Pseudonymous wrote:
”Brian Peters: you have said several times that you cannot think what other sorts of questions the interviewers should have asked Pardon. But maybe this is putting the cart before the horse. The first thing is, what are the interviewers trying to find out?”

I didn’t say I couldn’t think of any other questions – I invited you to suggest ones that you’d have preferred, since you disapproved of the ones actually posed. What were the interviewers trying to find out? Well, as you pointed out in another post, collectors in the second half of the 20th century were attempting to correct the perceived omissions of earlier ones. So, they used sound recording equipment, tried to be more inclusive in taking down singers’ repertoires in their entirety rather than selecting the ‘folk’ songs, and they attempted to provide some context for the songs and singers within their community (earlier pioneers like Sharp and Baring-Gould did actually note down at least some material of this kind, but it’s often hidden away in lecture notes or diaries, etc.). Folk song collection in the late C20 began to lean towards sociological study.

In terms of context, I’d expect that the first questions a collector might ask regarding a particular song would be:

“Where, when and from whom did you learn that song?”
“On what kind of occasion would you, and/or the person you learned it from, perform the song?”
“Have you an idea how old that song might be?”
“Do you think you sing it in the same way that your source did?”

On a broader level, as biographical and family information would be useful, an account of upbringing and schooling, the singer’s working and social life, maybe remarks on the local community and it’s stability, migration in and out, agricultural practice (assuming a rural setting), seasonal customs, etc.

On a more personal level, it would be instructive to know why the songs are important to the singer, why did he or she take the trouble (as in many cases) to remember them or write them down, what emotional reaction the songs induce in the singer, and the extent to which they were valued – or not – by other family members and the wider community.

When I read about the singers say Cecil Sharp met, and find myself thinking, “I wish he’d asked her such-and-such”, those are the kind of things I’d like to have known more about. You may notice that these are precisely the kind of questions asked of Walter Pardon by a variety of interviewers. So... over to you.