Guest, we "old fogeys" had folk music pretty well defined until the Fifties, when the "Great Folk Scare" occurred, and hordes of frat boys in look-alike button down collar shirts singing folk songs—to begin with—were suddenly found commercially viable by purveyors of pop music records and music promoters. "Folk music" became the $$Big$$Buzz$$Word and everybody and his pet turkey started writing "folk songs"

Note: One does not write a folk song. A written song can become a folk song, but that is not something that is determined by simply calling it a folk song.

Nor does one become a folk singer by singing Rock and Roll and calling it "Folk Rock!"

A folk song is like a piece of antique furniture. It becomes a folk song—or an antique—over time and through use. You cannot simply sit down and write a folk song any more than you can go down to your workshop and make an "antique."

I know of damned few songs designated as "folk rock," for example, that are sung by people other than the person or group who wrote them.

Time and usage.

And for personal enjoyment, not commercial exploitation.

It's only the wet-behind the ears types who insist that the song they wrote just yesterday is a folk song--trying to claim a prestige for it--and themselves--that they have not yet earned.

Don Firth

P. S. Now, for Chrissake, let's get back to the subject of this thread!