Whether Jim likes it or not, 'folk' has become a label for a genre which encompasses a very wide range of forms. Where the boundaries between this and other genres lie is inevitably unclear and subjective. 'Folk' in this sense is a term used to place this music among the other outputs of the musical world. The sense in which Jim uses it serves an entirely different purpose. Nevertheless, if 'folk' is to mean anything as a genre, it must have traditional music at its core. Everything else is an addition which has grown up around this.

Folk clubs, certainly in my experience going back to 1970, have always been more than just places where folk music, in either sense, was performed. There has always been an element of providing a venue where ordinary people can perform, which in the heyday of traditional music this would have been in the main bar of the pub rather than relegated to the back room. The folk club was a means of perpetuating this activity, where a group of people provide their own entertainment. Folk clubs have always included performances which stretch the understanding of 'folk' by any definition, as well as poetry, storytelling, etc. What has ultimately determined what is acceptable is a highly subjective sense of whether it 'feels right', and that will differ from one club to the next.

Jim's concern is that traditional music isn't held in sufficient regard and isn't performed as much as it should be in some folk clubs. Al's view, from a completely opposite perspective, is actually much the same - he complains that his music, which he regards as falling within the wider boundaries of 'folk' in the genre sense, isn't welcome at some clubs. However this is how it has always been, and most clubs provide a balance with some leaning towards traditional and some more towards contemporary. I would be just as surprised to hear only traditional songs in a folk club as I would to hear none. Perhaps the real problem is that as the number of clubs has declined there is no longer this variety and it has become more difficult to find a club which suits one's own preferences.