This is obviosly a dated thread. Here's my take on the KT. No Pete, no KT.
No Pete, no Weavers. Pete could have been a pop star. But the pop folk star status
(the Folk Scare) started with Burl Ives. Then the Weavers.

The KT were sued over Tom Dooley. They popularized it more than      
Frank Warner or Frank Profitt. The hiccup was the hook. It would have remained
an obscure folk song. Now lots of people sing it. I believe the KT heard
the Folksay Trio do it. Erik Darling, Roger Sprung and Bob Cary recorded it for
Asch/Stinson. They put in the hiccup. IMHO the hiccup sold the song.

Some folk songs reached pop status in earlier times. Dixie was one.
Hoosen Johnny at the time of Lincoln was another. Jump Jim Crow.
Daniel Emmett was popular on the New York stage.

Popular songs and folk songs have an incestuous relationship.

Alan Lomax used to get mad at performers like Bud and Travis for popularizing
folk music and yet he endorsed the KT.

What killed the popularity of folk songs were the academics.

The kids said FU, rock and roll is more creative. That's what some academics do,
they destroy creativity.

Think about this, folk music is folk music because it is popular in some way, to some people.

Charlie Parker put it this way, "Don't call it jazz, call it music". Can the
same be said for the record bin title called "folk"?

Gotta' give credit to Mike Seeger, Ralph Rinsler, George Korson, Jean Ritchie
Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Pete and Peggy, Alan and Bess Lomax, and others who
dedicated their lives to the popularity of folk music. Hell, no folk music or blues (which Is
folk music) no Beatles.

It may have been Carl Sandburg to coin the term "folksinger" like the German
term minnesinger