"However, Gresham's Law applies. It gets harder and harder to hear traditional music at "folk" venues. Or on "folk" radio."

An interesting point Dick and probably true. You have to ask why? Some people on this board might claim there's a conspiracy by corporate music/pop radio/the maaan. Other's would suggest it was just folk (and real folk at that) finding a way to continue the music that wasn't only past tense.

A recurring theme is that enthusiasts buy their music, unheard, by the label and they're being conned when they open the box and put the CD on the turntable. Can this be true? Is there a straw filled barrel nestling with recordings where a lucky dip will guarantee you'll like the music? Do people see a folk header in a catalogue and a picture of a cute girl in a floaty dress with a guitar and think, yup, that'll be folk? I have a soft spot for the first wave of English punk but even that narrow title would mean that as well as Buzzcocks I'd enjoy Eater, Slaughter and the Dogs and Eddie and the Hotrods none of whom I'd touch with the proverbial folk bargepole.
If you haven't heard it before musical titles are a notoriously unreliable way of getting satisfaction whatever the genre.

'Traditional' is the only word that comes close to suggesting unattributed music and I commend it to label johnnies on both sides of the counter. Incidentally, quite some years ago I went to see a low-key Maddy Prior tour on the back of her work with Steeleye Span and more especially Silly Sisters. I expected traditional but I got stuff about low flying aircraft in whatever idyllic vale she inhabits and other light music. Not my cuppa but who was to blame, MP for trying something different or me for not doing my homework?