Let me repeat this point: I never said there's anything wrong with making a buck. And there is certainly nothing wrong with getting paid for a performance, a workshop, guitar lessons, studio work, etc. But that's not what folk music is all about. You make the music -- and you get other people to make music with you -- whether you're paid or not. Being a folksinger is a matter of attitude.

I would argue that Pete Seeger fits my description of a real folksinger. I am certain we would all agree that Pete Seeger is a professional. When he appears at Carnegie Hall he certainly gets paid. And he is a member of the American Federation of Musicians, so I know he would not do a commercial appearance without getting union scale, at very least. But that doesn't stop Pete making music whenever and wherever he feels like doing so with little or no remuneration.

In the past few years I have heard Pete at a Community Environmental Center, when some young apprentices had just built a new yawlboat for the Clearwater. I also heard him at a small song circle, at a child care center, at a rally to save community gardens, and at several meetings of Clearwater committees. I even heard Pete sit in with a group of musicians who get together once a month to play big band standards from the 1930s and '40s. There's nothing quite the same as dancing to the big band sounds of Pete Seeger and the Dutchess County All-Stars (my name for the group, not theirs).

In the spring of 1999, Pete came to a 2-hour songwriting class I taught once a week at a high school in Brooklyn, New York. He was there not to put on a show in the usual sense, but to try out and critique the songs the students had written. His only reimbursement was $20 for the taxicab fare from Grand Central Station in Manhattan to the school. And that was only because he was on a tight schedule and didn't have time to take the subway. A year later Pete sang one of those songs at Liberty State Park in New Jersey. Well, actually Pete got up and joined in while Matt Turk, Joel Landy, Sharon Perez-Abreu, and I were singing the song at Liberty State Park. Pete recognized it and liked it so much he just climbed up on stage with his 12-string guitar and began to sing and play!

Yes, a person can be what I call a real folksinger and still make a living at it. Just don't expect to make one. For every Pete Seeger, there are ten thousand other really good folk musicians out there holding down non-musical jobs.

By the way, Frank Hamilton is also as real as it gets.

--- Steve