"It's just a pity he's not a 73 year old unaccompanied singer"
Another couple of red herrings Keith - I have no objections tyo young singers - I'm surrounded by a rapidly growing number of then at present and am loving every minute of it
Up to leaving London I sand all the time with an accompanist, I tried to learn the guitar and and concertina for years and gave up because I found it to difficult
This is yet one of those invented arguments to avoid the point I am making - my reservations of what this and far too many other singers do is allow the accompaniment to dominate the song rather than provide a matrix for the singer to re-create it - as best, the instrument distracts from the narrative making the words superfluous to the performance - it becomes a skillfully played piece of music with words doing something else in the background - not telling a story anyway
Examine the way the words are broken up and the punctuation is abandoned - no traditional singer would do that - no storyteller would either
It may be good musicianship but it is far from a good example of the singing of a folk song
We've had everything here, from musical skills you "give the oyng feller a chance"
Very little about the art of folk song and how the artist approached it
Jim