Sorry to be pedantic folks, but I suspect that some of the arguments in previous posts are rooted in a misunderstanding of one key word – and of how that word is used in certain circles. Let me try to clarify.

The problematic word is not "Entertainment", but "Entertainer". For decades it has been used as a put-down by amateur (and professional) critics, in phrases like "Oh he's not a folk singer – he's just an entertainer."   (Note the "just an…". It's the key to the whole issue.)

As many previous posters have noted, almost everyone who sings, plays or recites in public aims to entertain their audience – and rightly so. But some performers try to do more than "just" entertain. Pete Seeger is a classic example. His concerts are certainly entertaining. But they also make us more aware of the richness and diversity of human culture. They also remind us of the mutual obligations which all human beings have to one another, and to the Earth which sustains us all.   

Many others in the folk music community have striven to do likewise. However, the folk circuit also supports a number of performers who earn their corn by simply "giving the audience what it wants" – code for a mixture of bawdy jokes and sing-along choruses – and nothing more. This has proved a very successful formula. A few of these "entertainers" have even graduated from the folk circuit into the world of mass entertainment.

So, when a folk enthusiast describes a performer as "just an entertainer", it's often more in sorrow than in anger. The phrase conveys a sense of opportunities missed, of responsibilities neglected, and perhaps even of trust betrayed.

When William Wordsworth abandoned his youthful radicalism and became (as England's Poet Laureate) a pillar of the Establishment, the young Robert Browning expressed his disappointment in a poem entitled "The Lost Leader" which begins:

"Just for a handful of silver he left us…"

However, as far as I know, Browning never shouted out "Judas" at one of Wordsworth's public poetry readings.

Wassail!