Sorry to have been out of the loop for a few days. I've been helping to run a small folk festival, keeping up with folk club admin, running my monthly concertina practice session, preparing for the concerts of traditional Sussex carols we'll be running this Christmas, not to mention having a couple of teeth out somewhere in the middle of that. Never a dull moment.

Anyway, last week, in a discussion of MGM·Lion's claim that misuse of the word "folk" started with Bob Dylan I drew attention to the fact that Charles Seeger had been involved in Progressive Folk in the 1930s. The word "folk" was being applied to newly written songs twenty years before 1954. In case the penny hasn't dropped, Charles Seeger is father to Pete, Peggy and Mike (and various other little Seegers). Jim Carroll seems to think he's all right since he referenced him earlier in the thread. MGM·Lion responded to that challenge by the time honoured technique of totally ignoring it.

The Sao Paulo conference attempted to define a particular category of music; a worthy exercise. Unfortunately (and for perfectly valid reasons), they chose a term for it which was already in use with a much broader meaning. The 1954 definition does not give anyone rights over the use of the word "folk". Quite a lot of people have a different understanding of it. Learn to live with that. The music is more important than the word.