The majority of young people back in the late 1950's-early 1960's ( myself included ) would never have heard The Weavers, Guthrie, Cisco or have sought out Lomax or any of the blues artists of the past.

Sure, they were commercial, Dave Guard's stage intros were straight out of Mort Sahl, but they were basically harmless fun and opened the door. Their 'Goin' Places' album was pretty good work. Check it out.

The thing that pissed most of the true folkies off was that they took Public Domain songs, changed them a bit and copyrighted them. THAT'S where the biggest chunk of their money came from. Song Royalties. Every time Andy Williams or Mitch Miller or Andre Kostelanitz recorded Tom Dooley, the Kingston Trio made moola off of it.

Is this a great country or what?