I'm an American who has been doing traditional English songs for many years. Here's a concept: since the dominant culture in America (and in Australia) is English in origin, English songs are as much my tradition as they are an English person's. It's the only tradition I have that goes back more than a few hundred years.

I could maybe call a person's music "more traditional" if they grew up in the English countryside, learning songs from their grandma and others in the village, and if they didn't learn any other music from any other source, especially not from books, CDs, or listening to Martin Carthy. Does such a creature actually exist?