A few comments (some of which repeat what I've said before) . .

I don't think that answering a point someone's raised in a discursive thread can be construed as "avoiding the issue" . .

I never took any class in US history (ok, and it shows . . )

High-energy performance is ONE way to gain SOME converts to SOME parts of Folk . . but if you limit Folk to the material which suits that treatment you bowdlerise it . .

Much "entertainment" is pretty mindless . . so let's pitch ourselves in with those entertainments which expect at least a degree of attention from the audience . . .

I thought the song introduction lasts as long as it takes to tune this damn guitar . . .

I avoid "what is folk" like the plague, but IMO what matters with folk song is not whether we know who wrote the song, or whether someone's being paid to perform it, but a question of ownership - whether the community in which it is being performed feel it's THEIR song (rather than knowing it's owned by big music corporation somewhere). It's often pointed out that "Traditional" singers very often sang songs which were the popular songs of the day rather than traditional . . It's less often remembered that most (? much?) of the time those singers COULD (and if asked would) make a distinction between those songs which belonged to the community and those which they'd imported from elsewhere. Even if they might not get it right!

G.