Folk Alliance made me a guest at two diffent yearly gatherings when Phyllis Barney was the leader. As a member, I will always be glad I was able to be there in Memphis and in Cleveland. Being out of the loop now, and off the road, it was a great thing to be able to hang out and schmooze with so many friends from all around the U.S.A. Still, I was rather turned off by the lack of a meaningful traditional presence at both of those gatherings and also on the F.A. e-mail web discussion. I did feel this estrangement to be real enough that I had decided not to stay in the organization. THEN, good friends of mine got together and purchased a lifetime membership for me. Well, as I'm fond of saying, "If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can generally count on the support of Paul!" And I really do feel that the more things change, the more they get different---so what the hell; as a member of the olk Alliance, I'm really enjoying being able to see where this folk world of ours is going in the new century. Just a word of advice to all the agents and managers and presenters and biz savy new-age Folk Alliance members...

The rest of this sentence has been detained and relocated by the Department Of National Insecuity!!!

Art Thieme