"There are even traditional songs on the list for God's sake!"
Thomas Beecham conducted folk songs - didn't make the way they were played "folk"
The fact that a few good ones may slip though the net is unimportant - the general presented picture is one of pop pap
Putting folk music (the voice of the people) into te hands of a monolithic unanswerable Corporation is self harm - as shown by the decline of the clubs.
Healthy folk is like good sex - far better done then watched - that is what has disappeared from the folk scene and it is complacent not to recognise that we, as the participants our clubs onc gave us the opportunity to be, have been relegated to the position of observers - watchers of a star-system from afar
My view of folk songs is afr from narrow - it encompasses the world traditions - not introspective strumners
I can define what I believe to be folk song and can point yopu to libraries full of evidence to back my view up - that's hw "narrow" it is
I doubt if you can produce a single definition which would gain general assent
"The voice of the people" will do for me
Jim