Kat,

I guess I just heard the last hour of the show. Was Jack allowed to do his thing in the first hour? I do hope so. The man has so much to offer. And he is so musical. Perfect chord changes all through his songs.---And those songs don't promote HIM, personally, but they push the STORY within the song to the fore--just the way it ought to be I think -- just the way the best actual folksingers ply their craft. But to me these have always been tales that, just by chance, happen to have a tune to make them emotionally easier to listen to. Jack is a master of communication -- an actor who never lets you realize that. Instead, the whole gestalt hits you---the story comes roaring through like a fast freight through the desert -- and it slows just enough that you can catch it on the fly. Jack caught me at the second University of Chicago Folk Festival (1962) and I've been riding along with him ever since---vicarious but his renditions are always the best possible way to present a given ballad.

Still, cutting off Jack doin' Gene Autry and Smily Burnett's "Riding Down The Canyon" was one more indication how inflexible our silly adherence to the ticking tyrany of the clock has become. So what else is new...

Art Thieme