Jim, I'm not talking about hypothetical communities of Elvis-lovers waiting to descend on folk clubs! That's a pretty extreme and hyperbolic reaction to the point I'm making. I'm talking about the real community of folk enthusiasts, at whose singarounds, whilst you may mainly hear traditional songs, you will also hear songs written by members of that community that sit alongside the traditional songs rather nicely and have in many cases been taken up and sung by members of that community as part of its own tradition. Is that such a big problem? And if so, why?

I'd have thought its fairly clear that the village/family based music making and transmission culture in the old sense doesn't exist anymore - times have moved on and we don't live relatively isolated lives in small rural communities. We have radio, TV, global recording industries, the internet, celebrity culture and all the rest of it. The conditions and cultural norms of our lives have changed beyond recognition. Using that as any kind of yardstick to measure what folk music is now is surely a hiding to nowhere. The folk scene is now where you tend to hear traditional songs in the UK, but people have creative impulses, as they always have, and will therefore feel compelled to add fresh ingredients to the pot. That is surely a good thing, isn't it?

And yes, as you correctly point out, there are all sorts of communities of interest coming together around lots of different sorts of things. I'm talking about the one that comes together around folk music, not opera or Gilbert and Sullivan. But I suspect you know that already...