Trad-lad wrote: I never realised there was a competition.

In one sense, it matters only to nuts like me who think that song histories matter -- or that traditional songs matter to history.

But I think there is an important distinction when Stan Hugill sang "Blow, Boys, Blow," versus when I sing it -- even when he sang it at a concert rather than on shipboard. Hugill knew, and could convey, the actual use of the song, as I cannot. Doesn't matter that you or I might have a better voice. It may be that the "better" singer gives a "more enjoyable" performance. It might even be that I would agree that the "better" singer gives the "more enjoyable" performance. (I won't claim to be any great fan of broken-down informants singing flat in cracked voices!) But there is something fundamentally different about that authentic performance.