You think you Brits have trouble understanding Uncle Dave? So Do Yankees. Just in case you are not aware of osit, "Yankees" only live in the 5 New England states. Rhode Island, which formally declared it's independence on MAY, 4Th 1776, (two months before the rest)Massachusetts,Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont. We don't object when Britons call all Americans, "Yanks", it's kind of a compliment, but, When Southern Americans refer to ALL Norherners as, "Yankees" we resent the Hell out of it, because they usually dont use it as a compliment and almost always add the prefix "Damned". Dasve Macon definitely did not have a yankee accent. Britts should have no trouble with with a Yankee accent, sounds a lot like a combination of Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. At least that's what their accents sounded like to me when I was stationed in England in the USAF. Leadbelly was just as hard to understand, except that I knew him when I was a Kid living in New York City in 1946 &47. I learned a lot of Leadbelly's songs right from the horses mouth, and did a lot of "Huh"?, "What was that"? (whuch you can't do with a recording) I remember that he was very patient with "chillun" and liked to perform for them and having them around. He even would change the words to some songs, (on the spot) rather than give them any bad advice. I'll give you one example. He was singing for a bunch of school kids and sang the last line of the last verse of "Irene" to "I'll run away and hide" instead of "I'll take morphine and die". While we're still on the subject, in spite of the TV movie about Leadbelly's life, he did not pronounce his name "Hew-dee", his name was Hudson Ledbetter, and he pronounced it "Huh-dy".

Love and kisses