Sorry folks, the point I was making is that somewhere along the line we seem to have lost a generation or two.
I too was happy to learn songs from whatever source, revival or tradition, but I felt , even way back, that if I was putting a song in my repertoire I wanted to look at as many of the versions of the songs that were available to me; and I always tried to find out (roughly) where the song came from. In this way I tried to make them my interpretations and not my source's. There was an argument put on Mudcat not so long ago that a singer should sound like the singer he got the song from - chameleon style sort of. As it happened, the singer in question (she got it from a record) sang it with all Cathy's mannerisims and peculiarities (and he does have rather a lot).
I have always been aware of The Critics Group being accused of sounding like either Ewan or Peggy, which left begging, the question of all the Carthy or Jonie Clones or the Bellamy Bleaters, or all the singers on the scene who lifted directly not just the songs, but the style from revival performers - warts and all.
Cap'n, I know Sheila Park - she was a resident at one of the clubs we ran. She was generous enough to let me have the last recording made of Harry Cox.
Jim Carroll