"Jim, I don't have any problem with you liking what you like,"
Can't say I'm not disappointed in your reducing this to "line and dislike" Will - not usually your style.
I've laid out as clearly and articulately as I can, over and over again what believe folk music to be - maybe not up to your standard, but there you go!
I have yet to have even the vaguest hint of a definition which either expands that to include the pop repertoire or the stuff Hollywood musicals are made of.
When we left Britain we didn't move to The Moon, and even if we had, we still could have charted the path that he revival in Britain has taken as long as we could have received a strong enough signal.
I stopped being a regular visitor when it became near impossible to choose the music you wished to hear at a folk club - not in terms of quality, but type.
Nothing I have seen or heard since has persuaded me that this has changed other than for the worse - arguments such as this one have confirmed that this is not just complacency, but a deliberate misuse of the term.
I am a regular visitor to Britain - forays into today's "folk" clubs have proved a disaster - no folk songs to speak of, standards that would not have been acceptable a couple of decades ago and a sadly apparent lack of commitment - all accompanied by the rustling of crib-sheets, the glow of mobile phones being used as hymn sheets and this appalling British practice-come-obsession of people singing along with solo performances.
I have no doubt that there oases of comfort to be had in all this, but I have yet to experience many - but there again, my experiences have been confined to cities that once throbbed with weekly good and indifferent folk clubs.
Others on this forum have confirmed that I am alone in my views
What seems to have happened is that the old objective seems not to have changed but to have been torn up by the roots and replaced by an alien growth - whether you "like" the new one or not is immaterial - it doesn't change the importance of 'folk song proper' as I have outlined it.
If you don't agree with my analysis - fine - we have a basis of discussion, but I would happily do without the straw men.
Yours respectfully
Jim Carroll