Quoting Greg Stephens: 'The "authentic traditonal" singer, and the "revival" singer, are singing, generally, in different places and for different reasons. So the same song can be two wildly different things.'

But ALL singers, even two different so-called "authentic traditional" singers, sing in different contexts and for different reasons. For example, there's a vast difference between somebody like Elizabeth Cronin, essentially a "home" singer, and somebody like Paddy Tunney, well-accustomed to public singing (but then, someone'll come along in a minute to say that Paddy Tunney isn't an "authentic" singer).

Moreover, who's to truly determine any singer's "reason" or "reasons" for singing? These are likely to be myriad and complex to the point of being entirely fruitless to attempt to analyse.

And what about a singer such as, say, Duncan Williamson, brought up within a family/community tradition of singing and storytelling, who remains open to learning new songs from a variety of sources (including, it seems, the tune of his 'Lady and the Blacksmith' from the infamously inauthentic Martin Carthy)?

What is "authentic" about all singers (which, for me, makes the adjective redundant) is the fact that they SING. All singers sing. Some singers have a gift of engaging with songs, making songs ring true, making them their own. Some you like, some you don't.