"Sounds like Sharp held the "lower and unlettered classes" in some admiration, possibly before he even began collecting."
According to a fascinating long article I read on the Musical Traditions site, (can't remember the author - he had an Asian name) he held them in high respect
He did attribute 'instinct' rather than conscious creativity to their singing, but that's still a common misconception today (and has shown up on this forum)
I get the impression that a number of the collectors were quite taken aback at what they heard from the singers
I have to say that much of what we got from Travellers in the early days set us back on our heels
We had the luxury of working at our own pace rather than 'headhunt' in a "race with the undertaker" (as Tom Munnelly described it
WE were forced to taake the decision of working with each singer for as long as we thought there was songs and information to be had, so we cut our list of possibles from twenty to half a dozen within six weeks
We recorded sever singers for over a year - we were still recording Kery Traveller Mikeen Mccarthy thirty years after we first met him - and still getting fresh information
Jim Carroll