Ron O., you keep intoning that those who don't agree with your position are "missing the point" or of failing to see "any viewpoint other than their own." I'm sorry, but it is you who seems to be missing the point or refusing to acknowledge the validity of other viewpoints.

I have been to both kinds of sessions and I speak from observation and experience, and I read the same kind of observations and experience in the posts of Ron Davies, Barry Finn, and Big Mick.

I have no objection to RUS or any other song book. I have a whole bookcase full of them. I use them as a resource for learning songs and some of them are not just song books, they contain songs plus lots of information about the songs. The Lomax books, The Ballad Tree by Evelyn Kendrick Wells, MacEdward Leach's The Ballad Book, books of cowboy songs, sea songs, The Richard Dyer-Bennet Song Book, Folk Songs of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales compiled by William Cole, hardbacks and paperbacks such as Song Fest, The Joan Baez Song Book -- and, yes, Rise Up Singing One whole bookcase, about eighteen linear feet, of such books. I use them as a resource, to learn songs, and to learn about the songs.

I could easily fit the stereotype of the folk singer in the wisecrack, "I knew he was a folk singer because he spent ten minutes introducing a three-minute song." But I've learned to restrain myself and limit any comments I make to brief introductory notes. And I have found that when some folks realize that these songs have backgrounds, that they are not just the product of the imagination of someone with a pen and a sheet of music manuscript paper, that's when they begin to find the songs fascinating, want to learn more about them, and want to begin singing them.

That doesn't happen when people are sitting around singing out of a book. In group-sings, does anyone ever read the meager (if any) program notes in RUS? Not that I've ever heard. It's just another song to sing out of the 1200 some-odd songs in the book. And it's only one version of that song out of many.

When I learn a song, I often compare different versions of the song, and frequently what I wind up singing is a composite. Some "purists" may cavil at this, but I have it on the authority of one of my English professors at the U. of Washington, Dr. David C. Fowler (A Literary History of the Popular Ballad)) that this is "a minstrel's prerogative," and a part of the folk process (Peggy Seeger says she does the same thing: see her Introduction in Folk Songs of Peggy Seeger, Oak Publications, New York, 1964).

I don't feel that I really "own" a song unless I've learned it, spent some time studying it, and can sing it from memory. If I'm singing a song out of a book, I don't "own" it, we're just passing acquaintances. But by going through and singing songs from a book, I may discover songs that I do want to learn. And "own."

Also—as I said in a post above, usually what attracts me to a song in the first place is hearing someone sing it, either in person or on record (or radio; or television). But the way that someone sings it makes a difference. It's happened that I've heard someone sing a song and it made no particular impression on me. But later, someone else sings the same song and it comes to life—and I want to learn it. The second singer "owns" the song, and by the way they sing the song, they offer it to me as well. And since deeds to the song are potentially infinite, I do learn it, own it, and sing it.

So far, a group sitting around and singing out of a book has never offered a song to me in the same way.

Where are the new Pete Seegers and Frank Hamiltons and Guy Carawans and Susan Reeds and Joan Baezes and Cynthia Goodings coming from? The kind of "free-for-all folk song orgies" that I attend have been taking newcomers and, over a relatively brief period of time, turning some of them into good, strong singers—yes, performers. People who like to perform, and who can sing for both folk and not-folk audiences and pass on the same kind of spark that they have received.

I have yet to see this sort of thing happening in, or emerging from, book-oriented song sessions.

IF—that is what a person wants to do. If they have no further ambitions than to enjoy singing out of a song book with a group of other people and partake in the social interplay that takes place, then FINE! Go right ahead! I'm not saying that people shouldn't, or that there is anything wrong with this. I don't think anyone here is advocating a ban on this.

But what is this prejudice against those who prefer to sing—yes, perform—solo (as well as participate in group singing), doing songs or versions of songs that are not in "The Book?" Why is it necessary to call people such as me "pompous performers" or "prima donnas" or "twerps" simply because we like to learn the songs, give them a good arrangement, and sing them as well as we possibly can? And who are capable of getting up in front of an audience and singing—entertainingly and informatively—from a memorized repertoire that allows them to sing concert-length performances?

What's the problem?

Don Firth