"He borrowed from traditional sources but he also understood that music in a way a young person today is not able to. Many young songwriters, no matter how talented they are, are too young, too clever or too guided by commercial music biz interests to be cognizant of the tradition of folk music. They might compose "folklike" songs but these need to be changed, steeped in the tradition of variation, and not their "intellectual property". A folk song needs to be picked up and sung and changed by many people to be part of a traditional community."

Frank, by your own definition I do believe these songs and musicians are part of a traditional community. The tradition of variation is A TRADITION, and I do not believe that it is an singular reason to disscredit a song. How many people sing Woody's songs exactly the way he wrote them?   Woody also used songs from the Carter Family and other commercial sources as his base - wanting to use songs that people already had some familiarity with.   To see contemporary songwriters using Guthrie or Dylan as their base is the same process. Woody wrote "This Land is Your Land" because of what he heard in an Irving Berlin song - does this not make it a "folk" song?

There is change, there is communal songwriting going on. I'm not just talking about co-writing a song, but artists taking other songs and making changes to become their own.

It is a stereotype to say that todays artists are driven by commercial biz interests. Joel Mabus joked that he drove 750 miles for the opportunity to sing 3 songs.   There is the another joke - what do you call a folksinger without a mother or a girlfriend - homeless. I know artists that COULD make a commercial endeavor with their work, but choose to travel the country living out of their cars so that they can sing at house concerts, open mics, or other opportunites that provide them with barely enough to survive.

They are not playing for a community like the artists that thrived during the folk revival. The community has changed and if anything is less commercial than what was produced during the revival. The needs are real, the communication is real - and the community and tradition is real.   Tradition changes, new traditions begin and old ones evolve with the times. Folk music does not play to a museum.