"I can see how people who knew Walter may uneasy about the personal details."
I have no problems with the personal details Jag - I might have if Walter had not been the wonderful, friendly and intelligent man that he was, but that wasn't the case
What has appalled me here is the insulting and trivialising on one of three of England's most important singers
First, after us being told on the other thread that he was a poor singer whose position in the oral tradition was 'dubious' - we were told he had no place on a discussion about today's revival - somebody actually showed him the door by pushing him onto another thread
I was peeved at this and decided not to take part until the discussion degenerated into a snide discussion about what he had for breakfast
That went on for a little while until Nick and I struck up a discussion beween us
This morning (sorry yesterday morning) a handful of heroes turned up - someone who had participated in the breakfast bit told us that the thread had run its course and had lost direction, someone else told be I was wasting my time trying to give our recordings of Walter and others away and went ballistic when I explained why thought it was important, accusing me of having a chip on my shoulder - then back to the trivialising by replacing discussions on his Walter's singing with unimportant questions about obscure relatives by someone who had shown no interest in Walter as a singer - not a sign of Walter as an important singer on the horizon
Sorry folks - I really don't believe that is the way to honour one of England's great folk singers

I have an added problem with this
Pat and I collected for over thirty years - we're still at it spasmodically
We made friends with nearly everybody we recorded - Mikeen McCarthy and Mary Delaney became our closest friends among the Travellers - so when someone writes them off as "Thieves, poachers and scavengers", they are friends he is insulting
Walter's friendship lasted twenty years until his death - we visited him regularly (not just to record) and he stayed with us often - Pat has around forty of the letters he wrote us before we had a phone installed for him
I would have been pissed off at the treatment he has received if he had never known a song
Sorry - needed to get that off my cheat - now perhaps we can move on

Nick - welcome back - hope you had a great day singing
I'll deal with this more fully tomorrow if you're up to it but for now
One of the things we first noticed with some of the older singers is their custom of internalising a song - they didn't try to push it but they appeared to be reliving something and passing on information rather than performing
Blind Travelling woman, Mary Delaney would occasionally stop singing and say - "Sorry - it's too heavy"
We thought she was having trouble with the pitch, but in fact she was becoming overwhelmed by what she was singing about - this happened with big ballads and comic songs alike
It took us four goes to get a full recording of 'Well Done Donnelly' (The Tinker) and Kilkenny Louse-House, without her bursting out laughing
West of Ireland singers would grab the hand of one of the listeners and wind it around in a circle while starting straight at their face, "telling their song" one-to-one
Mikeen McCarthy was an intimate singer - I've heard people comment that audience members felt he was singing specifically for them because of his conversational style

I don't think this was just an Irish thing
Harry Cox became so absorbed in his song that he would occasionally spit out a comment on the story - he did this with 'Betsy the Serving Maid' and Van Dieman's Land and I'm sure there were others
I think Sam was different - I never saw him live but I was quite surprised when I was told he was quite physical when he sang (confirmed on the wonderful 'The Singer and the Song' film
He may have gestured, but the timbre of his voice makes him quite an intimate singer
We've already discussed Walter's use of the microphone or "lookinng down his nose" in order to cut out the audience
Sorry - it's a bit late for this - maybe tomorrow
Jim