Sophistication is a two edged word. Go back to its roots and it's about artificiality - "not genuine or natural...disinegenuous, worldly wise."

That's the meaning I prefer to retain, under which "sophisticated" is an insult not a compliment. After all it was the word used for practice of some grocers who put sand in the sugar, and milkmen who put water in the milk, or publicans who watered the beer.

And in that sense I'm more than happy to agree that real folk music is never sophisticated.

But people also use it in a sense that means clever and complicated and intricate - and any suggestion that folk music can't be all those things is laughable. InOBU gave one example of how that is true, and I'm sure we could fill the Mudcat for ever with other examples, both in words and in tunes. Maybe doing that that wouldn't be a bad idea either.