I have to say that I've not come across the term "source singer" very often, and then only in its technical usage. I've never heard a singer refer to the source of a song in those terms, they'll usually just say, "I learned this song from so-and-so."

I assume that Norma Waterson would have been referring to its technical usage when she made the comment which prompted this thread. I'm still unclear what her objections to it might be.

One interpretation is that these singers should be viewed simply as singers, and that to put them into a separate category is somehow demeaning. The trouble with this is that in many cases, when judged against the high standards now set by professional and semi-professional folk performers, a lot of them are simply not very good singers. Perhaps they are past their best, perhaps they never were much good. If the singer who Vic Smith reviewed had just been an ordinary folk-club singer, he would never have been recorded, let alone been reviewed in a widely-read online journal.

There are a number of traditional singers who you would not choose to listen to for entertainment, but who are nevertheless worth studying for their style and repertoire. Is it then disrespectful in some way to learn their songs and sing them yourself? Or should we only take songs from those singers who are good enough performers in their own right (of whom there are, of course, many)?

Regardless of the quality of their performance, because these singers come from the tradition, their material and singing style gives them a significance which distinguishes them from the not-very-good revival singers you can find at any folk club or session. I believe it is useful to have a label to describe them: "traditional singer" is too loosely used and can mean both someone from the tradition and someone who just sings traditional songs. "Source singer" is in my opinion a useful and unambiguous term, and any implication of patronisation or disrespect seems to me to be only in the mind of the listener.

Of course, if someone is going to be patronising or disrespectful they will be so regardless of the label.