I don't even consider trying to make a living performing folk music -- then it would become work. The full-timers I know spend most of their life doing all the non-musical stuff that is the business end of things: promotion, getting gigs, networking, traveling. The performing piece is pretty small by comparison.

It does appear that success is more likely if one specializes. It's the "sponsors" you have to sell yourself to -- the club owners, festival organizers, booking agents. They tend to see the musical world through a label, and if you don't have the label they're looking for you haven't got a chance.

Unless you've been hired to do a performance of 18th Century Hebredian waulking songs for the Society of Felters, you must remember that your primary purpose is to entertain. That's why people fork over their hard-earned scheckles -- to be entertained. If someone practices, practices, practices, selects material that will entertain the audience in front of them, and never forgets that the performer is there for the benefit of the audience, and not the other way 'round, then someone has a chance of potentially getting the opportunity to consider the possibility of attempting to try and make a living at folk music. Oh yeah, and that someone would have to work very hard at the business end of it.

Jerry (happy to "play" not "work" music)