I would describe the folk scene as a series of concentric circles. If the term 'folk' is to mean anything at all, this must have traditional music at its core – the Harry Coxes, Sam Larners, the Coppers and their like. Surrounding this you have the folk revival – modern singers interpreting traditional material in various ways which we can recognise, if not easily define, as typical of the folk revival aesthetic.

Outside this it starts to get more complicated. You have those interpreting traditional material in un-folky ways – I would put folk-rock here, and Bellowhead. I might also include those concert acts which have become too large and dare I say too complex for folk clubs – June Tabor, Kate Rusby, the Unthanks. However you also have those writing and performing non-traditional material that sounds is if it should be trad – writers like Ewan MacColl, Keith Marsden, perhaps Eric Bogle.

Further out you have the 'contemporary' folk, people writing their own songs which don't draw much on traditional styles or structures, but nevertheless performing them in a way which bears some relationship to the revival styles found closer to the centre. This might also include those who perform acoustic versions of popular songs.

Out at the margins you have the comedians, poets, monologuists, jugglers and other hangers-on who appear to have little connection to traditional folk at all but who have somehow managed to latch onto the folk scene, perhaps because no one else will have them. You might also find those performing music which has no relationship to traditional musical structures and doesn't use conventionally folky instrumentation, and whose only connection is that one of the band once did a floor spot in a folk club.

Clearly, the further out you are from the core the more likely it is that there will be disagreements over whether this is really 'folk'.

The boundaries are of course blurred. Many performers straddle these zones to a greater or lesser extent, but most can be defined as belonging to one or another. Likewise the taste of most audience members will straddle the zones (as well as encompassing other genres which fall entirely outside this model). Individual folk clubs may centre themselves anywhere, but the further out from the centre they are the less likely they are to be recognisable as 'folk clubs', at least as far as Jim Carroll and those of his way of thinking are concerned (I include myself). Big Al, on the other hand, on the evidence of his website is himself positioned some way out from the centre and therefore understandably considers 'folk club' to be a valid description for these.

I think I should patent this idea and offer it to folk clubs as a marketing tool. They could then describe themselves as fitting into Band 1, Band 2 etc, and even publish a graphic on their websites indicating where in the circle they consider themselves to be. Then both Jim and Al will know which ones they can safely visit.