Rick's post is very interesting, especially the comment does anyone actually WANT folk music (however you may define it) to be popular and more easily accesible than it already is?

This is the crux of the "folk music" biscuit just as it always has been. Although the tunes we embrace as "folk music" may have originated as popular music (Jimmy Crack-Corn was almost certainly a pop tune in its day as opposed to, say, Fur Elise), we shun the concept of current popular music as banal, while declaring the sanctity of this traditional music that has been consecrated by passing time. Ironic and remarkable that traditional, or Folk Music if you will, has attained a rather interesting level of acceptance among those of discriminating tastes.