"Does this mean English people trying to sound American and coming out halfway between English and American (and hence in the middle of the Atlantic?)
Yup - sure does pardner.
"The idea that one should or should not sing songs in accents other than one's own, or songs from one's own culture would rule out a large percentage of the middle and upper classes,"
(Hi Dave) As far as the Singer's Club went - and it was aimed at the Club's residents and guests (though it was a topic for discussion elsewhere occasionally) it was a guide rather than a set rule - I can never remember it being an 'issue' with the many floor singers who performed at the club in an attempted American accent. The basic idea was, if you were English, you sounded English. Hootenany's point about American culture being soaked up, was precisely what it was aimed at. Had the 'own culture/accent' thing been insisted upon it would have been a problem; it wasn't, so it wasn't - if you know what mean.
I can think of numerous singers with r.p or precise accents, who made the songs work perfectly without sounding either cut-glass or Mummerset. Frankie Armstrong, who is very 'well-spoken' was, and remains one of my favourite singers. Ewan sang Scots songs with what sounded to me, a fairly comfortable Scots accent. His speaking voice was somewhat neutral, though he had grown up surrounded by a variety of Scots accents. I was quite friendly with his mother Betsy, whose accent I often found impenetrable; this remained the case to the end of her life in the 80s. Ewan's accent did bother some Scots, but I can only say, when he sang, the earth usually moved for me (and still does)! The only exception was on some of his early recordings where he attempted a legs-crossingly excruciating Liverpool (my home town) accent. The only time this didn't bother me was on the song 'Leaving of Liverpool' which he often used to end the club evening and still never fails to induce waves of nostalgia in me.
The question of 'Oirish' accents used to be an issue here in Ireland, but it seems to have receded into the background nowadays, though there is a constant debate going on about whether non- Irish speakers should sing Gaelic songs, many of which have been learned parrot-fashion.
A slight divergence; The Clare Festival of Traditional Singing (to my mind, one of the best events I have ever attended) during the mammoth singing session on Sunday afternoons, introduced a period of around one hour where only songs in Irish were sung. The aim was to cater for the number of Sean Nós singers who attended and quite often (in the early days) didn't take part because they felt out of place. Nobody (in my hearing) ever accused this practice of being draconian; it worked like a charm and the festival became prominent in encouraging Irish language singing.
Jim Carroll
PS For those interested, The Clare Singing Festival, which stopped some years ago, is being re-started at the end of the year by the late organiser's widow, Annette Munnelly.