nutty

If that was re my last post about Jeff Davis, I agree that (in general) 80 year old singers are not usually the best exemplars. Jeff Davis had some very good recordings of American singers (some of the Warner recordings among them), and there are extant a great many recordings of English traditional singers who were still capable of giving very good performances when recorded.

(I'm not sure I'd want to hear version of singers aged 20 compared to when aged 30, 40 or 50. While technically singers may fade with age, interpretation generally improves. Norma mentioned the increase of sessions in recent years and I see this as one of the sources of good young instrumental players - you can play on every tune and use all the time to hone your skills. But singers get a look in more rarely - they don't get the same practice time in sessions. I think singers have a longer maturation time than instrumentalists. However, I try never to get involved in matters of opinion - I find it wastes too much time on matters that have too many equally valid standpoints, so I think I've already gone too far down this road).

Mick