Jeri, thank you. Mystery solved. I'll sleep better tonight.

Frank,

I agree with you! For sure. I am saying that I, personally, have made room in my mind for songs to instantly BE folk songs when they FIT my own empirical, aesthetic and emotional criteria for it. I am reserving the poetic license for myself to know it when it's in front of me. The trad process, as you said, is a big part of that---but once in a while...other stuff goes down.

Once in a while, I think, that stars form in a given nebula when all manner of random gasses are present to light that fire. When Craig Jonson wrote the few songs he ever did write, he made FOLK SONGS. No moon, June, croon tune there. But there are folk stars--as well as Hollywood ones, underground ones, independent film ones and ones that go nova in the night.

"Boom!"

Voila, "Buffalo Skinners!!"

Art