Q: since when have their been any boffins in charge of deciding whats folk.

A : Since the Boffins invented Folk in the first place of course! Before the boffins came up with Folk, people just got on with the craft of making music, which, for the most part, they still do...

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On Saturday we stood in the freezing night winds someplace outside the Arndale in Manchester watching some East European buskers: three trumpets, one electric keyboard, one accordion, playing a very blurred feral organic 30-minute extended improvisation on Abba's 'The Winner Takes it All' whilst one of the city's street dancers organised passers-by into cordinated moves until there were maybe ten or so people were doing a routine that looked like they'd been rehearsing for months. The crowds just loved it. And no Boffins in sight to put in the specimen jar to fret over its defination in the laboratory - this was a timeless scene of human music making on a human scale. I wouldn't insult it by calling it 'Folk' - just People Music.

People Music is joyful, profound, ceremonial, celebratory, spontaneous, immediate, life affirming. People Music is music by The People, for The People - as long there have been People, there has been People Music; as long as there are People there will be People Music. Folk is People Music gone bad; Folk is People Music taken from the People and made into something it was never meant to be. Folk is People Music defined & collected & contained - which is something you can never do with People Music because true People Music will always beggar belief, let alone description and definition. It is wild, it is real, it is wonderful, and it is Alive - all the things Folk once was before the boffins nicked off the people for their posh kids to play with... Not that The People seem overly bothered mind, they're too busy dancing & singing to even notice.