!There are places where theorising is optional "
Only if you do it in the context of the songs
It's is pointless to claim the songs ere fakes unless you produce the faked songs
Harker seems to have worked on the basis that they musi be fakes because of the characters of the collector - you have to produce you evidence before you can establish a motive
I agree entirely about 'butterfly collecting'
Sharp's argument was that the songs had to be gathered as soon as possible before they disappeared - a pretty valid one as far as I'm concerned
Tom Munnelly described his own position in Ireland as 'a race with the undertaker' in the second half of the 20th century - he was right , of course
WE worked in tandem with Tom - he suggested many of the singers we met, we concentrated on interviewing them rather than headhunting
It meant we got far less songs than we could have but masses of information that would otherwise have been lost - especially from the Travellers
I would guess that less of than half the recordings we made wer of songs with Walter Pardon and with the Travellers
We were a little more hurried with the Clare singers as we were limited to only annual visits to Ireland, but we still managed to glean a fir amount of information
Jim