re Joseph Taylor.

It is possible that he was not at all representative of Lincolnshire "Folk" singers of that time. He was a "professional" competitor in singing competitions and may have developed his style in order to win.

Hmm. Does that mean that he wasn't 'traditional'?

Maybe he just had ALL the tricks and techniques that were going at the time.

If a clog dancer works hard and wins clog dancing competitions with lots of fancy steps, we still probably regard what (s)he does as 'traditional' dancing.


We can't believe it has to be unaccomplished to be traditional. There's too much evidence to the contrary.