Well I suppose the broader question here is what constitutes ENTERTAINMENT? And folk music's role as an entertainment medium?

My personal opinion, is that the fundamental purpose of entertainment is to provide an escape from all of the realities, political, religious, sexist, discriminatory and contraversial issues we all face and are subjected to in our day to day lives.

While certain ''folk music'' does provide this escape, there is other folk music that CONFRONTS and CHALLENGES our viewpoints.....and causes us to ask even more questions. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but to me exploits the entertainment value as the vehicle to propogate all of the types of issues as mentioned above, and I must disagree with this exploitation.

I have a great respect for people like Pete Seeger (Joan Biaz) and many other folk artists as far as their musical talents go, but it was Seeger's political musically-woven views that kept him blacklisted from televison for 17 years.

The masses want to be entertained. They want a momentary escape from reality. They don't want to be lectured, preached to, or confronted by sensitive opinions and viewpoints of others.

This is why folk music has a very select group of followers and will never be embraced as a mainstream musical vehicle. The hippies of the 60s and early 70s are today's ''Folkies'' and are the kind of audience this music aspires to.