Elsie,I have great sympathy for you. I can see that you are carrying this important message on your shoulders and its a ton ofweight - fair play tae ye, girl. You're passionate about this subject - I don't think you're being grumpy at all. Its much better than being impassive about it.

There is one thing, however, that your argument does not allow for and it is only hinted at in some of the other messages. The fact is that lumping all this music together does provide people who are just getting to know this genre of music with the means to explore the different types of "folk" music available. I admit that this was how I became interested in folk songs and folk music and ended up a complete Trad-head. The point is that without the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Fairpoint Convention, Steeleye Span, and even Suzanne Vega, being classed as Folk, there would be an awful lot of people who wouldn't have a clue as to what Folk Music is like. They may go away with a misunderstanding as to what "real" folk music is about, but at least it got them away from the steady onslaught of purely commercial garbage that permeates the airwaves. It is more likely that they'll get into folk music and discover the wealth of music as many have done before.

I agree with Elsie, however, that there is an urgent need to define Folk music so that it is clear to all, the type of music being listened to. But I would steer clear of simple, all encompassing definitions as these have proved to either include too much or exclude too much and are very clumsy. A system which has been used to categorise the various types of Jazz music may be a useful starting point. For example Trad Jazz is commonly applied to big band jazz like Benny Goodman, whereas Be Bop and Post Be Bop to the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane and "The Bird" - Charlie Parker. In the 70's Jazz was mixed with all sorts of other music, Latin American, Funk, Rock and this became known as Fusion Jazz, and this is futher sub-categorised depending on the influence. In this way Jazz has managed to keep up with changing times and without compromising the intitial application of the term.

I know that this style of subcategorisation was mostly spontaneous over the years (perhaps a reflection of the music) but it should be possible to sit down and construct a similar categorisation of Folk music. For example we already have English folk music, simply adding a term such as "archaic" or "60's protest" could create divisions between essentially different types of "Folk" songs.

Perhaps some of you imaginative lot out there could elaborate on the different types of subdivisions that could be possible. We might not be able to include all that pertains to be folk but we could at least preserve the original meaning and stop greedy music business fat cats sending out some spotty, untalented guy with an acoustic guitar and mouth organ and making out he's the greatest folk musician ever and then raking in the money.

I look forward to any suggestions or comments.

Laoise.