I don't think I am missing Jim's points, in fact I agree with most of them. What I am disagreeing with is his insistence that 'folk' should mean only traditional music, although I even sympathise with that. However he can't turn back the clock. 'Folk' has had a much wider meaning than this for decades, and 'folk clubs' have always included a much wider range of music.

A lot of this is down to the mid-60s period when 'folk' was briefly fashionable. Of course this was mainly modern American folk - the Dylans, Simon and Garfunkles etc and those influenced by them. I have previously suggested that this sort of folk is perhaps a lot closer to its roots in the American tradition than it is to our own, and in that context it is perhaps less of a leap to include it within the 'folk' umbrella, however much it may jar alongside the traditions of the British Isles. However the usage probably started even before then. The word means what usage tells us it means, and for most people, including most enthusiasts and certainly the general public, it encompasses more than traditional music. That's just how it is.

As the letter Jim quotes indicates, this is not a new argument and has been going on for decades. What it fails to take account of is that folk clubs of any description are first and foremost where people go for entertainment, not academic study. It is entertainment of a particular sort and I entirely agree with the notion that it should be centred around traditional song, but again it depends on the tastes and interests of the individuals involved in each individual club.

I sympathise with Jim's disappointment when a folk club fails to present any traditional songs. Such a club wouldn't be to my liking either. Nevertheless in most cases what they provide is what most people expect from a folk club.

I am more optimistic about the future of traditional music than he is. There are a lot of young people getting involved and among them there is considerable enthusiasm for traditional music. Moreover, while they sometimes have their own take in it which might be a shock to us older people, they are often far more aware, and respectful, of the tradition then I was at their age. When I first began visiting folk clubs in the early 1970s there was an unspoken assumption that (apart from a couple of survivals like the Coppers and Fred Jordan) traditional folk singers had died out with Cecil Sharp. It was some years before I became aware of the hotbed of traditional music just up the road from me in Suffolk. Young musicians now are much better informed and have far more resources to refer to.