You said: A couple of radio shows and the Opie's books are not a real second revival.

I was saying this is total crap, there were considerably more than 'a couple' of BBC radio programmes and that the Opie's books (and others) were very influential and popular. The 'American influence' (such as it was) consisted mainly in an interest in blues which was regarded not as part of the revival but as, what was then, an alien, exciting, secret culture from a land before it became a cesspit of cultural ethnic cleansing and corporate globalisation we knew little about. Peggy Seeger's stance at the Singers was to tell people to stop pretending to be sharecroppers and cowboys and examine their own cultures, for which many (notably Martin Carthy) thanked her.

My experience of US radio (PSB or not) is minimal (though vastly in excess, apparently, of what Steve knows of UK broadcasting). What I do know about the US airwaves, having listened some of the shows he mentions, is that output comprises mainstream, MOR, celticky, countrified shit. No better than R2 in fact.

The Americans gave us the club singing scene, did they? Odd, I've never encountered anything remotely like it in the US, not that I'd advocate its adoption there, given the state it's in. The folk club movement demolished itself over two decades ago when it became overrun by comedians and wannabe popstar snigger-snoggers. English music carried on regardless in sessions, ceilidhs and certain festivals. In any case, fashions for how music is presented commercially change, but what doesn't is how it survives, thrives and develops in communities who share and adapt it. This continues, regardless of which (if any) 'revival' folklorists imagine they're living under. It mirrors people's lives, their experiences, successes, failures and tribulations. It might grab some bits from the Brill Building/Tin Pan Alley but it's not manufactured within them. People determine it, not musbiz whims and that's what makes it political.