"With folk music you are dealing with an artform, history and literature. . . ."

Well, with music, there doesn't seem to be much disagreement between most people on what constitutes Renaissance music, or Baroque, or main-stream classical, or what constitutes a fugue, or a cantata, or an operatic aria, or an art song (e.g., Schubert lieder). I rarely hear anyone trying to argue that "Some Enchanted Evening" is hip-hop or grunge rock. I've never actually heard a rapper try to claim that what he or she does is "folk music," although they might be able to make a good case for that.

I don't know of any playwright these days who claims to write "Shakespeare plays." Or composers who claim to write "Baroque operas."

I'm just not sure why Melissa, the young woman who lives upstairs and who knows very little about folk music, has only the vaguest idea of who Pete Seeger and Joan Baez are, has no idea at all of who Francis James Child, Cecil J. Sharp, or John and Alan Lomax are, and who lists "Tom Waits, Dolly Parton, Elvis Costello, Gillian Welch, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Kris Kristofferson, and Everything but the Girl" as her musical influences, wants to call the songs she writes "folk songs."

Her songs are interesting and she has quite a nice singing voice. She doesn't play an instrument and is backed on her brand new CD by somebody 'layering" a drum-set (much too loud and obtrusive) and an acoustic guitar, with occasionally electric guitar, and the CD is Cool Edited complete with overdubs of her voice.

She is a very nice young woman, and she's working hard at her music. She aspires to professional success as a singer and as a songwriter, and she's a bit worried about the success of her CD. She commented that she has to sell 250 of them at $15.00 apiece to make back her investment, even before she starts to make any profit on it. I bought one from her in the spirit of "support your local musician." I felt bad for her when I heard that her CD release party two weeks ago was something of a bust.

Except for the acoustic guitar in the background (played, not by her, but someone else), her songs don't sound even remotely like folk songs. She'd be one helluva lot better off trying to sell herself and her songs as some other genre or something entirely unique than she would trying to sell her stuff as "folk songs."

The Pacific Northwest Folklore Society, dedicated to traditional folklore and with which I am associated, would not be particularly interested in what she does, but since both the Seattle Folklore Society and Victory Music are interested in singer-songwriters, I'm trying to see if I can hook her up with them.

But folk songs? Clearly not.

Don Firth