A timely post Bert. There isn't much (any?) critique of folk songs that addresses their fall from popularity. It's usually blamed on the music hall, or cinema or the TV but that suggests the songs lacked something those media provided.

I'm happy to grade traditional music from sublime and transcendent to a load of old cobblers and have never understood validating antiquity and process for its own sake. The arrested nature of folk music is largely due to the captive audience to whom it is played, or who play it. Boos and catcalls, where warranted, would do more for the continuing folk process than any amount of applause.