You don't know Al, and he's closer to my take on music than the attitude that there's a "right" way to sing folk songs "like the original singers did". In my opinion there are better ways and worse ways- and I'm with Al on the idea that it's better to adapt the vocabulary, rhyming scheme, scansion etc. of a song than try to do an "original" (Scotch/ Oirish/ Zummerzet/ whatever) accent that you haven't got a close-to-native grasp of.

I'm the singer, I sing my song, not Walter Pardon's or anybody else's. And you're free to like it, and if you don't to say why (or not).

Example: I like to sing Recruited Collier in a partially tamed Salford accent to the tune of Andy's Gone With Cattle (Australian AFAIK), which fits beautifully and sounds like a Geordie tune (see below). I see Roud has no original recorded "traditional" singer for this, but the vocabulary of versions I've heard (professional recordings and folk- club singers) suggests North-East England somewhere. The feedback I get is about 50/50 between good and horrified.

Counter example: I'd love to be able to sing The Portuguese (50s or 60s composition), but my Cockney isn't even Mockney. So I don't unless I'm very, very drunk at the time.

This all comes down into the age old conundrum about why we do "folk" as a separate thing. And the only answer seems to be, "Because we like to."