Thanks Don. That was exactly the answer to my question.   What you have described is actually similar to the music that I became involved in - perhaps about 10 years or so later than you. Much of what you described is traditional folk music that comes from a British Tradition - either originally or traversing to the United States.   There is a unique "sound" to that body of work. As you note, you do not have a "regional" sound, but what you described is a typical American folk song background.   It is also typically a "white" urban background - and I am not saying that with any disparaging or racial undertones. What you describe is a typical background, that I believe most of the posters to this thread from our side of the pond, grew up in.

There is nothing wrong with that.   Two artists that you mentioned, artists like Gordon Bok and Ed McCurdy, wrote songs in a similar style.

However, there are "other" traditions at play. Cajun music is folk music tradition. African-American folk music is a huge body of work. Mexican-Americans have a strong folk song tradition. We cannot overlook Native American music either.   Each of these have a unique "sound".

I perfectly understand your point of not enjoying contemporary "folk" because it does sound "different" and feels foreign compared to what came before it. Yet there are many items that it shares in common with the makeup of communties of the past.

Natually, a song like "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" that Ed McCurdy wrote in the 1950's cannot be considered a "traditional folk song" in the definition of musicologists. Yet Ed McCurdy, the Weavers, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie are closely recognized as being part of the folk music community. I agree that there music is not traditional folk music, nor would any of them dare to call it that. Yet each one is recognized as performers of folk music - and I dare anyone to try to alter that status in the minds of their audience.

Richard Dyer-Bennett was a brillant scholar and collector, but he was really a cabaret performer who did not sing any style that you could find in field recordings. The Weavers arranged their "folk songs" to fit pop culture. Josh White did not sing in the same style as the original songs were set.

Even you Don use your own artistic vision to perform the songs as you see fit.

There is something unique happening in contemporary music, and I do not believe that anyone is trying to pass it off as "traditional". They are following in the footsteps of others, and creating an honest sound that is speaking to a new community.   A society that creates a Chuck Brodsky or a John Flynn or a Joe Jencks or an Anne Feeney is doing something right in carrying on a unique FOLK MUSIC tradition.   

It isn't about numbers, it is about style and substance.