What fun! Just this morning my first-grader taught me a clapping song she'd heard at school, and it brought back lots of memories.

Some of the stuff you're talking about was just re-released on a CD by Stephen Wade - he used the Library of Congress Recordings, and if I remember right he went back to some of the places the recordings had been made. Check it out.

Miss Mary MACK MACK MACK!! The first time I saw Ella Jenkins perform, a few years ago at the Folklife Festival on the Mall in DC, she asked everyone to turn to a neighbor and do Miss Mary if they remembered it. I ended up teaching it to my little girl AND a couple of young foreign girls wrapped in scarves and head coverings, who thought it was a hoot. I LOVE the thought of them taking it back to their friends in a faraway place.

THIS is what folk music is all about, if you ask me...

Dani