I have to agree with Barry. If I were to drop all the songs in my repertoire that require some kind of accent in order not to sound bizarre, that would eliminate a whole batch of songs that I've been singing for years. And, if I may be so bold as to say so, people seem to enjoy hearing me sing them. I draw that conclusion from the fact that these are some of my most requested songs.

I was born in Southern California and moved to Seattle when I was nine years old, and I've lived here most of my life. As far as Americans are concerned, most West Coast dwellers such as me seem "accentless." No New England accent, no Southern drawl, no Midwestern "twang." Most people hearing me talk can't determine what part of the country I'm from (but probably not from Maine, Alabama, or South Dakota). On top of that, I've had training in "broadcast English," which further renders my speech what might be called "neutral American." I seem to have a pretty good ear for accents, and can do a creditable imitation of almost any accent after listening to the real thing for a bit. A fun side-effect of this is that I'm pretty good with dialect jokes.

I sing songs from a wide variety of places, and I generally don't try to put on any kind of accent unless the song calls for it. The vocabulary in a lot of Scottish songs and ballads simply demand the use of an accent, otherwise the song just doesn't work. Try singing

Sae rantin'ly, sae wantonly,
Sae dauntin'ly gaed he.
He played a tune an' he danced it 'roon,
Below the gallows tree.

without giving it a bit of a Scottish burr, and that would sound weird. The same with

Me name is Dick Darby, I'm a cobbler.

without goin' a bit Irish!

I watched the YouTube links, then did a quick check of Charlie Zahm's web site, which indicates that he's making a pretty substantial career out of this sort of thing (one helluva schedule of appearances and a ton of CDs! But I'd never heard of him before this thread). On hearing him sing, I concluded that his problem with accents is that he just doesn't do them very well. He has a very nice voice (obviously had some classical training—a bit too obviously, perhaps), but he doesn't seem to have a real "feel" for the songs, at least the ones I've heard him do. Part of the problem as far as his accent is concerned is that he doesn't do it consistently. He needs to "think Scottish." Without that, just wearing a kilt and standing there with the loch in the background just doesn't cut it. It seems a bit pretentious.

But just because he doesn't do it well doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing what I do. As long as people keep asking me for the songs—and until someone comes up to me and says, "Firth, that really stinks!"—I'm going to keep on keeping on.

Don Firth