tradpiper wrote: "But when you say traditional, how do you define tradition?"

We may not want to go there - AGAIN!! But it is relevant to this discussion. Try this for size:

Traditional can be defined by expectation - that is the audience expectation. "It is traditional that so&so happens." "So & so is traditionally sung here." etc." NB: this has nothing to do with "Folk" - within the context, Heartbreak Hotel & Yesterday can be traditional. And being traditional doen not make it "Folk".

The problem is related to the fact that you have great difficulty defining "folk" without incorporating the context of performance - but now we're into thread drift!

Tom