sorry- firing blanks again....

My question really was about whether a definition is necessary- we all think we know what folk/traditional music is & while we can try & define it, my feeling is that it's a style rather than a repertoire- I remember a recording of travellers at a campfire singing 'I'll never forget my blue eyes' long before I heard Johnny Cash singing it, and Jack Elliott's. brother Reece was singing 'Sylvest' at the Birtley club in the mid-sixties.

I I've never gone out of my way to upset purists ear-fingerers or anyone really but if otherwise perceptive people reject a song because it's not 'folk' or 'traditional' they are missing a hell of a lot, just like Cecil Sharp, who rejected material for different, but equally blinkered reasons....