well I think just the opposite Shimrod.

I think most traditional folk is very poor stuff. Its a tradition that has bypassed most people in the land, and very often they reject it just because of the sound of it. Someone who can make those old songs live is a bit of a rarity. Without those admittedly talented few, most of the stuff would be in libraries.

The universality belongs to contemporary folk. that is what most people try and perform when they call themselves folksingers. This is the common tongue.

It grabbed peoples attention as the sound of their own thoughts put into music at the time of the cold war. And it remains the most attractive aspect of folk for the vast majority. People kicked about by authority, like the miners in the miners strike, responded at a visceral level with a song like Athenry and Irish rebel songs. People at odds with the enforced jollity of Yuletide responded to Fairytale of New york.

Most contemporary singers songwriters find no place in the review section of folk magazines or on folk radio programmes or on folk festival platforms. the music lives and breathes in England without subsidy by virtue of the folk clubs.