I dunno. I take a rather dim view of singers who imitate the stylistic quirks of other singers, or for that matter, who make a studied effort to adopt stylistic quirks of their own. One of my pet peeves is the person who naturally has a perfectly nice sounding singing voice who thinks that "because it's folk music" they have to sing as if they're eighty years old, toothless, and just rode into town with a truckload of parsnips. Phony, phony, phony!

On the other hand (and it may sound like some kind of double standard, but it's not), I see nothing wrong with singing, say, a Scottish song with a touch of an accent—if one can do it well. I've always been pretty good at picking up accents, and when I learned songs like "Bonnie Dundee" and "MacPherson's Lament," it never occurred to me not to use an accent. When it comes down to it, trying to sing songs like that without the accent would sound pretty bizarre.

I've been doing it for well over fifty years, and I've never had anyone criticize me or take me to task for it, including genuine Scots. In fact, I defy anyone to sing something like "The Braes of Killiecrankie" without putting on an accent. You'd wind up spraining your jaw or chipping a tooth. Without it, the song would sound just weird!

I do use accents if they seem "natural" and appropriate to particular songs. But as far as stylist quirks are concerned, if I have any at all, they've developed naturally and unconsciously. I just try to sing the best I can, and what comes out is just what comes out.

I mention it here because some folks on the other thread are getting kind of unreasonably nasty about it.

Don Firth