"Can we please get back to the subject?"
Fine as far as I'm concerned
It would help if clowns like yourself stopped thowing phrased about like "dictat", "mentor" and the rest of the diversive garbage you go in for.
I've said why I believe folk song to be unique - totally different from output of the music industry - always somebosy elses and never ours (uness we pay for it - music of the working people, their cultural creations and our heritage - neglected by the media / dismissed by many of the folkies who disregard it and have now arbitrarily decided it means something else - back into the arms of the music machine.
Try dealing with that instead of feeding the trolls.
You were the one who put up a long and insulting argument about Boomtown Rats being "folk"
Justify it or stop complaining when it is brought up
It isn't - show why it is.
Jim Carroll