Jim, I don't share your passion in listening to traditional folk songs - my musical interests lie elsewhere - but I can sympathise with anyone who yearns for a time before the particular kind of music they love had (in their view) disappeared or lessened.

I'm lucky in that the traditional tune sessions that I'm fond of flower in my area, and that there are many places where I can play ragtime, blues and jazz from the 1920s and 1930s - and other things - on my guitar. If the opportunity to do these things - which I also love - were diminished, then life would be diminished as well.