The image of the photograph of a bird in flight is striking - I think I first came across it in a Pete Seeger book. Another striking image related to 'tradition' is Utah Phillips' reference to learning from 'elders' who lived extraordinary lives in logging camps, factories and all manner of social settings. His image of 'tradition' is as 'a long stream that you are swimming through it, you bathe in it and, if you keep your eyes and ears open, part of the story will flow into you - you kind of roll it around in your head and give it your own quirk, and it flows out of you, back into the stream, the great river of the people, the people's long story'.

There probably never has been a 'folk' music as 'pure' as the classic folklorists would like it to have been. In general usage, as descriptive terms, 'folk' and 'tradition' seem to have become laden with so many contradictory meanings and assumptions as to be almost useless. I agree with those who suggest the overarching, and more inclusive, designation of 'vernacular music' or even the retrospective term 'roots music' may be more useful. I agree with Frank that it is a matter of respecting the old-timers and honouring the legacy, but this should be done without disqualifying new features of 'the tradition'. The term 'vernacular music' can encompass these more easily than 'folk tradition'.

A recent book that examines its subject in the light of 'vernacular music' is Benjamin Filene 'Romancing the folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music' Uni of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London 2000.

--Stewie.