Well, I'm another one of the older heads here that didn't call it "folk music" when I was growing up. It was just the stuff the locals sang when they had get-togethers. I'm talking the 50s to mid-60s period. I had an uncle that teamed with a DJ at the local AM station and did live and recorded shows (came to our house and recorded one in the early 50s). My uncle tended toward what was considered the country music of the day for most of his stuff. He also wrote a lot of stuff and 20 years later he met an early death in a vehicle wreck near Nashville while he was trying to sell himself as a singer/songwriter. When I went off to college in '66, I fell for a girl big time that was into the whole folk scene, PPM, Ian & Sylvia, etc., so I got indoctrinated on "true" folk music. I also was talked into trying to learn guitar and got a cheap nylon strung classical that was my learning instrument. In '77 I went all the way to a Martin D-35 which has been my main instrument ever since. Out of all my favorites from the early days, the only ones I still listen to much are Ian & Sylvia and Pat Sky. But folk in it's most general terms, that is, not just trad., is what I mostly do and listen to. (Oh, if anyone cares, my first love didn't endure and we went our separate ways after 3 years.)

SC