I'm not sure how much of that I agree with Ebbie.
We spent a great deal of time with singers like Walter Pardon in England and Tom Lenihan in Ireland - both superb performers (with a small p)
They could make a song work wherever they were- their songs fitted them like an old coat and it didn't matter where they were or who was listening.
We interviewed Walter once and asked him about how he made his songs work in front of an audience of strangers
He said, "I forget they are there"
He said he "saw his songs" while hie was singing them and in order to facilitate this he looked down his nose in order to cut the audience out.
Bosses, audiences, venues... never came into it - they weren't there - just the song
Now that I'm back to singing after all these years, it certainly works for me
Jim Carroll