I've never really understood the (apparently self-imposed) confusion that surrounds the term 'Folk music'. I can go to my bookshelves and take down several hundred books that use the term in a way I recognise it. Though there are a couple that might question that deninition, I can't think of one that challenges it seriously - can anybody? Dave Harker and Georgina Boyes have made their names as 'folk dissidents' but I find their work deeply flawed and poorly researched. Apart from them, is there anything else?
If anybody asked me 'what is folk?' I would hand them Lloyd's 'Folk Song in Engand' and 'The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs' and tell them to start there.
It seems to me that, until a better one comes along, the definition as recognised by Sharp, Vaughan Williams, Lucy Broadwood, Lloyd, MacColl, Lomax, Joyce, O'Neill, Bronson, Sheilds, Buchan, the IFMC et al, is the one we are stuck with.
I've never heard a horse sing - I've never known a horse come up with a half-decent alternative to the term 'folk music' - though some people seem to be quite happy to take their knowledge from horses - and other dumb animals.
Jim Carroll