OMG, I must have given a completely wrong impression of my regard for Burl Ives. My purpose was merely to ascertain how good a guitarist he actually was, not at all to try to suggest that he was IN ANY WAY lessened in importance by any deficiency that he may have had in that respect.
I too was first "turned on" to Folk Songs by his renditions of such songs as "The Fox" and "Frog went a courting" away back, listening to Radio, in the 1950s. This was long before I added an interest in Irish Traditional Music, although I was living in rural Ireland.
I would accept, gladly, that the beautiful and simple little guitar inter-verse "links" that were played on that Irish Song Album of his, were his own work, having read what you people have to say.
I rem seeing his (fairly posh) caravan parked in St.Stephen's Green, street side, just across the street from the Shelbourne Hotel, then Ireland's premier establishment. I also recall an motoring accident that he had somewhere in Co. Limerick, around that time, when his car overturned. I've often wondered if the after effects of that had hastened his end ?
And, who can forget his portrayal of the Hillbilly patriarch in "The Big Country" ???
I have a complete admiration for Burl Ives the Folk Singer, Writer and Actor and I have here with me, as I write, his autobiography "Wayfaring Stranger" in which it appears that the Banjo was his first instrument of choice - one in the eye for all the Banjo denigrators.