"The oral way the songs were passed on guaranteed a flexibilty, a looseness of form which allowed singers to re-make the songs so that Barbara Allen could have come from Scarlet, Scarborough, Reading, Edinburgh.... wherever Town, and the poor feller (or woman) dying from clap could equally be a soldier, sailor, marine, cowboy, whore.... whatever. "

Jim, I'm not arguing against that. I agree with you that the oral tradition allowed for songs to be re-made.

My point is, folk music does not need to rest on that one criteria. There is a reason folk music was created in the community that makes it different from art songs and the like. In modern times, the oral tradition has been replaced - very little can change the progress (a debatable word) that has taken place. However, the need and the community, while altered, still exists. If you examine what some people call the singer-songwriter community, it is not much different from the communities of travelers and the like that have existed for centuries - just the modes have changed.

The process has changed.