There are certainly times and pieces of music where the instrument and voice are perfectly matched, and there's plenty of instrumental music that I love, but I MUCH prefer singing without instruments, either alone or in a group.
Spending time with the Shellbacks really made me think about how the culture of singing somehow got almost completely lost when we crossed over: not just the English, but the Irish, and the Africans, and plenty of other folks. Now American musical culture seems almost all "accompanied", and almost all SUNG FOR us by someone else!
Us people who just like to sing are sort of on the fringes around here, even in traditional music circles, which in these parts involves plenty of fiddle and banjo, and precious little singing.