Hi, Sandy: No disagreement with me. I've never written a folk song in my life. If anything I've written becomes a folk song and is carried on in the tradition, I won't be around to know it. Maybe a good definition of "Folks" is people who don't wonder whether or not they're singing a folk song. If so, then that's makes most of us "folks." When I do a concert, it would never occur to me to introduce each song saying, "This is a folk song," This is an old popular song (like Come Take A Trip In My Airship, which was recorded by Charlie Poole so I don't know for sure if it's a folk song or not," "This is an old popular song which has been sung almost long enough to be a folk song.. give it another five or six years," etc. If it's necessary, I'll acknowledge that a song that I'm singing is one that I wrote, but as often as not, the introduction makes that clear. I don't EVER remember saying "This is a Folk Song." This reminds me of an anecdote I heard years ago when someone asked a banjo player what the notes are on his banjo. He said something like, "They're aren't any notes on the banjo, you just play it." I make no distinction between the songs I write and traditional songs, because they are just "songs" when I'm singing 'em. This is really a problem for scholars. I ain't no scholar, so maybe I'm a folk. I never tried to write a folk song, and as far as I know, I never have. Time will tell. I just draw from traditional folk music as my inspiration and my vocabulary. I don't try to sound old. I just am.

Jerry