"To my way of thinking a traditional singer is someone who doesnt have to consciously revive a song."

There's a lot of patronising assumptions about traditional singers in that remark, Cap'n. Presumably you think of them as illiterate, apple-cheeked rustics who guilessly soaked up their songs at their mothers' knees (or something like that)? In fact my impression is that many traditional singers were highly intelligent men and women who learned their songs from a variety of sources (eg. family members, members of their own communities, people passing through their communities, broadsides and even books). I think that there may be a case to be made for seeing many traditional singers as amateur collectors who collected songs in order to build up their repertoires.

My view is that, in Britain at least, it is useful to categorise singers of tradtional songs under two broad categories:

(i) Traditional singers (who tended to be raised in a milieu in which the singing of traditional songs was relatively commonplace at some time in their lives and who learned their songs and singing styles from within that milieu).

(ii) Revival singers (who learned their songs during the post-War Revival. This was/is a traditional song singing milieu but it had/has no strong continuity with the past).

There are exceptions to these two broad categories (and Bob Blake may be one of them). There are also, of course, people who sing traditional songs which have been adapted to a classical music setting.

NONE OF THESE CATEGORIES TELL US ANYTHING, WHATSOEVER, ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE SINGERS IN QUESTION!! Sorry to use capitals but this is a complete 'red herring' which you insist on raising in every one of your posts.

And there's no point in repeating the Mike Yate's quote ad-nauseum. That has been dealt with in another thread - which you started!