I must admit that I am irked by the idea that publishing folk songs is a doubtful service. For me, one recent astounding publication of old songs is "The Mary Lomax Ballad Book". I gather the argument that this publication is a dubious service is that without the publication people would have sat at Mary's feet and learned all her songs with complete accuracy firsthand. I think it far more likely that without the publication some of her 59 songs would have been lost irretrievably. I heard Hortie Barker sing old songs unaccompanied many times and you can buy a recording of him singing this way from Folkways. The last time I heard Hortie sing old songs was in a nursing home in Marion Virginia and he accompanied himself on the piano. I would love to have a recording of that afternoon's singing; unfortunately no one did the world the disservice of recording and publishing it.