I'd been ignoring this tread this while because of the tittle but another thread drew me back here. Here is another point of view.

What is a Real Folksinger?

I give you Pat. Pat grew up in an isolated village on a remote island off tha coast of Newfoundland. A few times a year my Father would have a group of his drinking buddies come by the house and when they would get him drunk enough, Pat would sing. He'd sing about fishing, hard work, heartbreak and poverty. He'd sing in an amazing voice, sounding nothing you would hear in popular music, or even in folk music from the rest of North America. The songs were hundreds of years old, passed on from generation to generation at kitchen tables in small fishing villiages.

Would you call Pat a folksinger? Because he wouldn't. He calls himself a town engineer.