I have to admit, I used to complain about the naval-gazering singer-songwriters who cover themselves under the folk umbrella. Singer-songwhiners is what I called them.

The problem is, labels like I made hide the fact that there are some great writers out there. Woody Guthrie was not a folk singer either, he wrote songs. Check out artists like Johnsmith, Antje Duvekot, Tom Prasada-Rao, Erik Balkey and dozens of others.

It is hard to define what a "sell-out" is. The artists that I know and love have trouble scraping two dimes together but there music hasn't changed to fit some preconceived notion.