he is talking the most consummate claptrap.

Okay - then please tell my why it's consummate claptrap, and maybe reflect on the societal / cultural context of such Popular Musical Idioms before some berk came up with the concept of Folk (much less a century later when Karpeles & the IFMC saw fit to try and define it) whilst you're on. Take away the 1954 definition, take away the word Folk, and the music would still exist, already well defined by the musicological traditions and conventions of the musicians who actually play it, traditions and convention respected even by ethnomusicologists who study it without reducing it to so shallow and patronising a concept as fecking folk music.

Just saying...