My witty deskmate hit the enter key again. Sorry.

I recall so many spats between "traditionalists" and "inclusionists" over the years that I have, more or less, tuned it out. We have come, historically, to a point far beyond where songs were used as a primary form of news dispersion between widely scattered settlements. The "folk tradition" includes many (perhaps, mostly) composed songs, albeit not in the sense we might think of today. If someone writes, or composes and performs a song that commemorates or celebrates an event or person or circumstance, and that song resonates with enough other "folks," I would regard it as a legitimate entry.

We may not have any "John Henrys" or the like in contemporary life, but we have many heroes and villains to write and sing about. Who is to say, if such things are widely accepted, that they cannot become viewed as music of the "folk?"