Hey, Ron:

You sound like my kind of man. Last night, while I was adding comments to this and other threads about old-time, bluegrass and folk music, I was listening to a two CD set of the best of the Orioles. It took me close to twenty years to finally find a compilation that included one of my favorite recordings of theirs.. Don't Go To Strangers.

Why do people who love folk music hate Jazz?

Why do people waste their time and energy hating any form of music? Not appreciating it is one thing.. I don't appreciate opera or rap or disco, but if it speaks to someone else, then it has it's own, inherent value. It just doesn't touch my ears. The qualities of bluegrass that several posters find endearing are the same qualities that others (myself included) find repetitive or even irritating.

And by the bye: Old-timey music which is held up as the comparison in this and the thread on the subject is characterized as going on forever, with words mostly as an after-thought. If a band is playing for a dance, the music and the rhtyhm and the DANCE (no duh!) are the purpose of the music. The other times when old-timey bands play, the music, the words and the humor are the purpose. I booked old-timey bands for concerts for many years, and the songs were three or four minutes long, with an emphasis on the song, not the instrumental breaks. When I booked the same band for a dance, they played repetitive fiddle tunes as a support for the dancing.

Different strokes for different folks.

Jerry