Ardith Hinton:

AH> Understood.   It's  not  the  way  folks generally write
AH> here.  However, I would like to think I've helped create
AH> an  atmosphere  in which they feel free to test emerging
AH> skills

Well-noted.  One can't  improve  one's  English,  nor  one's
muscles,  if  one does not occasionally stretch one's skills
to, and  then  a  little  beyond,  their  limits,  in  which
exercise errors are unavoidable.

AH> & within   reason  to  lighten  up  the  tone  when  the
AH> discussion of grammar or whatever is a bit abstruse  for
AH> some members of the audience.  ;-)

Yeah, keep it spicy.

AH> I  agree  with you & the sound engineer that the dialect
AH> used in a song cannot... in most  cases...  be  improved
AH> upon  or translated into standard English without losing
AH> something.
A mere glance at Matlock's notes about translating  Leskov's
"Soboyrane"  into  English  shows how difficult it indeed it
is:

  https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8K07BHT


AH> Another example I noticed in a folk song book  was  what
AH> the  writers  or  their  editors did with "Let My People
AH> Go".  AFAIK this song  originated  with  slaves  in  the
AH> southeastern  USA,  most but not all of whom were black.
AH> If they rhymed "lost" with "across 't", a  pronunciation
AH> used in some parts of northern England, I can relate.

Sorry, I can't help it:

  https://youtu.be/4D7q4apjSmg?t=299
  [Exodus]

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