I too like the simple definition of living tradition above. In defining tradition I try to do so as loosely as possible, avoiding the kind of artificialities that hang up scholars.

Nor am I insisting on rough craggy voices (though I love them when they're good). Many traditional singers sang in mild, relatively sweet tones -- Maud Long (Hot Springs, North Carolina) was a fine example, and she learned her singing from her mother, Jane Gentry, one of the greatest American traditional singers. Texas Gladden of Salem VA was generally mild-voiced too.

What I was seeking was admittedly a dying breed -- old-timers who had not heard, or at least had not been much affected by, electronic media. My hope was that some field recordings might have been done in Wales before singers were mentally conditioned by radio, TV, recordings, etc. whose musical assumptions are professional and polished. What I wanted was singers relatively unaffected by such styles -- as nearly all of us nowadays can't help being.

So I was hoping recordings of Welsh traditional singers might exist from, say, the 1920s or 30s. That apparently not being the case, next best would be those singers who consciously sing (and play if instruments are used to accompany) in the way their parents or grandparents did. That more or less eliminates professional performers, as well as those conditioned by Eisteddfod-style imposed rules and expectations.

I know that what I'm saying is internally inconsistent, but I'm groping to define the indefinable. Unmediated tradition is an impossible goal, but I look hardest for singers approximating toward that extreme.

Thanks all for a stimulating and worthwhile discussion. Bob