"If your experience was typical of how clubs were in the early 60s, "
My Experience stretched into the mid to late eighties - mainly in London, but visits elsewhere suggested that London was not untypical
If yours was an example of 'evolution' (I would choose the term deterioration) it wasn't happening there
I can think of many clubs that specialiased in the real thing - 'The Empress of Russia', 'Herga', 'The Fox', The Kings Head', 'Croydon', 'The Railway' at Stratford East ...
where you were guaranteed to hear folk songs
There weer others that did other things
I was actively involved in several - 'Court House Sessions', 'The Tradition Cub', 'The Metropolitan'.... never an introspective navel-gazer to be heard mumbling his/her incomprehensible angst into a guitar
My main base was 'The Singers' because I knew I could wuld never fail to hear good traditional songs well sung, along with new ones not designed to give you jet-lag because they were so different from the rest
That included until shortly after Ewan died, till Peggy returned to America.
The 'evolution' you describe, by presenting non-folk songs, robbed us of our right to choose what we listened to - it was a misuse of a well-established term
That misuse, along with lowering standards and the lazy contempt of singers who couldn't be bothered learning the songs they sang, drove me and thousands like me out of the clubs
I was lucky - right into the present century I had our Traveller singers to listen to and continue to receive information from
That luck continued when we moved to Ireland, where we could continue to hear good folk music and songs that have become part of our lives - never though I'd say it, but here in Miltown Malbay, sometimes too much to choose from
Ireland is rapidly building a love and respect for its traditional arts, whereas it seems England (can't speak of Scotland) seems to have lost what they had of it.
I can only think of one club in London, my old home, that I can now confidently go to hear the music I want to - The Musical Traditions Club - can't really think of another
Jim