> That would kick out Hank Williams Sr, Bob Dylan, and Pokey LaFarge out of the American folk music pantheon : no thank you! They're as authentically American as it gets. Another definition defines it as music of the people. Guess what Pete Seeger? Your dad went to Harvard, you're no folk musician! (in his defense he described himself as a singer or folk songs and not a folk singer, but still).

There's an "authentically American pantheon" and an "American folk music pantheon." They're not identical but they do overlap here and there. You're teetering on the edge of Mudcat Fallacy No. 1, namely: "To say it isn't folk is to say it's junk and I shouldn't like it." Nonsense.

Pete Seeger went to Harvard too, though briefly. That wouldn't keep him from a being a "folk musician" any more than it kept Judge Learned Hand from singing two folk songs on a Library of Congress folk music LP.

When Seeger does a traditional song that he learned from a traditional source, and plays his banjo in a traditional manner, he's a folk musician in my book. When he does something else, he isn't. There's no contradiction. The only issue is what it means, specifically, to say someone is or isn't a "folk musician," and how much it matters to a particular discussion.

Was Charles Ives a "folk composer"? Obviously not. What difference does that make to his music? None.

Back to the "canon." Child includes "a ballad" he calls "Sir Patrick Spens." But not all the versions have that title. Some are fragments. The story varies to some degree in each one. So is there one "Sir Patrick" ballad or several?

Ewan MacColl's version is usually considered to be he finest of all, but maybe he put it together himself around 1950. Does it matter? If he didn't, is MacColl's "Sir Patrick" "canonical"? If not, so what? Is it suddenly a lousy version?

Don't let labels cloud your mind. Most or all of them are for convenience and orientation only. They indicate spectra. When you get down to cases, they quickly recede in importance.