John C, there are lots of different regional approaches to harmony, as well as to allowing people to sing along on choruses. For Appalachian ballads the traditional style is solo singing, even on refrains and choruses. American "old time" music has harmonies though. And it's definitely trad, it just comes from a different tradition, mostly a matter of what region.

Gospel in the U.S. usually has harmonies, but there are exceptions such as Primitive Baptist and Shaker singing.

Norman Kennedy is fine with people singing on refrains and choruses but does NOT want them to sing harmonies. For one thing, he's not used to it and it throws them off. However Lou Killen says that in his local tradition people sang on the choruses and he seems quite happy to have plenty of improvised harmony as well.

Having said all that, I'm really very much in sympathy with what you seem to be saying, which is to say that whenever possible I would prefer to hear songs sung the way the old folks sang 'em.

And "tarting up" a song, as Derek Seed put it, is not usually what I like to hear. Still it can make for some great music and of course there's another factor, no one can say that the harmonies of the Everley Brothers are not an "authentic" style for their songs, can they?

There's room for everything although I too would like to see there being more room for respect for the traditional ways of singing the songs I like best.... A lot of those styles are getting harder and harder to find and hear.

Rita F