The point is most people consume, process, discover (call it what you will) music through their ears, not an academic discourse. There's nothing wrong with critical theoretical dialogues going on around music, it's just not the way the stuff is heard and especially not in folk clubs.
On that basis a pastiche of Hank Williams tune or a drinking song or sea shanty are differentiated only in the expectations that surround them, not through any intrinsic value in the received text. Most bookers are bluffing, they go on what the thing sounds like whatever else they might claim.