"how the word is used by more recent scholars."
How is that - so far you have mentioned literacy?
"And the current popular definition "
What is the current popular definition - so far nothing?
The vast majority of scholars work from the material defined by '54 - do you have an alternative definition from anywhere?
"Mention of Dylan, Fairport, and Steeleye muddies the waters, since if the writer didn't think they were, or could be regarded in some way as "folk musicians," he wouldn't have mentioned them."
Can't follow the logic of that at all Lighter - he certainly didn't describe them as 'folk'
He mentions Bartok Kodaly and Grainger as well - no sign of them being
folk' either - just that they borrowed from the form.
I'm sure if he'd have believed any of them to have been folk he would have said so.
"makes me wonder what superficial whippersnapper wrote this article"
Sandburg's 'Songbag' was published in 1927 with harmonisations, musical settings and accompaniments (got a copy here in front of me)- It were not intended for the solo singer - rather, the songs were aimed at the 'polite' musically literate classes, pretty much as Sharp had intended originally.   
The American revival was floated on Roosevelt's New Deal project of collecting the songs of the people during the Depression - Guthrie was very much a part of the revival that came out of that.
"The people who originated, and had so far carried, this material didn't think of it as folk music"
Some did - Walter Pardon filled tape after tape explaining the differences between what he referred to as "the old folk songs" and carefully explaining the difference between those and all the other types of song in his repertoire - music hall, Victorian parlour ballads, early pop songs
When he wrote down his family repertoire in notebooks they fell into categories.
Every sinle singer we questioned over thirty years had their own particular name for the songs we describe as 'folk' - every one.
They also claimed them as their own in ne way or another 'Traveller' or 'Norfolk' or 'West Clare'... all identified with their own communities, no matter where they in fact originated from.
The 'unconscious traditional songbird' is an urban myth.
"I doubt very much whether lennon, paul Simon or Dylan get paid for performances of their material in folk club"
Any folk club that pays performing Rights royalties to the P.R.S. or I.M.R.O. jackals, indirectly pays the composers (the famous ones, of course - they take the largest and first slice of the cake)
Folk song falls into the public domain category - the onlt readson P.R.S. can claim anything from a club night ot a session is "just in case anything that isn't in the public domain is included in the evening".
Having an anything goes policy and including pop and other non-folk material in folk song nights has damaged struggling clubs because of this.
"those songs belong to the people now"
You have to be joking Al - try telling their agents that.
"I wish Jim Carroll would stick to collecting songs from sources he approves of and stop insulting other members of mudcat "
And I wish you'd stop trying to gain attention by saying nothing whatever on the subject under discussion.
If you don't have anything to say on 'new folk songs' butt out and leave it to those who do.
If I have hurt anybody's feelings here, they are quite capable of letting me know it without your help.
Kindly mind your own business.
Jim Carroll