Tom has been ordained and is a full-fledged Anglican priest (I think that's what they're called). K.C. is in New Orleans. Hitchcock, last I heard, was putting together a recording studio in the Washington, DC, area. Dave Diamond, who was with the Boarding Party at the time of this, their first recording, has been a regular at NEFFA, and I can never remember if he's living now in the Boston area or has gone back to DC. I just checked, and he's not on my mailing list. (If any of you have his address, please send it to me!)

The really tragic news is that Jonathan Eberhart, the powerful singer/scholar and focal point of the group, has, as Bill D has told us, advanced MS and is essentially bed-ridden. Such a superb performer he was, too! Strong, edgy voice, so appropriate for the material he chose to present; able to offer music from the African-American tradition, the West Indies, and even examples of the more consciously literary material drawn from broadsides. Jonathan may be the only genuine genius I've ever known (although I'd have to reserve another place in that list for Sam Hinton). It was Jonathan who created the tune for the earliest example of shantying ever noted down, and he brought the Japanese net-hauling song to the group after performing in Japan on a State Department tour with Andy Wallace and, I think, Mike Rivers. I was in a Sushi restaurant with him once, and watched him learning a Japanese love song (one that he'd had a fragment of for a long time) from the Japanese waitress. In exchange, he gave her a song of his own creation, "Life's Trolley Ride," which just happens to be the title song of his solo record on Folk-Legacy. There you go!

Sandy Sandy