I have no interest in arguing with you "Guest/Wild Once". We are all entitled to our opinions. What I meant by the comment with which you disagree is that folk music has the ability to inform folks about people and events that we otherwise might not hear about. It also has the ability to influence opinions.
   I know that the excellent Huffington Post article about Charles Scott Howard was read by thousands of people (there were about 1300 comments on it), but Raymond Crooke's song on YouTube told the story to a bunch of folks who probably had not seen the HuffPost article.
   Then a public radio station in West Virginia used Mr. Crooke's song to highlight its piece about Mr. Howard's battle with "Big Coal" on the eve of his trial. So, many more folks in the Appalachian mountains learned about the issue. There was also an article about Mr. Crooke's song in the local newspaper - The Mountain Eagle - where Mr. Howard lives.
   Whether one likes the song or not, it has helped to spread the word about Mr. Howard's mine safety advocacy.
   In addition, whether Bob Dylan, Billy Edd Wheeler or another songwriter could have written a more concise song isn't the issue to me. Mr. Crooke took the time and made the effort to honor Mr. Howard with the song. Indeed, I found Mr. Crooke's song to be quite clever and it certainly had a viewpoint of its own.
   As for your final comment, it is axiomatic that people's lives are the basis for folk music - but that doesn't mean that folk music can't spread the word and influence opinions. Woody Guthrie wrote powerful music about real life events - the Ludlow Massacre, the 1913 Massacre, the Centralia Disaster, etc - but that doesn't mean that his music didn't inform and influence.
   Kudos to Mr. Crooke for putting into music a story that otherwise would have ended with the HuffPost article!