A friend of mine sings traditional songs to his own guitar arrangements. These are original without being flash. His accompaniments and his own way of approaching traditional songs brings out new qualities in the songs and makes him for me a really substantial artist and I never miss an opportunity to hear him sing.
One of his strong opinions is that singers of traditional songs have developed a 'ghetto mentality' and only perform their songs at folk clubs and festivals. He tries to make sure that as many of his gigs as possible are outside this comfort zone.
He sent a demo to the bookers for a well-established mainstream festival in the south of England. He received a fairly swift reply to say that his demo seemed to have hit the mark. Those who had listened had been impressed by both the songs and the performance. Just one question; the demo did not say who had written the songs.
My friend replied that they were all traditional songs and nobody knew who wrote them.
He received another fairly swift reply. This told him that the festival could not book him as they did not book artists who sang covers!