"Jim - I don't want a different definition; I want a different word"
Why?
Why should we abandon a word that has had a valid use since 1846 and is still very much in currency in its proper sense? - Apparently to include a handful of square pegs (who don't even like folk music and find it overlong and boring) into our particular round hole - sorry Ruth - I found Kung Fu Panda more convincing.
Nobody has even attempted to answer any of the major questions - how does the 'new folk music' relate to the existing one, do I have to go and get my 8 volume set of The Greig Duncan Folk Song Collection re-bound, where do we go to listen to music we used to know as 'folk', will the change put more bums on seats or will it compound the confusion, where do I send my PRS cheque (silence again), what do we idiots who have been working on folk music now have to identify it as, what ARE we going to do about 'folktales', oh - and why does the phrase 'pig-in-a-poke keep creeping into my mind?
I'm afraid my response remains 'come back when you've thought this through'
"To use a term such as "folk music" is perfectly acceptable to me if it includes music from the Balkans, Italy, Spain, China, Nigeria and other countries of the world - and the various regions and traditions in each".
Who ever claimed that it didn't - the 1954 definition is an international one - It seems to me that - having convinced us of the need for change, you then need to pop across the channel and make a start at convincing all the other eejits - good luck folks (whoops - sorry).
Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll