This is not a simple subject but my heart is with Big Al rather than with Jim Carroll. ( At least in part because I don't actually get what Jim Carrol really wants to say.) I would prefer to follow an intellectual path rather than an emotional one but have yet to find a coherent intellectual argument.

Walter Pardon learned songs he liked. He classified songs he liked into different groups. He put labels on these groups. This is what I have done throughout my life. It is what any spotty kid does when he picks up a guitar and learns whichever innocuous pop song moves him. One of the labels is 'folk music'. It is a label.

For me the action of singing the songs and playing the tunes is far more important than waging a labels war. But it seems to me that this thread is about a war of labels. I prefer music.