I have a natural mid-Atlantic accent. I was born in England, lived in several different parts of it, then moved to Canada at the age of 17. I'm now 52, and my natural accent is half way between. In conversation with fellow-Canadians, it gets more Canadian. In public speaking (I'm a pastor) it reverts to its British roots. I don't do this on purpose - it just seems to happen.

But I do agree that some English folk really make me laugh when they sing with American accents (funniest of all, to me, is Sting singing about being 'An Englishman in New York' in a very non-English accent!).

But I question this statement: ' "once you sing a song in an accent that is outside your own personal experience, then you run the risk of placing the song at arms-length from you and it becomes a 'technical performance' rather than an emotional interpretation".

That may be true if you were singing your own compositions. but if you're singing traditional folk songs, most of them are outside your own personal experience.