This company might be amused by my animadversions on this notion, which are part of an email discussion within the Folk Song Society of Greater Boston four years ago:

1. Trad vs singer-songwriter

I gather that this is an important divide & that I am on the extreme
trad side of it. However, I don't see the point of it, and in
particular the names don't make sense to me. Evidently, writing songs
& singing them does not suffice to make one a singer-songwriter;
otherwise, my singing songs by Pete Seeger, Lou & Peter Berryman, Ewan
MacColl, Bob Blue, Tom Lehrer, Malvina Reynolds, Cyril Tawney, Leslie
Fish, Stan Rogers, Flanders & Swann, etc. would put me squarely in the
enemy camp.

Perhaps the real animus is like that in a conversation I was once told
about:

"Put the teapot on the stove & heat it hot as hell. Then put the
tea in. That way, the water will continue to boil violently when
it hits the tea."

"Doesn't that sometimes break the teapot?"

"There are those who like teapots, and those who like tea."

Likewise, there are those who like singers & those who like songs,
regardless of origin. For the other side, human beings are at the
center of the stage, everything else is a prop, and songs in
particular are vehicles for singers, songwriters, and
singer-songwriters to express their yearnings for love or money. For
me, the songs are at the center; they are, among other things, a way
of seeing people in perspective; and when it comes to gossiping
sentimentally about the people connected with the songs (something I
am all in favor of -- look me up on the Mudcat Forum), I am most
interested in the ones mentioned in the songs, secondarily in the ones
who made them up, and only cursorily in the ones who perform them, who
are only one way to get the songs propagated -- containers &
dispensers.

In itself, that need not be a cause of conflict -- it might merely add
to the variety of songs & talk. But in the present cultural context
it is something of a party question, mixed up in the wars between
nerds & jocks, among word people, people people, & thing people,
between amateurs & professionals, etc. That may be why you folks are
treading so carefully.