Richard,
Agree with you about the dangers of becoming a singing text-book. I feel that all singing should be a mixture of involvement, understanding, and technique.
Replaced words
Mishearing or substituting words by older singers can be a bonus sometimes; have always loved Fred Jordan's Outlandish Knight who came "Alluding to me".
Walter Pardon
Walter was special; we have hours of him talking on tape. We were hoping to put transcriptions up on MT at one time, along with his notebooks, but.........
Hopefully we'll find another source to make them available, along with his notebooks.
Cherry picking
I think that, for a singer, editing and reconstucting songs is unavoidable sometimes, but it should be done with discretion. I would hate to hear somebody singing a full text of 'Bonny James Campbell' (unless they had found a complete version, of course).
Reynardine
The singer, Austin Flanagan, never specified an animal. It was one of the few flying visits we ever paid to singers, we always tried to spend enough time to talk, but didn't manage it on that occasion.
Herbert Hughes, editor of 'Irish Country Songs' heard a version in the 1930s where Reynardine was a fox.
Would be interested in the details of the article you refer to.
Bill Cassidy.
Bill is a superb singer with no outside influences whatever; one of the problems we had was he drank heavily and it was difficult to get him sober enough. The recordings we used on 'Puck' were made in the back of a car in a side street in Harrow after the pubs closed; it was our 6th attempt at Pretty Polly. We asked Peggy Seeger to transcribe some tunes for us at one time; she managed them all except Bill's Pretty Polly and Biscayo; which she found too complex.
He learned all of his songs from his family; his father was a superb storyteller. You can hear his father and other family members on the CD 'Whisht' (Listen) which was issued by the Traveller Group 'Pavvie Point a couple of years ago.
As far as we know, Bill is on a site in Cardiff (or maybe Swansea).
Thanks to all for help in logging in; will try it when I wake up.
Jim Carroll