traditional singer

A traditional singer, also known as a source singer, is someone who has learned folk songs in the oral tradition, usually from older people within their community. From around the beginning of the twentieth century, song collectors such as Cecil Sharp went to rural areas to collect traditional songs. Later, Percy Grainger and James Madison Carpenter, followed by Alan Lomax and Peter Kennedy, made field recordings of traditional singers. Many old ballads, including the famous Child Ballads, were found within the oral tradition in the twentieth century.