"Shimrod, are you saying that you have the answer and that if people only listened to it everything would be much simpler?"

No, lox, I don't have a definitive answer and the 1954 definition is certainly not a "religious text". I do think, though, that it is an excellent starting point for thinking about the question, "what is folk music?" and the associated question, "how does folk music differ from other types of music?" I am also a good enough scientist to know that the category 'Folk Music' has fuzzy borders and can never be definitively pinned down. BUT this is not a fault with the original definition! Many aspects of the universe tend to be organised like this - it's just the way reality is - you can ALWAYS find exceptions and counter-examples.

But the main point of my interjection above is that there seems to be a vociferous group of people out there who don't want to know what folk music is because such knowledge might prevent them from 'shoe-horning' their own particular favourite type of music into the category 'Folk Music'. I'm not sure what their motive(s) for such wilful ignorance are - one possibility might be that they think the resulting vagueness legitimises their playing of their favoured musical type in a folk club. What puzzles me is why they think that their choices need to be legitimised. I have a growing suspicion that these people don't actually have the courage of their own convictions and they want 'other people' (ie. 'experts') to take responsibility for their choices. When they don't receive such legitimisation or, worse still, approval of their musical choices from audiences, they start bleating about 'Folk Police'.