"The Folk Process (and the 1954 Defination) have its roots in the sloppy, selective & agenda driven field-work on the part of the early collectors who saw the songs as being of greater significance than their lowly, ill-educated singers? Perish the very thought!"
Compared to what?
The conclusions of the collectors, however "sloppy and selective", are based largely on practical experience and field work. It seems to me that challenging them requires research and counter-experience, which both SO'P and his friend have consistently refused to provide. Their attitude to such research uncannily resembles all those people I have met who proudly boast "I have never read a book in my life and it hasn't done me any harm".
Where is your evidence of this 'sloppiness and selectivity'?
I am totally bemused by SO'P's constant reference to the International Folk Music Council's change of name. Why should it matter to him what they call themselves; he has rejected their findings anyway? As Shimrod has pointed out, it is the definition that counts, not who made it or what they call themselves.
As one of those 'sloppy and selective' collectors of some 30-odd years standing, I can only say that, based on our own experiences (still ongoing) the 1954 definition, with some slight reservations, worked for us. If we got it wrong, let's hear where we got it wrong (but I'm afraid that might involve our dynamic duo in some 'research' which, to date, they have refused to soil their hands on).
Our collection and some of our conclusions are open to inspection, so how about it lads - we've shown you ours; how about you showing us yours?.
A major part of our work was with an Irish ballad-seller who sold copies of his father's songs around the fairs and markets of Kerry and West Cork in the 1940s. He described printing some of those songs (sometimes by request), selling them, and in some cases teaching the tunes, then returning some time later to hear those songs "sung back at him" completely changed and adapted.
Up to about sixty years ago singers around here were buying similar ballad sheets and doing exactly the same as their Kerry and Cork counterparts. While very few of the ballad sheets survived, it was the practice of many families to write the songs down in notebooks, some of which we have been lucky enough to see (there's one of them here jus above the desk). A comparison of what was received and what was sung makes essential reading.
The oral transmission of songs has been a major factor in the tradition of the making and remaking process.
If the tradition is a myth based on 'sloppiness and selectivity' how come the Irish north eastern song tradition is so strongly Scots influenced? Why are the most popular ballads in West Clare of Scots and English origin (Lord Lovel, Captain Wedderburn, The Suffolk Miracle, The Green Wedding....)?
Hugh Shields' account of a Tyrone singer, when asked by a relative who was heading for the potato picking in Scotland what she wanted bringing back, replied "bring us back a song", is a living example of how the tradition worked.
People working at collecting and research have put their work up for scrutiny: Hamish Henderson, Tom Munnelly, Hugh Shields, the Lomaxes, Sharp, Goldstien, Sandy Ives, MacColl, Parker, Donnellan........ et al.
How about putting your money where your mouth is (or is the armchair too comfortable)?
Jim Carroll