No apology needed, Brian, at least not to this hillbilly. I love the old ballads and am glad they were collected. I am descended on both sides of my family from German, Welsh, and Scots-Irish who headed west quickly and were in the Appalachian mountains and plateau areas of what are now Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia pre-revolution, and in most cases, by about the time of the French-and-Indian War. My grandfather, by the time I was born, sang only unaccompanied and only hymns, due to his religious beliefs, but he sang those hymns very much in the same style as those old, unaccompanied ballads.

The musical tradition, and the ethnic heritage of the Appalachians, however, is much richer than ballads that can be traced back to Child, or were collected by Sharp and his ilk. Not much interest or appreciation of the fullness of the heritage music of the central and southern Appalachians on Mudcat beyond those old and early collected ballads.

I understand that and no website can be all things to all people. I also understand that Sharp was focused on the English/UK folk revival and his interest, and therefore what he focused his collection on, were the songs and musical styles he came across in the isolated hills and hollers (or coves, for the NC folks:>) of the region that clearly traced back to the UK.

But that ain't the whole story and there are times when I wish there was an appreciation (or at least interest) in the diversity of Appalachian folk music, older and newer, than there is here on Mudcat.