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Keith Summers, a resident of Southend-on-Sea, founding editor of Musical Traditions, and a recorder of traditional song and music, was born in East London on 11 December 1948 and died tragically of cancer on 30 March 2004 at the age of 55.1
It would be hard to find anyone more passionately devoted to the traditional music and song of the UK, Ireland, and beyond than Keith. His great conviction was born out of a desire to back the underdog - to support the remarkable everyday culture of local tradition in preference to the privileged art forms of the metropolitan élite. He had no pretensions to academic achievement but simply appreciated the accomplishments of the traditional singers and instrumentalists with whom he mixed. He valued their company, relished their performance contexts, and gave them a feeling of self worth. He was also respectful of the scholarly achievements of others, such that it was at the 1983 'Fieldwork in Folklore' conference in Sheffield that I first got to know him. His refreshing frankness, anarchic good humour, and vision for the possible made a lasting impression.
By that...