"...consider style." indeed...but consider what you are saying!

If she does a traditional song in a non-traditional style, what you get is non-traditional music. No law against it...and it may indeed be beautiful. But if you are buying a CD or paying to attend a concert and searching for traditional music, you may be disappointed.(I have been, a number of times)...I even enjoy 'some' non-traditional music and styles at times, but I want to KNOW what I am buying, and it really is not difficult to explain on an album or in concert advertisements, that it IS a 'personal' or 'modern' treatment of the genré.

I have tried for years to make the point that what is being defined by careful use of categories is not quality or beauty, but precisely--*style*...in order to allow folks to find the music that suits them.
    There are 'old' songs which are far from 'traditional'...witness the use of highly stylized counter-tenor arrangements of some 'trad' songs....like Alfred Deller used to do.

(and before anyone says that "well, what is 'trad' changes over time"...let me argue that what is really happening is that there are different 'traditions' being created....traditional rock & roll should not be confused with traditional ballads......which is why I'd like to the term 'folk' rescued and re-instated to refer to stuff like "The House Carpenter" and "Goober Peas", and NOT to Bob Dylan, no matter how much he influenced your musical taste. Ol' Bob had part of one foot in a folk/trad puddle...Woodie Guthrie was wading in a shallow part of the folk/trad pond, and is borderline...Loreena McKinnet could barely SEE the pond from her breathy, ethereal perch..*grin*...)

There are a few songwriters who succeed in producing some songs 'in the tradition', so that it can be tricky to know that they are NOT old and anon., and thus can be considered as 'folkish'...or whatever....but just picking up an acoustic guitar and stringing some navel-gazing lyrics together don't make you no 'folksinger', NOhow...

so...this is sorta my once or twice yearly foray into making a point about language, categories and **practicality**, in order to lable the bins at the music store reasonably and allow me to find that rare concert where most of the music tends toward 'old' and 'trad'.

Thank you for your rapt attention.....he said with a sly wink...