It's great to read all of the comments on this thread, but sometimes I think that we get into such a tangle about the words Traditional and Singer-Songwriter. The issue here isn't whether somebody wrote it or not. Would it be useful to approach this discussion using the terms OLDER folk music and NEWER folk music? If we can use those words, can we then say that some of us are seeing far more NEW folk music at Ontario Folk Festivals than we are seeing OLD folk music, and that we'd like to see more of a balance between the two once again?

One of my favourite performers right now is someone who played at Mariposa (a last-minute invitation, as I recall) this summer - Jim Moray. He's a Brit who takes old ballads and performs them in a very young, fresh way. Some would say his CD "Sweet England' is over-produced', but I think the production supports the ballad. The story is always central to the song, and the production supports the song. When I heard him live, he created the same intense passion for the stories he was singing, every single time (even with serious jet lag!). His style was accessible, and skillfully done, and it was absolutely wonderful to have a ballad singer at the Mariposa Folk Festival. The audience loved him.

~b.w.