As the old lawyer joke goes, and who created the chaos? PhD. Physical Chemistry, but the son of a PhD. organic chemist and a professional musician (piano teacher, accompanist, soloist and sightreading ten fingers at once!) Fell in love with old time music (with the aid of the New Lost City Ramblers) and never got over it. Worked backwards till I saw Paul Cadwell and learned about Vess Ossman and classical banjo. Then there's all those Stephen Foster songs. . . On one level, old time music is not creative-- on the deper level it is VERY creative because it's so hard to make any changes in keeping with the tradition. Singer-songwriters are things i can usually do without; there are just so many good songs! Then somebody like J.U. Lee comes along and he writes songs so good that I have learned them without trying to.