"And that younger singers preferred the newer stuff, while the old boys stuck to things like 'The Outlandish Knight'"
Walter Pardon said exactly the same thing.
He said that when his cousins abandoned the old songs (Walter actually called them "folk songs" for the new ones, he decided to put together all his family's songs.
He carefully wrote them down in an exercise book, memorised the tunes on his malodeon and checked them out with the surviving family members.
We have his books; with a couple of discrepancies, they are catergorised into folk and non-folk - not named that way; that's the order in which they come.
We hope to be recording a ninety odd year old man shortly with a repertoire to die for (Lord Bateman, Keach in the Creel, Constant Farmer's Son, Pat O'Brien, Lord Lovel, Banks of Sweet Dundee, Green Wedding, Suffolk Miracle....)
He stopped singing thirty years ago because he disapproved of how his songs were being sung by "the younger lot" and now says he is "too old to sing", but at least we hope to interview him on - to borrow a phrase from Martin Carthy's radio programme, "How the old songs should be sung".
To say that the older singers do not discriminate is simply inaccurate
"I value different things about the tradition within which I make music."
Too often these discussions are taken as disapproval and criticism - they certainly aren't with me.
I have fairly catholic tastes but like to chose when and what to listen to.
My activities as a researcher requires some degree of accuracy, but it has nothing to do with my taste.
Jim Carroll