I live in New Jersey, USA. I am a descendant (both biologically and by way of adoption) of fishermen and sailors. The songs of the sea and of the men and women who made their lives and livelihoods there have an incredible attraction to me.

Like other posters, the idea of 'escapism', so to speak, is also a great draw to me. I, too, enjoy history, especially reading about specific events or periods of time (I just finished a book on Sir John Franklin and the quest for the Northwest Passage).

I have also been a performer of various kinds of music, folk, pop and otherwise, for over 20 years now. Singing songs that tell stories and preserve traditions is a way for me to both perform AND be, in some small way, one of the many curators/caretakers of those traditions.

The home-made, do-it-yourself aspect is also important to me, as I am completely self-taught on every instrument I play. I like to kid myself into thinking I have somewhat of my own "style" of playing by now.

Basically, 'folk', for lack of a better term, matters to me because it serves both to encapsulate some certain time and place AND to bring the reality and presence of that other time/place into the here and now, if the performer and listener will allow it to be so.

For me, what I do and how I present it is kind of like the Catholic doctrine surrounding the "Real Presence" of Christ in the Eucharist (a ceremony of wine and bread pertaining to Christ's death, burial and resurrection, for those unfamiliar). The Church teaches that Christ is not sacrificed for sin again and again at each Mass, but rather that the immediate merit and significance of Christ's sacrifice, the one that happened in time/space/history, is brought to bear on the present moment.

Yeah, I know, that's a stretch, maybe; still, I feel that "folk" (what I do, anyway), brings the people and places and events of other times into the present moment and invites others to walk that "mile in their shoes", so to speak.