The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #76438   Message #1832239
Posted By: GUEST,Art Thieme
11-Sep-06 - 08:00 PM
Thread Name: Merlin Banjo (and the Chicago Folk Scene)
Subject: RE: Merlin Banjo (and the Chicago Folk Scene)
Guy,

It's pretty amazing reading your doings back in them other times. You've got me thinking of the group THE FRETS. You, with that group, opened for Frank Hamilton when we brought him in to play at the University Of Illinois-Navy Pier 2-year branch back in 1961 I think. --- It's making my brain smoke to think that far back. All those reel-to-reel tapes I made of that concert have crumbled. I still have a couple of songs from it on cassette---Singin' In The Country by Frank--a song he taught in the one class I caught him teaching before he joined The Weavers. I never sat in on another lesson after that. He also did "Meadowlands"---the Russian equivalent of "America The Beautiful". I sort of learned it from that tape--and got a ton of mileage out of it over the years. A beautiful song!-----Anyhow, I did manage to save that song as done by Frank that night on a cassette. Still have it.

Fascinating times...

Art