Back when folk music (in the US) was still an "underground" phenomenon, of interest to a small minority of players and listeners, there seemed to be a closer connection, or at least a greater degree of openness, to commericial country-n-western music a la Nashville. I'm thinking of the readiness among guitar pickers, for example, to emulate Merle Travis and Chet Atkins. (I'm also reminded that Johnny Cash appeared as a "folksinger" in the early-60s movie Hootenanny along with Judy Henske, the Brothers Four, and several other early-folk-scare-era acts.)

I would also observe that back when scholarly types living in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, were "discovering" aging folk artists, the rural white players available for discovery were unabashed listeners to the Grand Ole Opry, for whom the old songs they learned from their grandpappies had a degree of influence roughly equivalent to songs learned more recently from the pros broadcasting from Nashville. (Of course, at least some of the songs coming out of Nashville back then came from the families and forebearers of the artists.)

I think it is interesting and revealing that many among the more mature generation of country-music fans have developed a brand of skepticism/ snobbism toward contemporary big-hat commercial country music that is quite similar to the attitude of old-fogy folkies toward various kinds of "new folk." I think that this phenomemon proves that the old songs and the old approach to performing really does offer an essential human and musical quality that is missing from a whole lot of mass-marketed popular music.