OK WLD, no offense taken (I would never claim to be an intellectual, anyway - just a stroppy old git who has something of a horror of received wisdom).
I also suppose that I'm not particularly interested in old or new pop songs - they don't give me that buzz of excitement that 'real' (and let's not get into that again!!) folk songs do. And, let's be honest, if I'd been Cecil Sharp I would have ignored the pop songs as well and if I'd been Ewan MacColl I would have been bored and impatient with such stuff also. But then over the last 40 years I HAVE patiently sat through hundreds of hours of 'not-folk' in folk clubs waiting for that precious moment when someone DOES sing a 'real' folk song - and sings it well with passion and understanding.

I also agree with everything that John Adams says. A lot of people seem to mistake the lack of slickness in recordings of trad. singers/musicians for lack of skill - but they were often very skillful indeed - you just have to learn to approach their music in a very different way.