Dick, only if he held his hoof up to his ear while he sang it...

I've worked on stage crew for Nick Spitzer's "American Roots on the Mall" 4th of July concert every year, which is a fun mix of a lot of different kinds of what Spitzer calls "Roots" music. He's a rare individual, a PhD Folklorist who actually gets PAID to do folklore, but he has disagreements with other folklorists in the academic world (so what else is new?) over his fairly broad inclusion of different types of music. For the concert, he tries to come up with a balance between acts that will be popular for a large crowd of tourists (and locals) in Washington, DC, that still have some link to a particular community. Over the past years we've had Mariachi bands, Klezmer, Irish (Cherish the Ladies and others), LOTS of Cajun and Zydeco, urban electric blues and even Carl Perkins ("Don't Step On My Blue Suede Shoes) with some of Elvis' original backup band. All of these groups played both traditional and modern numbers FROM their traditional type of music (and yes, rockabilly evolved out of a trad. type of black blues). So, even though there's enough "popular" stuff to please a crowd, Spitzer tries to link it in their minds to community-based traditions, showing that traditional stuff CAN be appealing to an audience. And not a whining singer-songwriter in the whole bunch! I just wish that more booking agents for folk clubs and/or commercial establishments would try the same thing, instead of just booking in the current FastFolk Magazine songwriter-of-the-month. I may be a Purist Snob, but I'm a flexible Purist Snob if it helps make traditional music more available!