Sam Hinton, the folksong performer, scholar, Renaissance man and brilliant made an important observation. Barbara Allen would be lost in the folk tradition had it not been set
in print and subsequently revived. The whole notion of what constitutes a folk singer in America came from the literary man who used it to describe what he did in concert, Carl Sandburgh. John Lomax would find it uphill sledding to get his cowboy ballads out in print and as a result, there is an interest in this kind of occupational song that gives rise to the annual meeting of cowboy poets.

The folklorists and academicians serve an important function in the appreciation of folk music. The stuff pouring out of pubs and bars can be said to be kind of a mish-mosh. I do agree that folk music is best communicated on a personal level, people-to-people rather than frozen accounts in books.

Bartok and Schubert recognized that folk music was unique and studied it academically.
Also Villalobos and the composer Chavez from Mexico. Stravinsky too.

Publication amplifies but by no means substitutes for a personal experience of folk music.
What does a doubtful service is to isolate any information coming from any source as being valueless.

Frank Hamilton