"You have never mentioned 'in performance' before. "
I thought it was what I have ben saying throughout Dave - it has always been my point
When Britten rewrote The Lyke Wake Dirge for Peter Pears, it lost its 'folk' form and became something else
When George butterworth took the Ballad 'Bonny Annie' and recreated it as the exquisite 'Banks of Green Willow' it became something else
The clear, clear voice of folk singing is, in my opinion, what distinguishes folk from any other vocal form (you'll find the opera buffs hate it and describe its "natural voice' as "ugly")
You have to couple this with a set of words that has come through a process, of course
Your singer doesn't "tell a story", he adopts a pop technique to achieve a musical sound
Neither does he attempt interpretation - his phony mid-Atlantic accent makes that obvious
It struck me while I was listening to it that, giving it the olk treatment might make it a passable song (not folk - but so what) - but your man doesn't even attempt that
Tell you what - try something I do while I'm messing about with my voice - take a wrod-based pop song with some degree of narrative and give it the folk treatement and see what works and what doesn't - some do, some don't
"ignoring the last 100 plus posts from the "usual suspects"
Perhaps if you took the trouble to read what was being written you might find a few answers
None so blind... as they say
Jim Carroll