"Marina died in 1915? Oh, so no good recordings available, huh?"
You sure 'bout that?
Recordings of some of the finest singing from English traditional singers was made in 1908 (seven years earlier), by Percy Grainger in Lincolnshire.
Lucy Broadwood was using a recording machine at the time, though enquiries as to what happened to the cylinders drew a blank when the Broadwood family was approached.
Sharp, while expressing disapproval of recording singers (he believed it to be an intrusion), recorded some of his singers.
I understand that the earliest field recordings ever made were of Native Americans in the late 1890s - there is also a recording of an Irish piper made around the same time and played by Nicholas Carolan on his 'The Irish Phonograph' series
There is a horror story of an extremely deaf lady who had some authority at Cecil Sharp House. deciding to make some cupboard space and, finding a box of cylinders, request that they be played and, when she was unable to hear them, ordered them to be smashed, keeping only a couple as a memento of "dear Cecil"
I have always hoped to live long enough to be told that some of these recordings might be unearthed.
Jim Carroll