"Sold Out"! There are plenty of folk/songwriters/singers that should sell out but it's only folk music after all & it never sold that well to begin with. There are still some standouts writing & singing what I'd call folk music that's top shelf. Buy no means navel gazers or wanna be's, you hear it & you know it. A lot of you folks have been to the getaways in the past few years so look close to home, right here & I think you'll find that it's not sold out, it's not a sell out. If anyone here has heard the songs sung by their authors, the likes of Andrew McKay, George Papavgeris, Alaska Mike & Jed Marum then you already have your answer (& they should make more than just a living wage doing it too). IMHO, there you go, it's alive as a "contempory living tradition" & as a continuum of a "traditional tradition". And no one can tell me it ain't folk!
Barry