jim carroll, by his own admission rarely visits folk clubs, so it follows he knows little about what is being sung in folk clubs, he has also displayed his ignorance about col tom parker, he is frequently handing out compliments such as calling other members "arrogant little prats"
he also stated that the 1954 defintion was accepted world wide, another fallacy, it appears to be accepted by the EFDSS AND SOME ENGLISH SONG SCHOLARS,that is not world wide.
what makes a new song a folk song? in my opinion it becomes a folk song when it is sung by people who have little awareness of the uk folk revival or the songs origins but conclude it is traditional ,examples fiddlers green , song for ireland, caledonia, diry old town, shoals of herring , englands motorway, the coves of rossbrin, fields of athenry. the fact that these new songs are folk songs does not mean that they will all be sung in folk clubs, in fact while folk songs are frequently sung in folk clubs , the real test in my opinion is their acceptance outside the uk folk revival, which by its nature tends to be exclusive.
this exclusivity seems to be what jim carroll wants, he wants folk clubs to do what it says on the tin , yet he nor anyone else can define what should be on the tin, jim seems to want songs such as barbara allen and the songs from walter pardon repertoire that walter gave more importance to.
his attitude is exclusivity, folk clubs should put on what jim carroll considers to be folk music[ which he has yet to define]at the same time he claims he is not purist because he approves of some new songs, but it is my opinion that which Jim wants in folk clubs the sort of new songs that MacColl wrote or songs of social comment, he wants to exclude other new songs that presumably he does not like or that do not fall into this category, basically Jim Carroll considers folk music to be new social comment songs, and songs of the ilk of barbara allen, that is what he wants when he goes to folk clubs, but is that what everybody else wants, does jim carroll define blues as folk song does he define songs such as coalminers daughter or my little nicotine girl or dark as a dungeon as folk song, these songs are relatively new songs