We're drifting away a bit from Ani DiFranco and there is always the distant thunder of hooves in discussions like this. In essence I suppose I think that categorising can be useful for what we might call archiving and analytical purposes (as suggested earlier in the thread), and it is certainly the dominant theme for marketing purposes.   But musicians will - and listeners should - recognise quality where they find it and not bother whatever the "label".   

I grew up in the West of Scotland. I well remember realising at a young age that at house parties when we were passing songs around, the songs were more likely to be drawn from the repertoire of Jim Reeves than the "folk" cannon and songs learned within the family were likely to come from music hall or vaudeville or WW2 radio dance band era songs. The fact that I was aware of "traditional music" through my parents made me unusual. There is a discontinuity between "folk music" and music which folk sing/sang. No big deal and certainly no new insights here, just something of which I try and remind myself from time to time.

Ian