Wizzard were always horrid!

But there is a value to knowledge. When a gene pool is lost a risk arises. Traditions do indeed have a values as such. They may no longer be applicable, but they should not be forgotten.

The position is somewhat different in the USA. The currently dominant cultures there arose out of a much more recent melting pot than most European cultures, most Indian cultures, most African cultures, most Far Eastern cultures, or most Arabic cultures.

None of which restricts how traditional material SHOULD be performed, but does underly where it comes from. Nor does it I think bar accretion to "folk" material although those accretions may be more modern than traditional.

It MAY influence who best performs a given set of material. The blues (which as a young student, I adored) has been experienced in its state of origin within a couple of generations of most African-Americans. That is not so of most white Americans or Europeans. If we import ourselves into that milieu we are cuckoos or colonists (a case to be made for saying cuckoos since there are so few modern African-American blues players, Guy Davis apart).

If Davy Graham can say, as he did, that he (a man of consummate skill) could study the oud for 10 years and still not grasp the antiphonal nature of the treble/bass question and answer, how close to we lesser mortals have to get to someone else's tradition to become competent in it?

The "own tradition" was one of the better ideas of the critics group.