"'this is a traditional song' or 'this is a folk song' "
Me neither - neither has anybody I know to an audience
What's your point?
This isn't about what you sing, whether you enjoy it or what you tell your audience - it's about how you understand it if you wish to discuss it - are you suggesting that we shouldn't do that, or it is not important, or that we should all be singalongers and shouldn't take the music we have spent our lives listening to, seriously?
"NOT FOR JOSEPH NOT FOR JOE. WALTER HAD AT LEAST 8 SONGS IN HIS REPERTOIRE THAT WERE NOT TRADITIONAL SONGS."
Walter had at least 3 or four dozen songs that were not traditional, he had a phenomenal memory and remembered everything he heard - he had read every Dickens and Thomas Hardy novel and could reel of the plots of all and thee names of the characters at the drop of a hat.
He was fully aware which songs were traditional and which were not and he very seldom, if ever sang his non traditional songs in front of an audience - though he was happy to put all of them on tape.
His knowledge of his repertoire dates back to 1949, when he first started writing down his family songs in notebooks (which we have)
We carried out a long interview with him where he itemizes his songs and described how he knew they were traditional.
He went on to describe the point at which family members of his age abandoned the family repertoire and started singing "the other stuff" - all on tape and archived.
What is your point?
You have somewhat arrogantly told us why he sang what he sang - never having met him.
He believed his traditional songs were important enough to write down from the days he came out of the Army after his war service.
"if you fecked off,I would have no one to discuss it with."
There's a lesson to b learned there Dick - perhaps you should take the hint and learn from it before it's too late.
Jim Carroll