"I find many (though not all of course) folk rock renditions of songs more emotive and meaningful than unaccompanied (or minimally accompanied)"
Our (English and Scots) folk song traditions are stories with tunes (not fully the case in the U.S.)
That blasted out/drowned out 'Sheep-crook' certainly produces an emotion in me (only fulfill-able if there's a blazing fire in the room) but it's certainly not the gentle bitterness conveyed by the text
The rendition has to relate to the text = surely
For me the greatest pleasure of folk song is to pop one in your mouth and feel what it tastes like - I can go to the cow-shit composers for interpretations of the tune
Jim