Nutty, I'd hoped that question would not crop up in relation to PalTalk. The what is folk question does crop up fairly regulary in these forums and the only certainty is that there will be no agreed definition. Some may say a form of music that has been passed down in an oral tradition for x years, others may include modern songs written in a particular style, others may wish to bring commercialism into the equation, etc. I just settle on "if it sounds like folk to me, it is folk".

For the purposes of PalTalk, I would suggest that the definition could be any form of music that you would normally expect to hear in a Folk Club that accepts both traditional and contemporary music. I know this is vague and it doesn't answer how to explain Folk to others but it is the best I can come up with at the moment.

Jon