you dismiss whatever work they might have done on their subjecy out of hand

A slight overreaction here, Jim. I have never dismissed anything out of hand, just pointed out (from time to time) that class-condescension & patronisation are inherent in the underlying assumptions of The Folk Revival as a whole. It's there for all to see - an essentially bourgeois / academic movement founded on the appropriation & subsequent taxidermy & taxonomy of working-class art which is anathema to the nature of the art itself - much less to the culture that gave rise to it.

Tradition = John England singing The Seeds of Love as he goes about his daily duties.
Revival = Cecil Sharp collecting The Seeds of Love, making a parlour piano arrangement to perform to his posh mates that self same evening.

So what? I've read the books, I've research in the libraries, I've collected in the field, and I've even attended & performed at academic conferences. The best academics, like the best Folkies, are all too aware of this state of affairs and the ethical complexities arising therefrom. Indeed - they revell in it.

*

And if I find the idea of state-sponsored prescribed folk correctness anathema to the root cause & innate radicalism of working-class musical creativity, then please forgive my enthusiasm for a music defined primarily by social context than aforementioned stare sponsored folk correctness. The working-class will always have their music - just it might not seem that way (or be of any interest to) folkies, which is what partly moved me to join in with this thread in the first place, reacting to the usual folk-righteous dismissal of one of the most significant & dynamic traditions of popular music making ever to emerge: greater than Folk, greater than the Blues, yet implicity a product of both infused with the inspirations of German electronica in general (and the genius of Kraftwerk in particular).

I first became aware of Hip-Hop in 1980 when a friend came back from New York laden down with 12" mixes of a music that really made me sit up and listen. 32 years on, I'm still listening to Hip-Hop and 'Rap Music' in a state of reverential awe - always amazed at the inventive vernacular genius manifest in wondrous diversity on both sides of the Atlantic, even in Japan and France. Nothing Folk has to offer comes close to this vibrancy, except, of course, the primal numinescence of this thing we call The Tradition.

So - let's talk, eh, old man? But if all you're going to offer is another barrage of Feck! Arse! Girls! then perhaps best not bother.