What MTed has said is the deal breaker for me.

"I throw this stuff out, because it gives some insight into how folk music might have come to be extremely popular at a particular period of time, and how that popularity might then have passed by, leaving a much diminished and fragmented audience."

Sorry, Ron. This is what really rings true. That audience is there, but much diminished and fragmented. That's not being dead, dying perhaps, but way too diluted to speak to the masses as the music once did.