"Guest": "the percentage of the populace currently actively involved in the traditional english folk scene... is far less than the percentage of people who's roots do not hail from England."

While the existence of all this music from other cultures is all very exciting and not in any way to be discouraged, it is a very sad corollary that most English people do not even recognise their own folk culture when they hear it. On more that one occasion I have been in a session in a English pub where we were playing English music, (including an instrument uniquely invented by an Englishman...) and bystanders come up and ask us if (or tell us) we're playing Irish music. If you went into a session in Scotland or Ireland and asked anyone what the music was they might say it was folk or traditional but they'd never say it was something foreign.
(rant over...)

There's another thing about "world music" that has come to my attention recently. Much of what finds its way into the "world" category in a British record shop is the cultural equivalent in its own country of rock, pop, easy listening or even classical music.

The truth is that there is no such thing as world music - it's pretty well known that the term was invented by a group of record industry marketing chiefs as a convenient heading under which to sell commercial music to bigger market.

I'm with Ian Anderson of fRoots who pointedly includes English music as world music, while the American Grammy association's definition of world music apparently excludes anything sung in English.

So I'm sorry, but I don't agree that music from the rest of the world is the future of English folk music, any more than I should believe that Mongolian overtone chanting is the future of Flamenco or thet Hardanger fiddles are the future of Salsa.
(I just know that I'm now going to find exactly those combinations featured in some edition of a certain mag....)

Anahata