Goodbye Sandy, It's been 45 years since you decided to include "The Golden Ring" as part of your Folk Legacy legacy and over 40 years since I met you and Caroline at Bob and Evelyn Beers' wondrous Fox Hollow festival. Over those years I must have spent the equivalent of six months living at Folk Legacy either through recordings or visits. I watched your kids grow up, felt the joy you and Caroline experienced as grandparents, spent hours talking after the typical recording session finished at 2-3 am about matters great and small. We shared parts of our life histories, why songs rather than singers came first, talked about the corrupting influence of capitalism on the folk music revival, and, of course, politics. You forgave my many foibles, I think, and always welcomed me into your house and world. You put up with so many of us during the Five Days Singing period, Caroline was always so gracious as were you about our invading your living space; your kids would come by, check in, and go their ways. In earlier times, Lee would share his presence and his Glenfiddich. I worked with you professionally in so many recordings with so many wonderful musicians; saw how you dealt with us odd bunch of, shall we say, characters who would have tried the patience of a saint; marveled at your working with quite traditional recording equipment to produce the most exquisite recordings of the music you loved, splicing by hand, mixing voices through how you placed us around the microphone, not afterward through technology. What you gave us on Folk Legacy recordings was what we really sounded like at the time, not a "sound" created after the fact through mixing; It was hard, certainly for me, to get it right all the way through. I think you allowed me over 30 takes of "Brave Boys" before it came together. But that was the way you thought the music should be done, and you were right.

But those were some of the earlier memories. More recently, when Dina and I visited you and Caroline in April of this year, you were looking back and lamenting getting older; you told me getting old was not all that great, but your wit, sense of dignity, and ability to tell a story trumped everything else. You told us about your times with Paul Clayton, and that you'd just read the book about his life that Bob Coltman had just written. You were every bit the engaged scholar of the music you dedicated your life to singing and preserving. Dina and I brought you up to date on our family. You weren't sure we'd meet again. We did, but under the worst of circumstances, at the memorial service for your grandson Kaelin. Caroline asked that I sing "Gently down the stream of time", and I wouldn't have had the courage to do that without her asking. But the service was both a very moving remembrance of Kaelin and an affirmation of the affection and appreciation of the musical community you and Caroline forged over the past 50 years. David Jones, Kathy Westra, Jerry Rasmussen, Priscilla Herdman, Sally Rogers, Jerry Epstein, George Ward, Lyn Burnstine, the Dildines, Joanie and Neal, your long time friends Karen and Lee, and many others from years gone by, were all part of that. We had a chance to talk a little then, and I told you how important you had been to me over the years, and you, characteristically, didn't seem to believe me. I didn't have the words, and the setting wasn't just right, to tell you why I feel that way, but I do want others to know now what I wish I had said to you more directly then.

You were always a person of the greatest integrity about your life and your work. You were a person of principle, you knew what you cared about and you knew how to care about it. You were a principled risk taker in the way you approached Folk Legacy recordings. You believed in recording people whose approach to music you believed in. That was primary, breaking even or even making a little was not. The traditional musicians whose music you preserved in the early Folk Legacy years would not have a voice today were it not for you. I think you were pretty sure that Abe Trivett and Marie Hare would not go platinum. Or me either, for that matter. But your faith in what you cared about made these recordings a reality.

You knew how to listen to a song in a way that few others did. You approached recording with an uncanny sense of what the song should sound like, a deep respect for the traditions out of which it came, and a thorough appreciation of how newly crafted songs fit into the ongoing tradition of folk music. There was just something about you that brought out the traditional in us. Most of us you recorded were never full time professional musicians—not a shrewd business move! But of the more full time musicians you did record—Bill Staines, Archie Fisher, Rosalie Sorrels, Jim Ringer, and, of course, Gordon—I think their recording with you represented the best of their work.

You were a scholar without formal education to prove it. You knew your folk music, you read voraciously and never stopped (Your telling me about reading the Coltman book on Paul Clayton shortly after it came out last year was a simply stunning example of your life long engagement in keeping up with your chosen field). The library of ethnomusicology, folk tales, and song books that is your house was, I thought, second only to the Library of Congress; that is, until you told me a couple months ago that Lisa Null may not agree with that assessment. But when it came to folksong, you were like a birddog with a scent; you'd call traditional musicians to ask about a work or phrase on a song they recorded that was incomprehensible to the listener; you'd track down the history of songs many of us more intellectually lazy folks failed to do and write about them in your now-famous notes that used to accompany each Folk Legacy recording. And you were a wonderful writer, who knew the power of words and the value of choosing them carefully.

Perhaps most of all, you were a generous and caring person with your many talents, your time, your friendship, and your willingness to be there when needed. When Dina and I decided to marry almost 20 years ago, we asked if you would, in your Justice of the Peace role, perform the ceremony. We will always remember and be grateful for your officially joining us together. Others have written about your many acts of kindness over the years, and I wanted to add to their memories of you and your family my deep and abiding appreciation for the ways in which your life, and that of Caroline and your kids, has enriched mine and my life with Dina.

The ripples of your life will go on, you know. Last night we were having dinner at a Japanese-Korean restaurant near our house in Chicago. I usually tune out music in restaurants, but I heard something familiar. Over the speakers in the ceiling came a lovely voice singing Wild Mountain Thyme. We just sat there smiling, precious memories flooding our souls.

And so my friend, I'll bid you adieu. I'm a better man for just the knowin' of you.

With love and appreciation always, Ed