A question for you Jim so that I understand something that I don't. This is not a windup question I promise you.

Is it the songs themselves or the style that they are performed in?
Does that matter?

Is there are a hierarchy which goes (and this may not be it but

TOP Manner in which transmitted
NEXT DOWN The style of the song
NEXT DOWN The perceived genre of the performer
etc
etc

Does the 'genuineness' of the source singer matter?
Does the intention matter?
Does the sound of the song matter?

When I grew into music in the 60s I liked what I percieved was folk music and I now realise it's not what folk music was - and Don's post was enormously useful to me to understand some of the heritage of that. But it was the folk I came to and folk means something different still in 2008.

Interestingly there is no 'folk' category on Napster. Eliza Carthy is now a part of 'Americana' which I find enormously entertaining (can we have our tea back?)

Fairport, Incredible String Band, Judy Collins, The Byrds, John Martyn. Pentangle were all people I heard and liked. Each in their own way presented traditional folk music wrapped up in a parcel that I understood and liked. They sang a lot of folk songs but arranged enormously differently (Spencer the Rover - Lyke Wake Dirge - Pretty polly - etc etc)

It's much like blues. After an early introduction to Robert Johnson (which in it's raw form is quite hard to get into when you're young I'd suggest) I go in to blues via John Mayall, Paul Butterfield and BB King.

Or Beria, Xenakis, Stockhausen who made precious little sense to me until someone traced their heritage back to things that I understood and explained how they got to where they are/were.

The raw source material is quite hard to get in to - it makes more sense once you start with something that is nearer to what you hear on the radio and work backwards. At some point you get to a place that you are comfortable with. Mine stops the popular side of Walter Pardon who I know does lots for you (for heritage - genuineness - quality - whatever) but does precious little for me. Steve Gardham posted somewhere on here that when he found the Watersons it clicked and worked and that was him - and not even a path I would guess he was looking for (I may be wrong of course)

It's that beauty of serendipidity that takes you at some point to a home you love which is the beauty of music and life.