Re the New York Times obit, one error: "Shoals of Herring" is NOT a traditional ballad. It was composed by Ewan MacColl for one of his Radio Ballads series.

Neither is 'The Black Leg Miners' but I fear this isn't the place for such petty quibbling on minor points of pedantry and provenance. Most people reading the obituary won't know, much less care, about the differences much less the finer nuances of the term 'Traditional', or if such nuances have any currency at all in 2013.

The legacy of Louis Killen, the Great North East Folk Song & Ballad Singer, is the story of Folk and all its diverse tributaries that go into the making of a mighty water regardless of any misplaced purism that such-and-such a drop is any more real than any other. He's up there with his old mate Peter Bellamy in that respect. They were both true masters of their art; and that mastery was, and always will be, inspirational and due cause for thanks and celebration.