Sorry Greg, I'll have a go here:

The Song Links project began last year, when Martyn Wybdham-Read had the idea of recording for posterity traditional songs that have crossed borders. The first project concentrated on England-Australia, and included 17 English traditional songs which have variously crossed the waters to become adopted and adapted in Australia, and in some cases crossed back to be accepted in their adapted forms back in England.

The 34 songs (17 with an English and an Australian variant each) were recorded by a number of recognised English and Australian performers respectively. Shirley Collins, Dave Fletcher/Bill Whaley, Martin Carthy, Norma Waterson, Tony Rose, the Copper family, John Copper, John Kirkpatrick, Nancy Kerr & James Fagan formed the "English side", while Martyn W-R himself with Dave de Hugard, Danny Spooner, Cathie O'Sullivan, Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton sang the Australian versions. The result came out as a 40-page book on the subject, accompanied by two CDs with the 17 songs in their two variants.

The costs of the project would have been well over £10,000. This would include paying the performers (standard Musicians Union rate is about £35/hour, estimate 3-4 hours per track incl rehearsals, more where multiple performers are involved), travel and research in Australia, studio time (not less than £30/hour, estimate 3 hours per track with the mixing etc), writing the booklet, proofing, design of booklet and covers, production of the CDs etc.

To help finance the project, organisations and individuals were invited to sponsor a track. The response was enormous both in the UK and in Australia - from folk clubs, folk press, festivals and individuals alike. The sponsors get a mention in the booklet and a complimentary copy of the result - but the real reason they did it was that they felt this was a worthwhile project and wanted to be associated with it.

Song Links 2 is now under way, doing the same but for English traditional songs that went to the US, perhaps were modified somewhere in the Appalachians or someplace, and were adopted there as their own.

I put the notice up on Mudcat, so that individuals can consider becoming sponsors singly or in groups, or perhaps bring this to the attention of the organisers at their regular folk clubs; both in the UK and in the US.