It's very difficult to define what folk-rock is. I don't think its the same as using electric instruments - an acoustic guitar is not more authentic than an electric one. From time to time I've played in bands which have included drum kits, electric guitars and electric bass, but we certainly wouldn't consider ourselves to be folk-rock.

Folk-rock was a deliberate attempt to present traditional songs in a (then) contemporary style. Steeleye Span were a 1970s guitar band with added fiddle, and their sound was very much of that time and now sounds dated. Just because they use electric instruments I don't consider Blackbeard's Tea Party to be folk-rock, because I feel their approach is much more a lively folk style rather than an attempt to sound like contemporary popular music. I would regard someone like Seth Lakeman as being much more in the folk-rock tradition as his style appears to derive more from contemporary popular music than from folk.

Folk music has come on since the 1970s and it is now commonplace to find a much wider range of instruments than used to be the case. Brass, keyboards, saxaphones and electric guitars and bass are now commonplace, but in most cases these are not used to mimic popular music and the result is folk rather than rock.