"...people speak of The Tradition as some sort of tangible phenomenon that exists quite separate from the singers who are 'merely' part of it..."

Who are these "people"? Notwithstanding that 'tradition' is an abstract noun, everyone I've ever discussed the concept with would regard the singers themselves as absolutely central to it.

" ...a romantic notion of the sorts of people who just dabbled for the hell of it. From the collected evidence I deduce the work of master craftspersons on top of their art..."

The collected evidence tells us nothing of the sort, merely that the people who made recordings of singers generally favoured the better ones. "People just dabbling for the hell of it" is a probably a more accurate description of many of those who once sang - not to mention many who still choose to sing within the folk revival - and why not? It was one of the things that always attracted me to folk music in the first place: you didn't need to be a 'master craftsperson' to perform it (though some would argue that folk clubs took this attitude too far).

Let me quote to you again some apt words from Carrie Grover, writing about her early 20th-century Nova Scotia community in which singing was a part of life. That's right, the account that you dismissed last time around as "mawkish and voyeuristic" (always a good idea to favour your own prejudices over eye-witness testimony, eh?).

"many people tried to sing who could not even carry a tune, or as one old fellow expressed it, 'carried it a ways but dropped it before he got very far'... It was rare to find a really good singer of folk songs..."

The point is, the Davie Stewarts and Phil Tanners may well have been the 'master craftspersons' of their day, and we can all think of traditional singers whose style, technique and committment we revere - but they were the tip of the iceberg. Phil Tanner had six brothers, who all sang. We know little about them, but perhaps they didn't all have Phil's talent for entertaining a pub tap room. Percy Grainger recorded several singers at Brigg, but none was the equal of 'master craftsperson' (and chorister) Joseph Taylor.

That's what folk music is, when it comes down to it - music for everyone. That's not a romantic bourgeois fantasy, just the way it was. Not for nothing was a concert at CSH earlier this year, featuring the Coppers, Will Noble & John Cocking, the Moor Music gang and others, entitled: "It's just what we do!"