...(There are, though, plenty of examples from the Pop/Rock world of people singing in 'silly voices' - let's see, off the top of my head: Bob Dylan, David Bowie, nearly all of the Punks, Morrisey, Oasis etc., etc., etc. (oh dear, perhaps I've offended some Pop/Rock fans here - hope so!). And this habit of 'contrived vocalisation' can 'leak through' to the Folk World).

Generally, I tend to feel that a rather odd 'folk club voice' has developed on the British Folk Scene, and this is a voice that has very little to do with British oral tradition. It has, though, got everything to do with a handful of highly influential professional folk singers who have been slavishly imitated.
The voice itself, especially among male singers, is always rather nasal with, often, a rather 'drony' quality. Difficult to describe in more detail - but it is instantly recognisable. In my ideal world people would emulate (rather than imitate) both the best Revival singers AND Traditional singers and work to develop their own voice and style.

Shimrod, I agree with you, now I understand what you meant. Thanks for the explanation.

Certainly, in the pop world, there seem to be a lot of singers who copy the mannerisms and idiosyncracies of other individuals, such as those you mention above. And the likes of Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson (both originals in what they do, or at least did) have spawned a huge bunch of inferior copycat 'soul' singers (who to me sound as if they sing from anything but the soul).

When I first heard Dire Straits in the late 1970s I immediately thought Mark Knopfler was copying Dylan's vocal style, which put me off the band at that time. (But maybe I'm a hypocrite, because as a lad I used to copy Dylan's vocal style myself - well, I was a lad and he was my hero then! :-))

As for the 'folk club voice' you describe so well, I've always found that irritating too. It's as if the singer thinks it's mandatory to affect the nasal drone. I would say that this 'folk club voice' is probably more responsible for driving people away from folk music and clubs than anything else.

I agree with you that it's better to sing in your natural voice, although if I'm singing a regional song with local dialect words, etc., I will attempt to render them in the correct accent, or they will sound stupid (but I don't want to get into yet another discussion about whether people should sing songs that did not originate from the same place as them).