I have never felt that catagorising singers particularly useful, Surely the inportant fact is that we are all singers and thereby contribute to a strand of British culture that should be both respected and promoted. Whether singer 'A' subscribes to criteria 1,2 and 3 and singer 'B' subscribes to criteria 2,3 and 5 is neither here nor there. There have always been singers whose songs have been collected and many, many more whose songs/singing have never been noted down. It is likely that collectors through history have missed the majority of singers contemporary to their time so why do we try and impose a hierarchy?

Traditional song was recognised as being in decline in the early 1900's, and this has probably always been the way as society's absorb change. The singers of Sharpe's day would have performed a very mixed repertoire of songs and largely driven because of their love for singing rather than for the glorification of performance. Also during those days and earlier times, no singer would have sung songs with any concious intention of trying to 'sustain' a dying artform - people just sang!

Nowadays there is more than a hint of 'preservation' surrounding folk-song through the clubs and festivals network and as a result, the music has been afforded a higher profile platform for its performance and recognition. Long may it continue of course, but anonymous singers will still gather in the back rooms of pubs and sing songs because they love singing and no more than that. They will be the percieved 'source singers' of tomorrow.