Jim: In speech your tones are evoked by your feeling' what you are saying (you don't even have to think about it if you 'feel' the song you sing)... Then comes interpretation, which is far more individual

I agree with all of that, Jim. Of course putting too much feeling into a song might become histrionic, but I've never been a believer in the 'deadpan' theory of authentic traditional singing, and a bit of expression does no harm IMO.

Harry Cox and Sam Lerner and John Strachan and Jimmy McBeath and Sheila Stewart and Brigid Tunney and Tom Moran and Joe Heaney.... and dozens of others I listened to (and still do)... What distinguishes them all is they are all different - miles apart in some cases - they sang like themselves

This is true as well - Sam Larner's style had evolved to enable him to win fishermen's singing competitions; Phil Tanner was a pub singer; Walter Pardon didn't sing 'out' at all until in later life. Those performance environments, and the personalities of the individuals, are of course reflected in the way they sang.

Singing 'like yourself' was exactly the point I was trying to make before, possibly a bit simplistically. When I hear the phrase 'folk voice' I think about that odd amalgam of country yokel and Oirish that was fashionable amongst the traddy elements of the folk scene in the 1970s / 80s, and which you can still hear occasionally today. It's that style that Will Noble found so amusing.