Just what is so wrong with being a purist? I'm a purist - and proud of it. I am interested in traditional music and song - mainly British, and particularly English - probably because I am English - but I enjoy the traditional music of other nationalities as well.
I don't try to impose my taste in music on anyone else but I do tend to go to clubs where trad. music is appreciated and have numerous friends who share my tastes - at least in part - some are as 'fanatical' as I am, others less so. One area of music which is not to my taste is 'modern' popular music - in fact I dislike most of it intensely.
The Folk Scene (at least the British one - I can't speak for the American one) seems to be divided between us 'purists' (I refuse to believe that this is a pejorative word!) and what I call the 'Anything Goes Brigade'(AGBs). These AGBs seem to really have it in for us purists and, in this forum, anyway, seem to heap abuse on us at every opportunity - 'sad', 'folk police', 'stuck in the past' and, if I remember correctly, even 'racists'(!).
Now, I joined a folk club because I like folk music and want to hear folk music when I go to a folk club - not rap or reggae or hip hop. Can any of you AGBs out there tell me, without resorting to abuse, why I am so wrong?