Sidney Bechet - oh yes. My dearest friend in the world, now departed, julie Schartz was a huge Sidney Bechet fan. I thought I was a pretty sophisticated little jazz baby when I was 21 and listening to Eddie Condon in my car driving Julie (a man by the way) to a some SF convention in philidelphia and he pops in a tape that I think greg Thiekstan gave him and it's Sidney Bechet.. rocked my world.

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - another one of those sublime voices. Most people know his medly of Over The Rainow and What a Wonderful World which played over the end credits of Meet Joe Black and was in some other films too. it;s in a few commericals now on US TV.

Herb Alpert! My parents had two of his alums when I was a kid and we played the grooves right off of them. I really need to get those on CD.

Nothing to do with Folk, but I was involved in an apocolyptic and very pulic breakup with a man I'd lived with for years when Nirvana's "All Apologies" first started playing on the radio and it expressed everything I felt at the moment. It reminded me of another very nasty breakup I'd had in 1987 right after grad School. After I had packed all my stuff and was driving away while he was at work (I needed a clean gettaway), "Ticket To Ride" came on the radio and I was in awe of how well such young men were able to express the utter futility of some relationships at the end and how the end is just a given. Granted, it was decades before that the song was written but it still captured the moment