Boy does this bring back memories Frank! Yes, I read virtually everything that Jon made available through The Little Sandy Review, and it was usually fascinating. He used to absolutely infuriate the New York folk crowd (Silber etc.) because he never seemed to give any marks for "political intent" in his artist reviews. I doubt if he was a reactionary...I suspect he just liked to rattle Sing Out's chain.

His reviews certainly annoyed me......often because it seemed he didn't know what constituted 'good accompaniment'. Oh....and he was (natch) a big fan of local boys Koerner, Ray and Glover, so he REALLY touted them highly. In his opinion the late Dave Ray was the only "real" white blues singer. Yup, terms like "white blues singer" were bandied about as much as questions like "What is folk" in those days.

Paul Nelson was the other Minnesota (I think, MR) writer of the time, who would often write critically of a number of the sacred cows of folk music.....but his writing was SO over the top, that I don't think he was as influential as Pankake.

Great thread Frank.

Cheers

Rick