I have to agree that Folk Mass music was awful, freshly-scrubbed, wholesome, three-chord stuff. For a while, it seemed like the New Christy Minstrels in Polyester were at one Mass every Sunday in every Catholic church in the U.S. The Catholic music publishers cleaned up their act and came out with some pretty good stuff. Trouble is, some of the three-chord people are still there, and they don't know what to do with the newer music. And some of the traditionalists are still complaining about the "Folk Mass," which died in the early 1980's.

I watched The Land Is Your Land: The Folk Years on DVD last night - Kingston Trio, Judy Collins, the Brothers Four, Highwaymen, Glenn Yarbrough, and "Randy Sparks and the Minstrels" - If young people think that was folk music, maybe that's why they don't like it.

My song has a punk band, named !!! (pronounced "chick chick chick"). He and a number of the band members know a fair amount about folk music. One time, I sang "This Land Is Your Land" with them in front of an audence.

-Joe Offer-