Howard - >>If I go to a jazz club, I expect to hear jazz. If I go to a Mozart concert, I expect to hear Mozart. Is it unreasonable to expect to hear folk music at a folk club?

If you go to to a jazz club you would expect to hear some kind of jazz. But if you are a big Kenny Ball fan you might find that Pharaoh Sanders or Ornette Coleman are not your cup of tea. You would probably ask the secondary question - what sort of jazz? Jazz has evolved and fragmented over the last century.

'Classical music' is a big diverse beast as well. Mozart wrote a lot of things and they don't all sound the same. A lot of people who 'like Beethoven' find the late string quartets are not to their liking as Beethoven evolved over his life as well.

Apparently folk music hasn't or can't. Or isn't allowed to or something. It just is that specific thing and doesn't belong to anything else and anything that came after it and refers back to it isn't it.

Which makes it unique. And stuck. And non evolving. And old. And probably dying. Always exist somewhere and no doubt be revived every now and again.