As an outsider reading this debate I would like to say that in my Very Humble Opinion that true FOLK music is not about ability of voice or instrument but the songs and sharing same with others. I have attended a folk club which has a Downes Syndrome girl as a regular attender and each week she sings (reading from a sheet) and the regulars listen and join in with choruses etc. and encourage her. Something you will never see at an Arts Centre type venue. Also, I have met ex-miners in their 80's who have songs to sing which should be captured somewhere and passed on. Those songs may be available now to the academic who may bother to go to the British Library etc. to look them up but FOLK music is about the people (hence : folk) not books, C.D.s etc. Although I personally prefer to hear well rehearsed, well sung and well written material I also realise they would not exist without the learning from the past!