We need to consider the big picture here.

A folk concert is a form of paid (usually)entertainment. The world of entertainment has many divisions, and we want to know what we're getting before we put our money down.

Let me make an analogy. If I go to place called "Mom's Cafe - Home Cooking," then I don't expect to see an employee taking her underpants off on the counter. There are places where that happens, and they rightly bill themselves as strip joints, so we know what to expect.

Back to the folk concert. By singing a song about drowning his dog, the guy was taking the underpants off his psyche. Folk concerts are not the usual milieu for psychic nudity. If I want psychic nudity, I will watch daytime TV talk shows, or I will go to a production which is labelled a "seering, gripping drama."

Certainly we expect a certain amount of emotion in folk music, but when it gets to the point that we find ourselves more concerned with the performer's emotions and life story than with the music, then the performer has overstepped the bounds. If he does it too much, he will lose his audience.