"A wilful misquote"
More than a little rich from someone whose stock-in-trade is misquotes and distortions (want a list?). Personally I can't see anything misquoted.
".....some doctoral or post-doctoral research evidencing precisely how effective 'the process' is as a way of defining what's commonly described as folk music would be most welcome." -
"We'll keep research out of the picture completely and trust out ears."
Now how do we square that circle? To me it reads "let's ignore the facts (other than the ones I make up myself!!!)".
The academic research work has been done: Abrahams and Foss, Bronson, Wilgus, Lloyd, Goldstein, Sharp, David Buchan, Glassie and Ives, Lomax (and his Cantometrics team), Charles Seeger, David Buchan, David Atkinson..... the list is endless.
The studies of the singers and their communities have been carried out to the satisfaction of all who take the trouble to examine them: MacColl and Seeger (English and Scots Travellers), Artelia Court and Alen McWeeney (Irish Travellers) Porter and Gower (Jeannie Robertson and other Scots Travellers), Hamish Henderson (both Scots Traveller and settled singers) Robin Morton (Fermanagh singer John Maguire), Hugh Shields (Donegal singers), Tom Munnelly (Clare singer Tom Lenihan), Henry Ives (Maine woodsmen), Alan and John Lomax (convicts, blues singers and many, many others), Henry Glassie (2 magnificent volumes (plus) of the songs and music of a Fremanagh village), Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin (Irish language singing in Uster), Lillis Ó Laoire (song and singers in Tory Island....... again, the list is endless.
Even some of the singers have put in their own opinion on record; Sheila Stewart, Willie McFee, Almeda Riddle, Betsy Whyte, Jean Richie, Duncan Williamson.......
Yet we ignore all this and "trust to our ears" - whose ears, yours? Someone who is apparently doing a Hamlet "To research or not to research ……..", and constantly misrepresents (deliberately, to judge by the response when challenged) the opinions of others and even his own - "I know what research is at the higher academic levels. I choose not to let it anywhere near the music I love" - gi'e us a break jimmy.
Jim Carroll