I have answered questions at this fourm that has had nothing to do with any type of folk music (50's & 60's rock & roll, childhood favorites ) and have felt quilty about it, and thought I'm just being helpful & I hope that I'm not infulencing in any way a change in the direction or intention that the DT'soriginal purpose was to take. I will not respond any more to requests unless they have some connection to folkmusic, Elsie, I apologize and agree with most of what youare saying, I'll also throw in my 2 cents. For over 30 yrs. I've been listening, singing, performing, writing, collecting and sharing this type of music in some form, in the early 60's I watched it boom and then continue it's cycles, as technology advanced, the music spread and took on new directions and forms while as a living tradition, by the 60's ironically it died, in all but a few isolated areas. The Manhaden fisheries ended in the 50's, prison reform came in the mid 60's, the last of the Tall Ships were rotting by now, work songs were no longer utilized, songs about work; farming, mining, factory, lumbering, unions and etc., did not need to be sung socially to help ease their burden, the labor force was changing, and I believe the common laborer was the majority of the folk society, be they baby sitters, cowboys, mothers looking after others they were the folk. So who sings folk songs today and who or what are they about, and if it gets around in other ways than orally then why is it Trad. or Cont. folk music and if a singer/songwriter, who never spent a moment at the task in which their singing about can get the listener to not only enjoy but to relate or feel or share or give insite into the subject of the song, then wouldn't this be as close as you get to the folk source without having to be a collector. My point to all this is that it's a fine line or thread, what is and isn't the real McCoy and in judging the merits of one song over another can do as much damage as the commerical side can when, for the sake of the dollar, it shoves garabge onto it's public. In the end it's a personal choice, with the outcome being the fate of this music. I'm not a doomsayer, but I've also seen venues where once great traditional and contempory music could be shared and heard (Boston & San Francisco among others), that now poeple only play and sing out of books (Rise Up Singing being one) and if it's different it's wrong and it's no fun to be around and it's another form of damage taking it's toll, knowingly on not alienating the good from the bad the old from the new the knowledgeable from the ignorant the trad from the contemp, can , in my opinion, erase folk music from the mind of what folk might be left. Again, it's time I broke my fingers for doing this."I'll Stick To Singing".