Lighter said, on 04 Jun 2015 at 01:18 PM
"Singer-songwriter music is preferred. In fact, it might be the most important element.
If so, "folk music" chiefly means music and (especially) song performed by the composer/songwriter, along with whatever else sounds sort of like it - as long as it isn't classical.
True?"

I once went to the Flying Cloud Folk Club in Toronto wearing a Shelter Valley Folk Festival T-shirt. I was told by a group of folks at the next table, "Shelter Valley is a nice festival, but it sure ain't FOLK. It's more of a singer/songwriter festival. These people considered folk music to be traditional or, as Michael Cooney once (probably more than once) said, "If you know who wrote it, it's not folk."