Well, now, I don't know about that, John. Susan Reed was singing folk songs way back in the Forties. Although they were not anywhere near the Hit Parade, she and Burl Ives were fairly well known as "folk singers" by a lot of people, not just folkies. She actually appeared in a movie in the mid- to late-Forties where she portrayed a young mountain girl with a headful of songs whom some handsome young entrepreneur brought to New York to feature in his night club. I forget how the romance worked out, but she was unhappy in the city and returned to the mountains. I can't remember the name of it, but it was a good movie at the time. In the light of what happened a decade or so later, it would be "kinda quaint" now, if not outright weird.

I heard her on the radio back then, too. Mind you, this was before The Weavers! She was something of a ballad scholar and knew quite a bit about the songs she sang. I really doubt that she was as opportunistic as you imply.

Don Firth