This thread has gone a long way towards answering a question that I was thinking of starting a new thread for: for those who are happy to apply the label "folk" broadly, rather than narrowly to traditional material, what are their criteria for what qualifies?

Steve's
> Dave there IS NO line. You draw your own lines as you suggest. Think Venn diagrams for music genres!

> BTW I'd be quite interested in where people draw lines between traditional folk and pieces written say 1860 to 1910 and perhaps even later. (Sorry for early thread drift)

is helpful and reminiscent of Steve Roud's discussion in the Introduction to The Book.)

The first time I heard Vincent Black Lightening I had some trouble following the plot, which suggests that it isn't quite as pared down to essentials as some of the big ballads, but it does tell a story, through a combination of description and dialogue.

The pop world is a closed book to me, my main experience being the songs that one is exposed to in shops, hairdressers, etc, characterised by much repetition of a few words (if the words are audible at all above all the other noise) and much percussion. But I get the impression that that is one end of the pop spectrum, with the other end shading into "contemporary folk" or whatever we want to call that.