"Strawberry Fair by Anthony Newly."
MacColl used this in his opening programme of the 'Song Carriers' series - still the best introduction to British folk-song ever produced.
We loaned a copy to the young producer of the proposed MacColl programmes, who was gob-smacked at their relevance, though she was only vaguely aware of Ewan when we started work.
Jim Carroll

Anthony Newly singing Strawberry Fair
Is it animal, mineral or vegetable? There are those who consider it to be folk music. It certainly began life as a folk song. Both the words and the tune were conceived in the folk idiom and it has been sung by generations of folk singers. And yet, there are many people who would deny that it is still a folk song when performed in that particular manner. What then, has happened to it? Its utterance has been translated, its idiom changed to that of pop-music It is as if we were to take over a pop song and recast it in a classical mould, and then have it performed by a string orchestra whose natural metier was, say, the Beethoven quartets. Do you think it would still be pop music? Conversely, if we took one of those same quartets and performed it on three electric guitars and bongo drums, would it still be Beethoven? It would not. The imposition of styles and idioms foreign to a particular form results in that form being transformed. It becomes something different. Not necessarily something worse or better, just different.
And yet, many of the young singers of the folk revival have based their singing style on what is called "the pop sound". They would probably argue: "Ah yes I But if only we had traditional singers as expert as those of Azerbaijan, or Spain or Syria'... "Well, it's true that most of our traditional singers are old and well past their prime. It is also true that our traditional singing style is somewhat run down. How could it be otherwise! The dislocation of our traditional way of life by the Industrial Revolution didn't merely result in fewer people singing fewer of the old songs; it also reduced the community status of those singers who did survive the changes in society and, ultimately, it resulted in a decay of style. Nevertheless, the few traditional singers who are still with us can, between them, furnish us with a fairly complete model of English, Irish or Scots traditional singing style. They are certainly much closer to the three singers we have just heard than are the most gifted pop group. Let's make a few comparisons. Here is our Spanish singer again, joined by an Irish tinker

Margaret Barry singing Lagan Love faded into a Canto Hondo singer

Both of those singers produce their voices in the same way. Both are concerned with high¬lighting the melodic line and both use the same open emphatic style of delivery. Let's listen again to the Syrian singer with his elaborately decorated melody followed by a singer from Donegal, Paddy Tunney, who also uses fairly complicated decorations.

Paddy Tunney singing 'Mountain Streams' faded into Azerbaijani bard

Song Carriers programme 1 Thursday, 28th January 1965