"Are we really carrying on the 'tradition' by learning songs from aged singers?
A song sung by someone in their youth can sound very different to one sung by someone in their dotage and IMHO many of the Kennedy recordings are the worst examples of traditional singing. One problem I had with the singing of Peter Bellamy was that he sounded like a ninety year old.
Yes, he was truly following his sources but I much prefer a young person to sing like a young person. One might use the same arguement in the way the (YOUNG) Copper Family interpret their family songs.
I realise that holding such views is likely to get me hung drawn and quartered"

No, I think you're totally right. I often wonder whether the style of singing we think of as 'folk' is actually entirely accidental and arbitrary: people trying to sing like old men and women with aged larynxes, whose voices have been weathered by, of necessity, having to belt it out unamplified in boisterous pubs. I mean, presumably singers in the 19th century didn't think of themselves as 'folk singers', they were just 'singers'.

With you on Peter Bellamy too. I have a sort of ambivalent affection for the singing of Peter Bellamy - and Ewan MacColl for the same reasons: I somehow manage to enjoy them while simultaneously thinking the stylisation just sounds all wrong. I suppose it's a case of appreciating what they were trying to do, what they were thinking, even if you personally totally disagree with it. And of course there's always the song beneath, no mater how it's being sung.

I think a quest for authenticity of style is a red herring in folk music. Quite apart from anything else, the voices on the VOTP recordings are very varied: it's not like they all sing the same way. I also feel very uneasy about using the word 'apprentice': sounds far too pompous. I mean, it's great that Sam Lee is so committed to the music that he is actively seeking out a singer with a old repertoire, rather than relying on recordings and transcriptions. But folk music isn't opera - it's more interesting than that (IMO). I find notions of rectitude - the "correct" way of doing things, "master" and "pupil" relationships etc - very offputting in the context of folk music.