"i to assume then that folk in all its guises belongs to the collectors and academics"
No, it doesn't; it belongs to all of us - or so Walter Pardon once told us. Acedemics and collectors are just part of the process of passing it on, just as the singers in the clubs are part of that process.
It is up to all of us to value and take care of what we have been given so those who come after us get the same pleasure out of it that we did.
Jim Carroll