one thing I feel I should point out to MG, it's possible that more people heard the Kingston Trio recording of Wimmoweh than Pete Seegers, but I don't think the KT second album sold as well as the first album, and that one sold a lot solely due to the popularity of Tom Dooley.

But as with many KT albums, everbody already knew the songs. Everbody, at least 95% of the population were already familiar with Wimmoweh from hundreds of concerts by Pete. Yes he was blacklisted from radio and tv, but he toured everywhere, from college campuses to summer camps, teaching the songs and inspiring every folk music club to begin on every college campus in the country. The Kingston Trio were no better than Mitch Miller in that they offered familiar songs to a popular audience. Come on, the first album so influential according to MG contained these songs:

Three Jolly Coachmen
 
Saro Jane

Bay of Mexico
 
Sloop John B

Banua
 
Santy Anno

Tom Dooley
 
Scotch and Soda

Fast Freight
 
Coplas

Hard, Ain't It Hard
 
Little Maggie

people bought it because of, a-wella, Tom Dooley. And why did we have to listen to so many bad folk singers all over the country singing 'Scotch and Soda'? Anybody here ever sing Banua or Coplas? The Beach Boys Sloop John B was successful because it was an ironic drunken party song that mocked the Trio. A good song on the recording is Hard, Ain't it Hard, but not their version of it. Precious few 'folk songs', (not to restart that argument of what is or isn't). Yes this album was bought by many, for Tom Dooley, but influenced maybe one in a thousand teenage boys to sing crap like 'Scotch and Soda' because it was about getting drunk. not much of an influence if you ask me, but nobody asked me.

There were many more recordings of Burl Ives in every elementary school in the country, along with other FOlkways recordings. The weavers, Pete Seeger, these had much greater influence on teaching people, encouraging people, allowing people to sing together in public rather than sitting back and being entertained. That was the heart of folk music, group singing, and Pete and the Weavers were at the heart of that movement. When the Kingston Trio and Peter Paul and Mary and others came on the scene it became again a time to be entertained rather than be involved. Yes there was some singalong in concert but less and less as the years went on. Stars begat starlings who would dominate a party with their rendition of a Joan Baez song, or whatever, the civil rights movement and maybe a bit of the anti Vietnam war movement was the last of the great singalongs. Television, pop culture media giants, big star recording artists took over and the folk movement was long gone. I don't know that there was any one recording that had the greatest influence on folk music, but it certainly wasn't The Kingston Trio. It might have been Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme for all that, or early Bob Dylan, more likely.