Don't disagree with that Mike, Jeannie became a victim of collectors who told her that her slow, drawn out style of singing was magnificent and here singing became slower and slower - compare some of the earliest recordings (don't think it was down to Hamish, b. t. w.
But that's a bit beside the point really; singers like Jeannie were not part of our folkie world - you don't go to them, ask them for their songs, then pull their singing apart publicly - it's both ungracious and, certainly from the point of view of a collector, self destructive - not the way to win songs and influence people.
We had a nasty 'incident' some time ago when a reviewer took the opportunity while reviewing one of our albums of field recordings, to take revenge for past differences, which included virtually ignoring the singers and their songs (in probably the longest review I've ever read), or taking a pop at them personally - "why does he sound like a woman" is not the type of thing you say about an elderly West Clare farmer.
It meant that we were reluctant to follow up the work we had originally done with that particular man, which lost us access to his manuscript collection of songs.
The behaviour was repeated by the publication some years later with another group of singers and another collector.
Don't know if any of the singers, or their relatives saw any of the reviews, but it shouldn't have happened - as I say, their agenda is not ours.
Jim Carroll