Following on from my previous post I think that the whole 'what is folk'?/what is a folk purist?' debate can be neatly summed up in the following dialogue:

'Folk' singer: "I do folk; gimme a gig in your club, man!"

Folk club organiser: "Sorry but no. You see we only book people who do traditional type material."

'Folk' singer: "Whadya mean, no! You f***ing purist!"

And this dialogue, in some form or other, has been repeated over and over for at least the last 50 years, and will probably be repeated for the next 50.