@Brian Peters. Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was taking Lighter's point and going further to say that not only is more required to understand "working class life" but more is required to understand even the more restricted "musical life of the working class".

I wasn't faulting the collectors from not representing the wider musical life (and some such as Alfred Williams did), I was faulting the sociologists and anthropologists for either going too with something that is so incomplete or claiming that the 'mediators' went too far.