According to the oft quoted definitions of "Folk Music", "Folk Song", and "Folk Singer", it would appear that, to the traditionalists at least, the "Folk Process" is alive only with respect to the evolution of such folk music as was composed more than one hundred years ago.

If a modern community produces songs about its everyday life, no matter how many times those songs may be sung within, and outside of that community, and no matter how many singers may refine and polish them, and no matter how long the period during which they may be sung, they are not, and never will be folk songs according to the "definitions", and those who perpetuate them will never be folk singers.

That concept fills me with an inexpressible sadness, as it heralds the passing of the music I love into the realms of the "Dead" languages, and the degradation of my own creativity (such as it is) into something that does not, and cannot, have an identity, as it does not fit into any known musical genre.

Thanks a bunch "Folkies"! I wonder what is it I have been doing all these years?

Don T (who always thought he WAS a folkie)