The Snail wrote
"Would Jim Carroll have told source singers "That's not good enough. I'm not going to record you until you've done a bit more practice."?
What a daft question; of course I wouldn't, (I was under the impression that the discussion was on clubs, not field recording - silly me!)
A collector is after songs and information; style and technique are a bonus. I would hesitate to take them to a folk club if I thought their singing was not good enough and would cause them embarrassment. Anybody who has done any field recording knows that the hardest part is to persuade singers that they have anything worthwhile to offer and that by singing for you they are not going to humiliate themselves.
Jim Carroll