As an American of Welsh descent (no surprise there then), I really like English vocal music---(I like Welsh song also--but know precious little of it)--especially the harmonizing groups. Copper Family, Watersons, Young Tradition, Beggars Velvet, etc.--what a wealth of goose-bump music--which is also so much fun to sing it can't be legal.

A chance to belt out the drinking songs--by which I mean anything people like to sing in a pub---with a group of like-minded singers--is worth the price of a plane ticket over the Pond--even with the current stupidity about carry-on luggage. Especially the wonderful choruses of "Miner's Lifeguard", "God Speed the Plow", Cadgwith Anthem and others, and more recent contributions like John Tams' Rolling Home, and others I've heard in the Middle Bar, for instance, provide some of the best singing that exists.

The parodies are excellent--- and unique in the world--especially something like the Kipper Family or Les Barker.

And of course the sea songs are indispensable--and summon up a centuries-long nautical tradition.



Of course I also think that Tallis and Byrd probably wrote the best a cappella music ever created---so probably I can't be considered an unbiased observer.