I feel safe talking about this because I have spent many years puzzling my way through playing in folk clubs even though I’d be hard pressed to find a folk song in my repertoire, notwithstanding my early labours arranging solo fiddle tunes for guitar. Back to the point: I’m puzzled about those other terms. What the heck is “world” music? Is it intended to mean non-western music? In other words, is it shorthand for “rest-of-the-world music”? I find “roots” easier to intuit: I guess that’s used to indicate a music out of which other music grows. In which case plainsong from the 10th century is “roots” music. Right? Well, I’m gonna re-brand myself as a punk-roots songwriter. I hope ya like it!
