Hi George and thanks for starting what could be a long thread!!

I cannot personally see how we can claim it has stopped...if it did stop - surely you would be able to put your finger on when it....stopped. Now remember they sincerely believed that all the collecting to be done had been done by 1930. And Sharp rushed around (and in the Appalachians too) before all singers died. And so did Peter Kennedy - who was in part inspired by Stanley Slade - who he recorded from - and then when he went back was dead.

So if someone says the folk process is dead I ask when did it die?

And certainly here is Sheffield it goes on. At the carols new ones are brought into the repertoire. Not every year, but I can think of three now well established ones and I can remember exactly when they arrived. Frank Hinchcliffe was known as a terrific singer, his son carries on the tradition. And most people would look upon Will Noble as a traditional singer indeed the EFDSS put him on the front of the record commemorating their centenary alongside Harry Cox. Well, Will has been singing less than thirty years.

Most songs in the let's call it the standard repertoire as evidenced by collecting like Sharp and Gardiner, are derived from broadsheets, a number of traditional singers had collections of them, so they were happy to sing from printed copy, by albeit unknown authors.

I suppose if you ask if it is dead then you need to define what it is...and then I suspect we are back into "What is trad?".

But no, for my two pennyworth I think not.