I would be so ever enchanted to take on the suggestion of Joe Offer, with the chore of making "Rave On" or "Peggy Sue" sound circa 1800's. But I know I'm beat there Joe! These songs, as do most modern songs, present a special difficulty with their lack of range or choice of notes present. Most modern songs sound like short cuts to me, in that the notation choices are very lazy. Just the musical notation within the introduction of an 1800's song before one even gets to the song proper, sports a melody and harmony line inclusive enough to make enough modern songs to uphold a modern artists entire career. Peggy Sue being an excellent example, sports so few notes that the choice of harmonic notes available severly restricts the possibility of a "traditional" sound. The old songs seem to me to be each to its own ethnic backround, and of yet a previous century. Each time people come together as during a war, their individual song styles become a little more homogenized. Just take note of the large influx of styles that came together during recent wars, The Spanish American and WW1 especially. Notice the results in the early or late blendings of two very different American music styles with root origins of the British Isles, as one flourished in the Eastern Mountains with the Native American syncopation and the other in the flatlands with the African American. The results are vastly different in many ways, yet were at one time the same tunes/songs. Likewise what is "traditional" Cajun Music? Not only were the old French tunes "refreshed" by the introduction (70 years ago)of the German accordian syncopation, they also became as a result limited to less than an octive and choice of only two keys. I have only the knowledge of how the old tunes were done from cylinders of the 1880's to 1905. The "Parlor Era". The revelation of hearing these recordings and some of the one sided 78rpm discs that replaced them as opposed to the sheet music interpretations is enlighting. Songs such as "Lorina" or "The Green Fields of Virginia" even with their simple folk style are masterpiece examples of their times. Audiences who have never heard the old "traditional" music are stricken by their beauty. Give me another chance Joe? I cry "stonzies"!