Jerry...I am not sure about this sentence in your explanation up there ^..

" I just know that if folk music is going to have any relevance for every-day folks, it has to reach out to every day folks." It will....to some everyday folk.

"folk music" started out being the music done BY the folk, before there was the mass media and commercialization and pop songs done to ride a trend....that music had a 'different' sound & feel. Most of us know what it is, whether we can toss off a glib definition or not....and 'some' songwriters still capture some of that essence in what they create.

But the majority of today's folk, as opposed to folkies, are inundated by the shallow, throw-it-away-'cause-there'll-be-more-tomorrow foisted on them by an INDUSTRY which has quotas to meet.

I don't think it is wise for us 'folkies' to try to emulate or compete directly with that sort of thing, or we will dilute the feel & message that made the original special. If that means we always have a smaller crowd & audience, fine. (I doubt that most practitioners of Gregorian Chant care that they are not in the Top 40).

If 'folkies' keep doing the old songs, adding some new ones which fit and are gradually absorbed and give the right feeling, then we and the music will survive and attract those in the younger generation who can see beyond the hype of Madison Avenue and Motown and MTV.

If we keep having festivals, concerts, etc, doing essentially what YOU have been doing these 27 years..(including writing some things), we ARE "reaching out" by simply making it available....but if we change it (the music) enough that the crowds come pouring in, then soon the differences will not be discernable and we will end up just being a quirky sub-set of pop/rock. And I, for one, would hate to see that happen. I don't like the idea of the OLD songs slipping away to the semi-oblivion of scholarly reasearch and occasional focus of the Society of Creative Anacronism........... If this means some of us need to (and are able to) wear two or three hats and do more than on kind of concert/CD..etc., in order to survive, *shrug*...maybe that's how it can be done...

I hope I haven't drifted too far from your original question, Jerry...but I sort of read between the lines and saw more to the issue than was hinted at...(as I am wont to do..*grin*)_