"As I mentioned earlier, there was not much of a folk music identity before the Kingston Trio's first album. The Grammy awards had no folk music catagory and Tom Dooley won best country and western song in 1958, launching the folk genre from there on out." Martin Gibson

Actually thats a good point concerning the Grammys, which was mentioned before. Nobody knew what to do with the KT's big "hit" and album. I think by the next year that had changed alot. Hard to argue that point- not that the Grammys are the be-all end-all of the music world, but what did they call what Bill Haley did before "rock & roll" was coined-or "rock"? When a single group or artist compels the Grammys to CREATE a new category I'd say thats the beginning of something, no? Sure there were folksinger etc. before but this started a whole new thing, thus fits the initial question I think.

(Can't believe this thread is still going!!!!)