I believe that's what he's saying, Woody. But how about bad English music, I wonder?

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"…it's good that singers DO affect their voice for the genre (as part of out wonderful multicultural world)."

Traditional singers—not "singers of traditional songs," urban-born singers such as myself and most other singers who post here who learn the majority of their songs from records and song books, but singers who were born and grew up in the tradition and learned the songs they sing from family, friends, and those in their immediate surroundings—do not "affect their voice for the genre." They just sing. They sing as best they know how, in their own natural voices.

For a singer of traditional songs (see distinction above) to "roughen up" his or her voice or "affect their voice for the genre," rather than sing in their own natural voice in an attempt to sound "folksy" or "ethnic," is to be patronizing and disrespectful, not just to the traditional singers of these songs, but to the songs themselves. If these songs are worthy of being sung at all, they are worthy of being sung in a clear, natural voice, as well as one knows how. Again, I call attention to the quote I posted above.

This does not mean that one should try to sing these songs as if they were operatic arias or lieder. Definitely not! In fact, most people couldn't anyway. But out if respect to the song itself, you should sing it to the best of your vocal ability. I have no respect for the person who says, or indicates by the way he acts, that he thinks, "This is good enough. It's only a folk song, so I don't have to try to sing it well." That includes singing through your nose, putting a rasp in your voice if it isn't there naturally, or being indifferent to accuracy of pitch, just because you want to sound "like a folk singer." The nasality, the rasp, or singing off-pitch are not inherent in the song itself.

But a regional accent or dialect (and certainly a foreign language) often IS an inherent part of a song. So it should be sung with your best effort to sing in that accent, dialect, or language. If you have no talent for this sort of thing, then perhaps you shouldn't sing the song (at least for a paying audience, for whom you should do your best performances), but if you do, there is no good reason not to.

And as long as you understand what you are doing, and respect the material, there is no good reason NOT to sing songs from a culture which is not your own. To insist that one should not be allowed to sing any song that appeals to one is, at best, arbitrary, capricious, and ill-informed, and at worst, displays the attitude of a would-be tyrant.

Don Firth

P. S.   Of course, if a person has a singing voice that sounds like a plate of beans negotiating it's way out of the digestive system of a warthog, then perhaps one should not attempt to sing at all.