I'm not clear what you are suggesting Nick, as to standards. Neither of the bits you linked to are within my main preferences, but both are clearly of a standard that would have "stopped the show" by reason of (relative) excellence at pretty well any singaround I have been to - barring only the better massed brawls in the beer tents at paid for festivals where you can suddenly find that the storm playing from behind you is Last Nights's Fun (you get my drift). Likewise better than most of the dross at the few open mics I have been to. For the purposes of this post I'm not going to say "but it wasn't folk" - but this is not to debar me from raising that hare on any other aoccasion.

Equally both would (barring a spot of trouble with feedback on the song) have been plenty good enough to be beyond substantial criticism for a paid support slot at club night or I think concert.

As a headlining act - well at the start of the song the fiddler was a fraction off the pitch for a second or so at the beginning of the song, and I was a little uneasy about the female vocal on that song too in places, and the whole thing was not Nic Jones (but then it wasn't his style). The Irish tune seemed bang on to me all the way through, but Irish is not my bag so maybe others can hear subtelties there that I can't. Maybe I would not have put them on the main stage at Ely (if I ran Ely, which I don't), but I've heard worse on the second stage there.

All quite good enough to make me start wondering whether my thoughts of a recording project are me getting way above my station.

But how does it relate to the people who Jim and the Captain would say should not sing or play?