Jim,

Thank you so much for the fascinating article on Walter Pardon, and also for clearing up my error about the recording. It is the research and collecting from people like yourself that make this genre so intriguing and I am honored to be able to learn something new each day.

The question I asked previously was more of a rhetorical question. A number of people in this thread have commented that they have issues with the definition of "folk music" in that they wish to walk into a record store and see a "folk" section and know what they are getting. For that reason, they consider contemporary singer-songwriters unfit for the term "folk music".

My question is - for someone like Walter Pardon who clearly understood the distinction between true traditional music, Music Hall and popular music. While I understand that the recordings made of his performances are primarily traditional songs - supposing someone were to issue a CD of only his performances of popular or Music Hall songs.   Would you place the CD in any catagory other than "folk"?   Granted the songs contained might not be defined as "folk", but would anyone expect to find them anywhere else?

It may seem like a fine, and perhaps silly point, but I think it comes back to what, and more importantly - who is defining "folk".