Some really great posts on this thread so far – especially Jim's, which is worth framing and hanging on the wall. But Will, you are the man on my wavelength.

Duke Ellington once said (allegedly) that "There are only two kinds of music: good and bad." Good for you Mr E, but I think there may be other ways to cut the cake in half. For example, why not say that all music is either folk music or showbiz?

From this viewpoint, "folk" music is anything that's played or sung by the people, for the people. Whereas "showbiz" is whatever professional (or semi-professional, or wannabee professional) entertainers present to paying customers (or to casual listeners who might with luck become paying customers).

There is an illuminating story about the Singers Club (possibly legendary, though perhaps Jim or Diane may be able to confirm it).   One evening while Ewan and Peggy were upstairs in the clubroom, rendering "Lord Randall" or something similar for their attentive audience, Bob Davenport was allegedly caught playing truant in the public bar, singing "Lily of Laguna" with a bunch of Irish labourers.

For me, that sums it up. Ewan and Peggy were performing an authentic "traditional" song in a showbiz environment – albeit a fairly low-key one. The audience paid to come in, and E & P took the proceeds home (or perhaps donated them to some charity close to their hearts). Now the song Bob sang wasn't "traditional" – just a commercial pop song preserved for decades in the public memory like a fly in amber. But Bob's singing of it for that company (please note: "company" not "audience") was – I contend - "folk".

Musicians who get up on a stage and perform for a paying audience – whether you label the material they deliver as classical, jazz, blues, soul, country, rock 'n roll, or even "traditional" – are all in showbiz..   Absolutely nothing wrong with that.   We need to be entertained, and we need virtuoso performers to do the job properly for us. And of course, they deserve a decent reward for doing that.

But sometimes we also need music that permits us to take an active part in making it happen. Music that we can share as a community. Music where everyone joins in the chorus, and whoever happens to be singing the verses is a musical enabler, not a would-be star enjoying a private ego-trip.   

And yes, I know that many people who've sung those "good old ones" a thousand times before now find them rather tedious. However, they should remember that someone in the room may be hearing that song for the first time - and wondering at it, as they once wondered at it, forty-odd years ago. For such newcomers, this simple song could be a gateway to unfamiliar songs, which they might eventually learn to understand more deeply, and perhaps even to love. We should never feel that we are degrading ourselves, or debasing "the tradition", by keeping that gate open.

Wassail!