Ralph Jordan - Folk Star! :-)

I dipped out of this thread because I was fed up with the taradiddle being peddled by Conrad, but this:

People have played and composed music locally for centuries.

simply demonstrates his complete ignorance of any musical process, where travelling people, including itinerant musicians and workers and peddlers of music went from place to place - a process by which music spread from community to community. Let's take just one example - the spread of ragtime in the US in the 1890s. I quote from my 1958 copy of "They All Played Ragtime" by Rudi Blesh & Harriet Janis:

So there existed in Sedalia and throughout the country, a large class of Negro - and some white - pianists, many of them highly gifted and all of them close to the source of folk music. Drifting from one open town to the next, following the fairs, the races and the excursions, these men formed a real folk academy. After the tonks and houses closed, they would meet in some hospitable back-room rendezvous to play on into the morning. Ideas were freely exchanged...

Note that they were travelling from place to place to earn a living. You see, Conrad, even the most cursory reading and research on your part would reveal to you that your knowledge of the business is zilch. You appear to be spouting bullshit from a baseline of no knowledge whatsoever. Now, if you want to provide some decent supporting evidence for your ridiculous statements - let's have it.