I'm with Sophocleese on this one.

I don't think this is about Rick at all, but the poster rightly suspected everyone he is pissed of at would respond. I could have it wrong, and it's just someone who wants to continue the "what is folk" debate in another thread. But then there's that attention-getting thread title and anonymity, so I'm still suspicious. There's no insult to Rick at all in the first post, just a successful attempt to jerk peoples' chains.

Rick does traditional songs, and does new songs. I knew Gorka did his own material (heard him once a few years ago) but I didn't know he did traditional songs. I don't think Rick sounds much like Gorka. He sounds a bit like Lightfoot, but that might just be the fact that Canadians have those funny accents.(Joke) The "cheap imitation" comment sounded to me like "my favorite singer can beat up your favorite singer." Juvenile and silly. I'm having a hard time finding much to get upset about in the initial post.

If one must "play traditional music that they learned through the oral tradition" to be folk, then neither Fielding nor Gorka (or most other musicians I can think of) are folk. However Rick does sing/play folk music. Like I said, I don't know about Gorka. It all depends on whether we're talking about performers or the actual music they do. It's funny, but has anyone noticed that when someone talks about pop music, the emphasis is on the musicians,and when people talk about folk music, the emphasis is on the music "Band X rules! I really like their song 'Worship Me Baby, I'm a Star'" instead of "I really love "Tam Lin." There's a great version on Elvira Blatnick's new CD."