Any body interested in hearing Walter Pardon's own statement that the songs he learned from his Uncle Billy mostly came from broadsides can do so here, towards the end. The 'Tom' referred to is Billy's father, Walter's maternal grandfather.

They can also hear Pardon deny point blank that they called the songs they sang 'folk'. Pardon says he did learn some 'folk songs' at school, but plainly differentiates between what he learned at school and the 'old' songs he learned from Billy.




I am collating the information I can find about Pardon, who, it seems to me, was most certainly lionised. I was particularly interested to find one of the many Pardon researchers reporting that Billy would go to music hall/variety and then go through the songs at home since some of Pardon's delivery reminded me of variety singers I recall seeing on the TV in my youth. I have lost the reference for that but I'll post it in a thread later, and then people will be able to add other information they have.