages, go the Celtic College in Goderich, Ontario in August, and the Celtic Roots Festival that follows immediately after. I heard fabulous traditional music in the Orkney Islands played by people of all ages. Lots of people in this thread have had similar experiences.

I think if people who know traditional music care enough to pass it on to their children, or to younger musicians and singers, some of the seeds will take root. My father listened to classical music, not folk, and I resisted. I didn't understand it. Now I occasionally amaze myself by realizing that I like listening to opera. I love the singing of Carlo Bergonzi and Jussi Bjoerling. I would walk barefoot through the snow for a ticket to a Bryn Terfel concert.

The days of the great folk scare are never coming back. That's OK. The music hasn't gone away, and I doubt that it will in the future.

CET