Once more we seem to have a thread discussing the wide world of folk music peppered by small groups who claim that their particular island own the term and that everyone else misunderstands.

This week bbc4 showed a documentary on Broadway Musicals. In it they reported what George Gershwin said about writing Porgy and Bess. He repeatedly described the work as folk music. He said he decided to write new songs so that the whole folk opera could fit together as one piece but wrote with the style and feel of the novel on which he based his work and which he heard during his research.

Another strand of folk music.