"Alternative, workable, and widely accepted alternative definitions have already been presented"
Sorry again Ron - they haven't; the argument has always been that the existing definition is no longer valid - nothing has been put in its place (other that the over-flogged talking horse one). If this is not the case, humour me and give me your alternative - otherwise we are left with the existing one (unless you want to argue that folk music is undefinable).
"the pedants and archivists have to argue about what those people should and should be singing..."
This really has become very, very tiresome, and not a little dishonest. When and where has anybody ever argued about what people should and should not be singing. This is a totally unfounded accusation which, when challenged, is ALWAYS responded to with silence - I wonder what your response will be.
My, argument, and others who think as I do, has always been that we want to know what I am going to find (and usually pay for) if I go to a folk, or jazz club, or a classical concert, or an opera, or a heavy metal concert... or any other event that gives itself a name, otherwise I am being conned, and the music is being damaged by misrepresentation.
Yes - we need songwriters - that is not at issue here. I've tried (asnd failed) to write songs; I certainly sing newly composed songs, I've been part of workshops on songwriting - helped to set them up even. Even if I had succeeded, I could no more write a folksong than I could an Elizabethan tragedy.
This is simply an argument on what we call our different categories of music - pop, folk, jazz, classical, swing, chamber, rock, - can I assume that, if you object to anybody labelling their music folk, you also object to all other identifying labels, or would this be, as I believe it to be, very, very stupid?
I listen to folk music, I sing folk songs, I read and write about folk music, stories and lore, I've collected it from field singers, musicians and storytellers. They have all hads a word to describe what they have given us, most of them we've met have been pretty insistent on why it is different from other musics - why on earth shouldn't we respect their attitude and accept the importance they attach to it?
Now, qualify your accusation or please withdraw it.
Jim Carroll