I've resisted posting on this thread for 160 postings but I can contain myself no longer. The postings by the dyed in the wool traddies are starting to remind me of the (UK) TV caricature of a certain Welsh news reader where nobody but himself is Welsh enough.

I agree wholeheartedly with Don T, by any common usage of the word I am sure that he is a "folk" singer. The academic definitions are just that, purely academic and bear little relationship to what is going on in the real world.

Anyone who is part of this real world (not people who are "looking over my shoulder for a white rabbit with a pocket watch or a dormouse in a teapot." erm....do you see many? ) will know the folk process is alive and well with songs being written, adopted and a adapted on a daily basis. Who are you to tell me, or anyone else, that we are not part of the communities in which we live....what is your basis for this?

Paul