"is there any SUBSTANTIAL evidence that Sharp showed any interest in the singers as people in England or Appalachia, as apparantly Baring Gould did in England, or was he just concerned with the songs, Did Sharp ever pay for any of the songs?"

I have answered all of these points at length and in the affirmative in my previous posts, Dick. Read my paper in the FMJ, and Mike Yates' article on Mustrad, for more detail.

He was certainly interested in the role of folk song in promoting patriotism (and, consequently, of sealing the importance of folk song in the national narrative), but in his day there was no contradiction between patriotism and Fabian socialism. His political views are described in his biography, and in letters I've read in the VWML. In many ways his ideas were in the spirit of William Morris (who he heard lecture at Cambridge) or John Ruskin.