Attn. Big Mick, Joe Offer, Allison, Dick, Liam's brother, Liam himself and all other mudcatters.

I introduced myself some time ago as a friend of Frank McGrath's at the Nenagh Singers Circle.

I understand that Frank has given you all a little info about me.

But I need some serious help !!

I have a fairly large data base of songs included in a tape catalogue which relates directly to home made live recordings at sessions. Most of these recordings are of trad. songs although some would have been written fairly recently. What is the copywrite situation?? I am not a musician so I cannot provide music, nor do I have the facility to relay the music to you all.

I am also very green on the computer. I have posted a couple of songs to the mudcat but no one seems to have accessed them and I am feeling a little discouraged. What should I be doing and can any of you help?

The songs I have posted are not in the DT data base as far as I can tell although I have not yet managed to download the data and my searching has been restricted to fairly limited on line time.

The songs were :

The Jolly Little Tailor (under the thread title of ceremonial songs) The pawnbroker's wife (which I posted last week) Billy O'Shea. (I didn't realise the dates on the original thread when posting this song.)

Amongst my own repertoire I have numerous songs the versions of which do not appear to be in the data base.

I made an enquiry, through Frank, about an old song that I have, called Lavender's blue, or Dilly dilly, and would like to know more about its origins. I learned this song from a hero of mine, who died some years ago. His name was John Knight and I know that he got it directly form his Granny who told him she got it from her mother. My own investigations show that it goes back at least 200 years but I would like to get at some idea of its source. My version id definitely not in the data base.

I would like to contribute more to mudcat but I am unsure how to go about it.

Finally I will be visiting London, Detroit, Cleveland, Niagara Falls and Toronto at the end of May and beginning of June, on vacation. Anybody know of any sessions in those areas. Obviously I will be passing through many places en route.

I look forward to hearing from you all. Incidentally, watch out for Irish Music mag. Feb. issue. Frank will have the full Spancil Hill story together with photo's etc published in that issue.

George Henderson.