"However, the need and the community....."
Sorry Ron, the community is no longer involved in either the making nor the transmission of the songs (unless you want to re-define the term 'community', that is).
The population in general have become passive recipients of their culture; it comes ready made as a commodity. It no longer reflects the events of people in the way tradition did; its role being purely entertainment.
You've possibly read me having said this before, but when we started recording Irish Traveller in London in 1973 it was possible to sit around an open fire at night and listen to songs, stories, conversation, deals being done..... this was traditionally the Travellers place of meeting. We broke off work for eighteen months, and when we started up again in 1975 that had disappeared completely; television had totally taken over.
Now, the only place to hear folk songs is in the greehouse conditions of the folk club - not unlike Sharp's drawiong room and conservetoire concerts.
The same happened much earlier here in Ireland, where the country-house kitchen gatherings ceased, first because of the church having taken against unchaperoned gatherings of people, and their co-operation to set up dancehalls (Ballrooms of Romance), and later with television.
People in general no longer appear to need to either make or listen to songs that reflect their lives, which was once the defining factor of the tradition.
Doesn't mean to say we can't go on making nor listening to newly made songs, just that this no longer ha anything to do with 'the folk'.
Jim Carroll