It doesn't matter much what you call it, juist do it ! or should that be a /. A lot of this discussion is about music industry stuff, which most of the time has very little to contribute to the musical content.

Someone up there said people has a duty to 'entertain' - I don't agree, a lot of folk music is not 'entertaining' in a passive, you perform and I'll be entertained sort of way, some of it is meant to be educational, helps to remind people of their roots etc. It is not and should not always have to be about having happy clappy people smiling all the time.

I never understood this thong about singer songwriters - is it the fact that they sing or write songs that bothers people. Problem here is that singer/songwriters have become a genre (whatever that is) and have been dubbed uncool by some of those who seek to tell us 'rootsies' what we should and shouldn't like. I had a funny experience a couple of years ago when someone who had gone to see Hal Ketchum on my recommendation cane and thanked me for it. He said "I thought he was going to be a singer songwriter, but it turned out he was "Country Blues" and I really enjoyed it. So Hal Ketchum isn't a singer/songwriter ?

In the UK the Folk Roots magazine dropped the 'f' word a few years ago and becme fROOTS. Someone writing to the daily newspaper at Sidmouth pointed out that if that festival followed suit it would become the Sidmouth International festival of fArts !

As for OBWAT, I enjoyed it a lot and love the soundtrack. Unfortunately a lot of comedy is parody at some sort of a level. Anyone seen the St Patricks day jokes thread. I enjoyed a lot of them but had heard most before. But I wouldn't take offence at any of it.