Scots Folk Singers and Their Sources

This book offers a detailed analysis of two major Scottish folk song collections, the Greig-Duncan Collection, and the Scots folk song material of the School of Scottish Studies Archives. This exhaustive study of song transmission includes all contributors, not only notable singers. The scattered information, marshalled into quantifiable data, throws light on such topics as transmission within and outside the family, the role of literacy, the public reticence of women singers, the association between the Travellers and the big ballads, and the impact of social changes in the late nineteenth century, and of broadcast music in the 1920s. The new opportunities opened up by digitisation are explored here for the first time.