Watch out...

Try saying it is the music of everybody, (folk?) and you get people reckoning that

1. You have to be of the working classes, whatever the heck that means these days.
2. They expand further by saying you have to have affinity of a struggle of the poor against the rich.
3. Some nonsense about a definition from the '50s and don't make my mistake and try to ask why that definition is relevant...

I suppose it is our music in that we are anybody listening to it. I love all sorts of music but don't feel I am intruding if I enjoy something that is normally enjoyed by people who look and act differently to me.

Many mudcatters in The USA must be very bemused by the labelling and vitriolic waffle coming out of UK "purists" on these threads.

Just to spice up the thread, I will repeat my own hung up sermon....

If it is played in a folk club, it is folk music.

No buts, just accept it.

My credentials for listening and playing it are that I like it, not because I may or may not own a flat cap and take a whippet for a walk.

So... to the question in the thread, how did that happen? A while ago going by some of the comments on these threads. Try prodding them with a stick to get a reaction, I find it rather cathartic...