I think Earl is right. This is not a complete "what if". Folk music got pretty popular in the 60s, and its audience conisted of people who could afford to buy records and attend concerts.

I suspect a lot of songs about "walkin' that long lonesome road" were written in the back of taxi-cabs on the way to the airport at that time.

Look at jazz. When it became a hot property you had the Gershwins and the Whitemans suddenly becoming the major jazz proponents. The blues singers and even the greats like Duke Ellington, the people who developed the art, and who understood it, became (commercial) poor relations.

Murray