Oh, Charlotte, 'tis not the music I'm slagging. We are discussing attitudes to it here, not the thing itself.   I wouldn't bother arguing about it if I didn't love it. I hate jazz and want it to go away and for that reason you'll never catch me bothering to slag it off. Can't be arsed, as it were. And OK, I challenge you. List for me the rules of folk-singing that guide you (and, presumably, should guide the rest of us - unless, of course, the rules are personal to you, in which case the rest of us can make up our own minds about rules...). I await with trepidation. And as for gospel truth - as an atheist I rejoice in that wonderful phrase as the ultimate oxymoron that it truly is.