" just get the story across without bloody mumbling!!"
Please rant away.
One of the main things we concentrated on over the thirty-odd years we recorded old singers was to ask them how they felt about and approached their songs - there is surprisingly little in the form of interviews with field singers in either printed or aural form, except from the US.
Every singer we asked told us they regarded themselves as storytellers whose stories came with tunes.
We spent an afternoon with Clare singer Tom Lenihan discussing phrasing, and how he approached the story and fitted the sung text into the tune.
Walter Pardon spent hours talking about how he identified with his characters - The Pretty Ploughboy used to plough the field opposite his house.
We became convinced that the narrative storytelling nature of folk songs was what made them unique
"A wealth-y squi-er"
What you are describing is what we used to refer to as four-squaring - attempting to fit the words into the tune rather than the other way round - leading to the breaking up of words, taking breaths were there are no commas or stops......
One of the saddest examples of this is in Phil Tanner's (one of my favourite singers) version of Banks of the Sweet Primroses, where age forces him to take a breath in the very last line of an otherwise spectacularly perfect rendition.
Another problem that seldom occurred in the older singers was the 'head-voice' syndrome (common to women unless you happen to be a castrati!)
The airy tone some women use takes up too much air to sing a full line without having to take a breath - saw a spectacular example last night in our local session when an otherwise fine singer broke down and abandoned her song.
This tone also produces 'gear change' - a forced shift from head to chest tone as the singer moves down her range - a lack of tonal continuity - a sort of quantum leap - can't think of a single example among the older generation of singers - plenty in revival ones.
Sorry - having my own personal little rant now.
Jim Carroll