I was vaguely thinking about a perhaps related topic. I was asked "If you could have the voice of any folk singer (broad sense) you've ever heard, who would it be?"

I don't know. I can think of one regular 'catter and another legendary voice who does not post here (AFAIK) - but both are a bit too pure and clean in voice to be who I really, really want to be.

I suppose it differs. Many think Johnny Cash is a great performer - to me he is just a nasty out of tune noise, can't play, can't sing. We even have it asserted above that Dylan, for all his technical limitations, is a great deliverer of a song - but I don't think so - I find his nasal whine (nothing necessarily wrong with nasal, I've heard some great nasal singers) monotonic and boring and expressionless.

Peter Collins is great - but not necessarily what I want to sound like. Tom Lewis, ditto. Mike Nicholson, likewise - but I will single him out as a great interpreter and deliverer of the meaning of a song.