RTim
Your linked article is totongue-in-cheek and riddled with inaccuracies to be of much use - it talks as if no definition has ever been attempted and reached, for a start
One pphrase that did strike me though is this
"Topic Records boss, David Suff, explained to me that our misunderstanding of the words ?folk music? has to do with a marketing conundrum ? that ?singer-songwriter? was too long a word to keep having to write out ? but he also admitted that he wasn?t really sure."
It suggests that nobody really intended that newly written and marketed music should ever be considered as folk (which is in the public domain), but it just happened out of either convenience and/or laziness.
THat makes sense to me and is much in evidence here
"no one remembers the last time a member of a folk club audience was eaten by a crocodile."
A feller was walking along the side of the Thames when he saw a man with a bag over his shoulder into which he reguarly reached and drew out handfuls of powder which he threw into the river,
Intrigued the man asked what the powder was.
"Crocodile repellent" came the reply.
But there aren't any crocodiles in the Thames" he responded
"Effective, innit?"
Jim Carroll