To the songwriters amongst us:

There are songs and songs. If you are writing/making up songs that have the style and "feel" of any form of traditional music, I don't think most people would have a quarrel with your calling yourself a folk musician.

Craig Johnson, of Double Decker String Band, has written some of the finest songs around, as far as Bill and I are concerned. That's because they are memorable, authentic sounding and heartfelt, very singable (by more people than just Craig!) and evoke wonderful images of traditional activities and themes. These are what Mary Cliff calls "Music In The Tradition."

There's another category of singer-songwriters, though. These are the people who make up long, rambling, relatively tuneless and complex songs about the lint in their navels; sing their diaries; or as one friend puts it, about "the People-ness of People." Peace, love, angst and brown rice are fine in their place but they often tend to lead to a sameness in the music.

This type of musician is NOT writing songs "in the tradition." Songs that are too hard to comprehend and remember, or that don't have universal appeal, have seldom gotten into the tradition unless first, they were written down; and second, they were pretty spectacular.

So, my point is: on the one hand, I feel that many singer/songwriters can genuinely be considered folk musicians. On the other hand, I don't think some "folk" singer-songwriters are writing music that has much in common with what we know as folk.