This is hard to answer because of the term folkie. It makes me want to exclude the likes of long time professional recording artists and songwriters like Dylan or Baez, as well as professional curators like the Lomaxes. I know its irrational but I have an inborn romantic bias towards recognizing the amatuer over the professional in this area. For this reason I submit for consideration Harry Smith, compiler of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Granted his efforts are far less comprehensive than the work of the Lomaxes and their counterparts around the world. Granted also is the fact that Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger did far more to keep the folk process and folk traditions alive via performance than Smith. And still further I grant that better, more complete collections and better scholarship have been made. Yet the Anthology was unique in that it represented the first easy, and perhaps still best port of entry through which a person to make their initial discovery of the incredibly wide, deep and rich tapestry of American Folk Music.

I realize that this vote is intrinsically biased towards American Folk, but only because thats where I come from and what I know best. Its not out of any intential disregard or lack of recognition of the larger world of folk music and art.