Good thread! The all day ballad forum in Lewes mentioned by Valmai Goodyear sounds wonderful, but who can travel so far? I'd invite you to a weekend with a lot of ballad singers November 5-7 a couple of hours outside New York City. A Festival of Traditional Music, Eisteddfod, put on by the Folk Music Society of NY features excellent musicians and many sessions of ballads. Among the musicians who will be there, I must mention Lorraine Hammond who learned ballads from a farm hand, supporting this thread's distinction between those who learned from a "genuine source singer" and those less directly linked to tradition. Of course she is also a top notch singer. Info at http://www.eisteddfod-ny.org