The only public music that one can hear here is found in expensive places where one has to pay more than average for food and drink.

I wish that were the case here. Virtually every public space, and many shops and other premises, is playing music constantly. As for people having no music in their heads, these days most of them are permanently plugged into iPods. There are countless music radio stations, TV, and internet sites such as Spotify streaming music. People are perfectly capable of singing songs when they want to - it's just that most of them don't want to (when sober!), and most of it isn't folk music.

Can't you see the contradiction between criticising professional musicians for charging too much and not giving away song sheets, while at the same selling collections of songs yourself?

I get the impression that you are a somewhat rootless person who perhaps lacking a clearly identifiable tradition of his own has latched onto a number of different cultures and traditions and with the enthusiasm of a convert is trying to promote them, but has failed to understand them fully.

What you fail to understand is that the work of Tommy Armstrong, for example, has very little relevance today even to people in NE England, let alone those in NE USA.