Hmmmm....... Sorry it's a long one ! This discussion begs the question :- What is Folk Music? Think back to the times we all 'hark back to.' When the world was hard, when there was no radio, TV, newspapers were local, when a president was shot it took a week to get around the country ! What was folk music but the popular music of the day. But then we invlove the class distinction theories. The Upper crust Americans in the Deep South did not sing negro spitituals - a form of folk music or was it ethnic roots music of the 'coloured man' - don't wish to be racist or sexist here but speaking in terms of the music genre of the era ! Look a the Stephen C Foster stuff and its impact. Then in UK the miners sung about the tragic disasters the fishermen the same sort of thing.The Upper classes listened to Beethoven, Brahms Bach and the rest. Today the masses live by Popular music, the upper classes sadly are about the only ones who can afford Opera and Ballet regularly. Not predjudiced, I just can't afford 30 quid for a decent seat at the Ballet very often ! Examine your CD Collection. Define Folk music and try to include it in to the modern music genre. Geldorf sang about Africa - Emotional Claptrap in some ways but then so was some of the old 'folk stuff'. It can all make your skin creep. Does the word need to be spread ? Are We (yes I admit it I'm a Folkie !) stuck in a rose tinted time warp. I worked in Opera for a while, look at the Folk roots of Rimsky Korsakov's work to name but one. To become separatist is probably the crime whilst we need the extremists and the experts (Carthy Kirkpartick and others in UK) we need some representation in the popular arena (Lisa Carthy, Rusby and others) which is indeed where what we call 'Folk' began. Tehn look a tthe experimentations with roots sounds Edward II and others. This argument applies right through Playford, Celidh dancing, Flatfooting, Rapper Sword, aven Taiko Drimming must address it otherwise we end up back at my Morris dancing argument 'Pickled in Aspic'

I don't have any answers and I love my rose tinted world and I don't want it to die but hey any other Ideas. A XX