Strange you should mention the nasal Americans Dave. Its an odd sort of phenomena isn't it? I wonder what the origin of it is. I wonder who was first thought, I'll start a tradition of being incredibly nasal.

The first time I heard it was a young American man and woman duo in the 1960's at a folk festival and I thought, at the time, bloody hell - that's a bit weird.

The thing is - you get to the point with these synthetically traditional accents (and we got to this point a long time ago in England also) - you get to thinking - this is what traditional song must sound like, and you wonder where is it all headed - because really it makes no sense.

I think there must be more Americans singing trad music in a normal sort of voice than there are over here. I'm thinking of occasional mudcatter Jed Marum, who I think, sings with great clarity and beauty without adornments. I don't really know anybody who doesn't experiment with weird voices now and then - I'm a particular offender - making all sorts of strange noises vocally.