Les B, I believe you are right. I'm glad that Seeger and Rinzler were able to provide work for those fine musicians.

An interesting idea, though, is that folk songs were not composed to make money even though their singers did by playing or singing them. The songs were a way of applying a "security blanket" (to quote Alan Lomax) to their culture. Uncle Dave was a masterful performer who had a repitiore of traditional tunes. Maybe he "fooled around" with them, though. His version of "Death of John Henry" seems to be unique. Other songs he does seems so too.

Then folk songs become changed by every performer who does them? A strong possiblity that no one learns songs to be duplicated exactly.
I "fool around" with songs all the time and invariably change them so that they are not exactly like the sources from which I learned them. I think this is inevitable as we are not clones.

If these fine traditional musicians can make money at what they do, more power to them.

Frank