People not raised in the tradition need gateways. A band that mixed music I understood (punk) with traditional acoustic instruments and even occasionally songs and tunes, was like they key to the first door for me. For more than 20 years I have been moving through. Successive doors, and there is certainly music I love now, such ad the recordings of John Reilly, that would have seemed tedious and incomprehensible to my 20 year old self. They would have remained so, I suspect, if I had not been led to folk by certain "pop" bands. I can't believe I'm unique in this.