"At last we have another definition if a song can raise the hair on the back of your neck or cut to the emotions then it's a folk song !"
Folk songs can do that Keith, and often do, but so can a well sung aria
It's an effect, not a definition

"Do we take it then that this is your definition of folk music?"
No (if your question made sense) how can an evening of songs become a folk song?
"Have you checked if the majority of people attending folk clubs accept your definition?
Have you?
The majority of people he have singularly failed to come up with anything resembling a definition apart from "something that happens in a folk club"
I've heard opera performed at a folk club - doesn't mean Nessun Dorma is a folk song

"that your definition of folk music is the right one"
You are wrong
The only existing researched and agreed working definition is the one accepted throughout the world by researchers - none other has been forthcoming
Libraries of books have been produced using that definition and hundreds of thousands have albums have been produced
There are magazines and journals throughout the world still using that definition as a guide
Ideas scribbled on a beer mat at a folk club and agreed only by the writer can only become a definition when it is widely accepted
You people can't even agree one among yourselves - most of you reject the need for a definition

Definitions do not apply to folk clubs (I really should get a rubber stamp made of that statement - I've got typers cramp repeating it)
A club calling itself folk should never adhere to any definition, but it should live up to its claim of presenting folk songs to some degree
Campbell articulated that far better than I could

Folk song is in itself an important part of our history and culture - it also presents enormous possibilities for creation and self-expression in the future
MacColl and the Radio Ballads team proved that beyond doubt by producing gems like Singing the Fishing, Song of A Road, The Big Hewer and The Travelling People - perfect examples of folk songs, newly written songs and the actuality of working people describing their lives
The experiment was repeated some time ago - I don't think that later ones were as good for avrious reasons, but they still worked as a combination of those elements
Am I really expressing myself so badly that I have to keep repeating the same thing Dave - or is it you?
Jim Carroll