As I have stated before, I am a Corries Fan Boy Geek. I find their performances to be universally good. Their choice of material was good. And even when the performance wasn't the absolute best they had ever done it was usually better than most any body else's. They were my intro to trad British Isles music

When The Trio and Paddy Bell split this left Ronnie Browne was a Harmonica player and a fairly remarkable voice. Roy Williamson was a fine musician and a "unique" voice. The best all round was Bill Smith with a solid voice and a good guitar style. They stayed together for one more album them Bill left.

For the Corries to continue Ronnie had to learn to play guitar and a little banjo almost overnight.   That Roy and Ronnie's voices blended so amazingly well was just good fortune.   The Corries became a vocals driven band with what is really minimal instrumentation ( Some albums were over produced to be sure) with two guitars, or a guitar and harmonica, or any of the many other strings, whistles, pipes, and concertinas Roy was fluent with. But it was the voices that carried the band, not the instruments.

Roy's writing skills and power with other instruments became more good fortune.

As to the Rose of Allendale, I've heard several people do it better and a great many do it worse. Sean Cannon is probably the best.

Don