Interesting...most people on this thread think of "folk" as being the Folk Revival group of performers...Northern, or Northern-discovered, and white. Folk music in the South, and other parts of the country, never stopped. I don't see any of the early recording pioneers here, like Doc Boggs, or Lightning Al Hopkins. Nor do I see any collectors here, not famous ones like Cecil Sharp or Frances Child, popular ones like Carl Sandburg, or lesser-knowns. Nor their sources, like Jane Hicks Gentry, from whom Sharp collected over 60 ballads. Nor the Celtic musicians who came and brought their music. And not too many African-Americans made people's lists, thought the influence of African-American music on what we think of as folk music was huge. Folk music is bigger than the stuff that got recorded in the 50's-60's, or even the 20's. It's ancient. I'd include on a folk Mt. Rushmore the Unknown Singer - a face of no one in particular. That's who kept it going for 250 years.