Right on, Barry! I've been thinking about some of the other entries. If the question were most significant folk performer, I'd certainly give my vote to Pete Seeger. But a lot of what Pete Seeger sang for us he learned from the Archive of Folk Song recordings that Charles and Ruth Crawford Seeger were transcribing from... you guessed it: Lomax field trips. Leadbelly? How would we ever have heard him without the Lomaxes, father and son, although it's a pretty well-known fact that they exploited him along the way.

Where did the Kingston Trio learn the song that catapulted them into the national limelight? From the Frank Proffitt version of "Tom Dula" that Frank Warner had allowed Alan Lomax to publish in Folksong U.S.A. Lomax recorded blues, hollers, worksongs, ballads, lyrics, shape-note hymns, gospel songs, etc.

Through his field work, his writing, his books, his production of early folksong radio shows (introducing Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Burl Ives, etc. to a national audience), his remarkable ability to convince others to help finance what he thought was important, Alan was ultimately responsible for the work of almost every other person/persons suggested by contributors to this thread. That explains my vote.

Sandy