it's the music of and the information about the ordinary people that they visited, mainly at their own expense, that is important.

A little E.P.Thomson I think, which, although about folklore, applies to equally to folk song too: Folklore, in England, is largely a literary record of 18th and 19th century survivals recorded by parsons and by genteel antiquarians regarding them across a gulf of class condescension. And by the language used above, it's heartening to see such condescension is alive and well which is none the wonder. Anyhoo, given what we know of the Traditional Singers, in what sense I wonder are these people ordinary? Which presumably means the collectors were somehow extraordinary - hmmmm...

We aren't exactly short of this stuff.

Only if we're prepared to pay through the nose for it. As discussed elsewhere recently, all this stuff should on-line and freely available - the entire archives, not just the edited highlights to grace our CD shelves.

As the man said - we have the technology!