"exploding for ever any lingering romantic notions"
"The Case of the Lingering Romantic Notions" - wasn't that one of the lost Goon Show scripts - (hope I'm not the only one old enough to remember The Goon Show)?
It would be interesting to learn exactly what "romantic notions" it does "explode" - the editors seem to have selected a collection of songs that fit pretty neatly into the "entirely useless" 1954 Definition, no Victorian tear-jerkers, no music hall material, no 20th century pop songs, so snigger-snogwriter compositions - damn - is it too late to demand my money back?
"I've been singing, researching & exploring Traditional English Speaking Folksong & Ballad now for nigh on 40 years"
I have been researching folksong and ballads for night on forty years (in my time off as a working electrician) - and can play you recordings of the likes of Walter Pardon and Traveller Mary Delaney defined their songs.... and not a "literary / upper & middle-class / academic" in sight.
"Here the Old Singers are seen simply as jolly old souls eagerly complicit in imparting their culture to their social betters "
Where would that be then? I've never met a collector, researcher, academic who holds such notions; maybe at the beginning of the last century, but Harry Cox singing Van Dieman's land and then going into a rant about the seizure of common land in East Anglia, or spitting out "that's what the buggers thought of us" after having just sung "Betsy The Serving Maid" soon laid that particular ghost.
It would be nice to get some solid references to your claims, otherwise "they're all in the mind, you know", (back to the Goon Show, I'm afraid).
The ranting remains the same Sub - only the name has been changed to protect the innocent!
"The Mudcatter Still Known as...."
The guest Mudcatter, surely?
Jiim Carroll