Deli-you can compose your well-worded treatises until the cows come home. I've already ceded you the point that the KT didn't drop from Mt. Olympus, or transport from the Enterprise.

But it's all moot. The KT DID indeed start, and nurture the so-called great folk scare in the U.S. Period. No one argues that there were progenitors--but THEY made it hip, popular, sold a bazillion records, did college concerts, and accounted singularily for Martin's rebirth, and Vega Banjo's survival until they sold out. Talk to any true Martin expert and they will tell you the same.

As much as you HATE it, MG is correct on this one. Your rhetoric as well reasoned as it is doesn't change the facts Jack. Until the Beatles, they were the most popular sellers, singers, act in show-biz, like it or not. Talk to a Capitol exec. They WERE the cash cow, and brought "folk music" into millions of homes that never heard of Burl, or Woody, or any Lomax. Our old console piece o' furniture didn't have any "Leadbelly" played on it ever-but the KT? You bet pal. And everyone had their clones on their labels. Even DYLAN admits to their influence on him. C'mon--get out yer KT fan club autographed pic, and yer D28 and join the sing along. They WERE the Beatles of the folk era. You talk about US trying to prove a point--so are you and you just won't admit to it. Do you REMEMBER that eon? Were you there? I was....and the KT absolutely RULED it---true folk or not. Arguing that there were others out there who preceded the KT is no point at all. There were others out there before the Beatles too but they werent the Beatles. Who was there before Bill Haley and the Comets? But who is credited with ushering in Rock and Roll? The KT was it. Everyone else who came after owed THEM as being progenitors.