Interesting thread, and it's also interesting that it was only towards the end of the thread that I started to see comments that I agreed with. "Nerd" above is pretty much on the money as far as I'm concerned. My opinion:

I have read Greil Marcus, and while I don't always agree with him, he is one of the more pereceptive commentators out there on the subject of American "roots"-based music. His "Mystery Train" was one of the first books that really looked at the connection between older American folk and blues musics, and more modern pop music, including music by Elvis, the Band, Randy Newman, Sly Stone, and others. His "Invisible Republic" similarly looks at Dylan's Basement Tapes as they relate to older folk music traditions. Postings about what an idiot Mr. Marcus is only betray the poster's ignorance of Mr. Marcus's work.

Furthermore, I don't think Marcus should be required to come up with a universally acceptable definition of folk music (impossible task that it is) before offering his comments. When the rest of us reach agreement on the proper definition of folk music, I suppose we can justifiably criticize Mr. Marcus for ignoring certain work that we feel he should have considered before expressing his opinion. It's only a word, after all, and one that is defined in a variety of ways, as the many threads on this topic illustrate.

Finally, I do agree with Marcus that much of the politically-oriented "folk" music of the 50's, 60's and 70's was self-righteous to a fault. I happen to like "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?", but I have to admit that the line in question is a little hard to take. Evidently Seeger now thinks so too, or else he would not have changed it in his live performances; but even now, I think most people know it as "when will THEY ever learn". Moreover, in my opinion, "Imagine" is one of the most over-rated songs of the last 50 years. John Lennon was a great songwriter, but this was one of his lesser efforts, as far as I'm concerned. It's easy to whine about how "they" don't fix all the world's problems, while conveniently ignoring the fact that these problems are damn hard to fix, and if we really knew how to fix them, we would.

Anyway, I know this is an old thread, but I think some of us might benefit from a little more self-examination, and a little less knee-jerk defensiveness. Greil Marcus isn't always right, but there is some validity to his comments.