To me, the separation of folk from politics is difficult to make because I don't have an understanding of the two as separate at all. I know that not everyone feels this way, one friend once told me that he feels his music is one place that politics doesn't intrude (his "day job" was as an activist conducting research on the far right), but my experience has been different. I think I was greatly influenced by the use of music in the civil rights and labor movements. I also loved the spare commentary found in Childe ballads. I think what is compelling to me is the human need to describe what is currently happening in a manner that includes the literal fact and the deeply felt emotion. I understand this as political because so much pushes us to censor what we say, think or feel. I don't mean to regenerate the "what is folk" discussion, but folk means to me that I can challenge this censor by what I choose to sing, what instrument I choose to play, who I choose to play with.

blt