Jag:

1 I had had a similar thought about the idea that older songs were 'modal' ie basically minor as opposed to major as indicated by them ending on a pull on a two row diatonic melodeon.

2 This appears to have moved on from undermining the validity of the singers reputations as 'tradition bearers' to attacking the work carried out by 'revival' collectors … I thought it started out that way.

I might quibble about the emotive force of some of the language used here, especially 'undermine' and 'attach', but basically you are correct.

The aid was to critically examine the way Pardon and his work were presented, and the difficulty (which I had found, as an alert reader) in distinguishing fact, myth, opinion and bias in the various accounts of him which I had found. Including in this is a 'critical' (ie less than slavish adherence) examination of the various and contested ideologies underpinning the work on and about him.

I am not apologetic about this: we can be assured that in the future people will take precisely this approach to the output of the 2nd revival: in fact time has moved on to the point where is it seen as 'history'.