What I don't understand is why you're celebrating this situation.

I'm doing so by way of facing certain realities concerning not only the condition of Folk Music in 2009, but also the condition of myself and my particular - ahem - specialism. Essentially it comes down to the people I know & love and what they represent and believe in; the music they play and the songs they sing, very few of which would hold up to the 1954 Definition but which are, nevertheless possessed of a rare and persuasive potency. The spirit of this is Folk Music, the experience of which can't be bottled.

If I had to choose one revival folk album as coming anywhere close to that spirit, that album would be Bright Phoebus which though it contains no traditional songs is possessed by the soul of the tradition which seeps through every word and note of the thing. If I had to choose one song from Bright Phoebus as being the core of the thing, that song would be Danny Rose which features Folk Musicians trying boldly to play rockabilly and coming up with something so surreal it beggars belief. On the other hand, however, one is hearing Messrs. Thompson, Hutchings et al unencumbered by their Folky Affectations, and so the music is theirs by cultural default, much as on the first Fairport album which is possessed of a sincerity entirely absent from the rest of their work. Here there is an evident paradox, whereby the less obviously Folk in terms of Form becomes the so much more satisfyingly Folk in terms of Content, and that Content is truer to the actual value of Folk Music than any affectation (or electrification) of Traditional Songs ever could be.