Maybe we need to develop a system by which we'd have, for instance:

"Child Folk", for instance, might be one describable category. folk music by the parameters described and used by Professor Child. (Which specification, frankly, I've never quite bought or liked some of its assumptions, but what's referred to is fairly easily understood.)

Or "Oral folk". Meant to refer to "folk" music which has been passed and developed by the oral traditional method. This would be a wider grouping which presumably would include the "Child folk" group of meanings.

Or "Modern acoustic folk" If I used this expression I might be referring to The Weavers or to Peter, Paul and Mary and their ilk. I would NOT be referring to The Grateful Dead. Others, of course, might categorize those groups differently.

Then there would probably be "Rock Folk", and (god help us!) "Hip-Hop folk".

I don't hang my hat on any of these as the beau ideal of folk categories, although I think the clearest of them is "Child folk".

Dave Oesterreich