Hedy West

Subject: Hedy West
From:
Date: 10 Mar 99 - 08:42 PM

I finaly got to see the Rainbow Quest video with Mississippi John Hurt, and it was worth the trouble looking for it!

One of the guests was Hedy West. I used to like her style of singing old time songs with a banjo and I was wondering if anyone knew what happened to her. I don't recall hearing of her since the mid-late 60s.

BTW: For those who don't know it, "Rainbow Quest" was a TV show hosted by Pete Seeger in the mid(?) 60s.

Murray

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Rockaday Johnny
Date: 11 Mar 99 - 01:09 AM

She recorded several fine records for Bear Family in the 70's and 80's - I think one with Bill Clifton, although her early work for Vanguard and Topic were great..I'd sure like to know too....

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 11 Mar 99 - 01:52 AM

Hedy's Folk-Legacy recording (which was also released on Topic Records in England) is still available as a "custom cassette" titled Old Times and Hard Times, and comes with the original booklet of introductory notes and the texts of all of the songs. Wonderful traditional material with banjo accompaniment. Check our web site.

We last had a chance to visit with Hedy when she was living in Princeton, NJ, where her husband taught. I've been told she is now living near Philadelphia, but we've not heard from her. If anyone has a current address, please send it to us via a personal message. Thanks.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From:
Date: 11 Mar 99 - 05:56 AM

Sandy, Does she still perform--that is as of the last time you saw her. When was that? You needn't be precise--late 80s or something like that will do.

Thanks,

Murray

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 11 Mar 99 - 05:57 PM

Got your communication, Murray, and sent a brief message in reply. You'll probably have it by now.

No, I don't think Hedy is performing any longer. I've been told that she is spending her time encouraging the musical career of her daughter, a classical violinist. Hedy's late husband was teaching at Princeton when we saw her. When was that? Well, we were singing in the elementary school that her daughter was then attending.

Hedy's current address, supplied by a mutual friend, is in Penn Valley, PA. If you want specifics, in order to write to her, send a personal message. Okay?

Sandy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (inactive)
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 04:59 AM

It's pretty self-absorbed of Hedy West to write about Hedy West. Here goes!

I sometimes do perform; but I don't champ wildly at the bit to dash about on the road with those good instruments; even though it's fun to sing, and to see people. The road was a delight for the first 10 years, 40 years ago?

My daughter Talitha is 19 and is a senior at the Univ of Penn, studying classics (attic Greek) her father's first field, and playing violin and viola wonderfully, Brahms, Bach, Barber, Bartok - those beautiful "B's" - along with some other composers who strayed farther in the alphabet. Her sleek adult feathers have grown in, and my frayed ones are settling back into putting in orderly and accessible form the documents of my family's music, lives and community that I gathered from 1954 to 1980, the year my grandmother died and my daughter was born.

I also compete with the groundhogs to cultivate my garden. And I play Sandy's old guitar, and my old banjos & piano.

Zip! went the time, Hedy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From:
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 06:49 AM

Thank you for responding Hedy. I keep singing "Cotton Mill Girls" to myself since I saw that video. I look forward to the fruits of your labors on your family music.

I am originally from Phila. myself. My late wife was a violinist who studied with in Phila with. Bill DePasquale and Geoffery Michaels for some time. I am sure your daughter would ask "who are they".

I am a graduate of U. of P. myself.

I hope a book comes out of your family documents and music. Your father must have collected some interesting stuff himself.

Murray

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 12:26 PM

Hedy forgot, or neglected, to mention that she is now having her early recordings re-mastered and released as CDs, NOT on the once-announced "Larkspur" label, but on one of her own that will join the web at "tracechain." She was very disappointed in the quality of the Larkspur product and has gone to some lengths to have the material re-mastered properly. Maybe she'll add the snail-mail address to this thread, and we can all line up to order the new CDs.

Sandy

P.S. to Hedy: Sorry we missed you last weekend. Next time!

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (inactive)
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 02:03 PM

Murray

Thanks for the welcoming words re current work. I'm aiming to make it a book. My father sang, but his passion was the social conditions of the group of his origin. I'm glad "Cotton Mill Girls" has stuff in it for you.

Phila's a good place; & it's the gentler place in the States for classical string study. It's hard to miss the DePasquale family here. They weren't small to start, and they kept growing. My daughter went to middle & high school will Bill & Gloria's son. Don't know Geoffery Michaels. Talitha studied/studies with Yumi Scott & Syd Curtiss (both also of the POrch & Curtis) & Yayoi Numazawa.

Did you study at Penn in the days Kenny Goldstein was there? Last year the folklore dept got absorbed into the English dept. Therefore Roger Abrahams is now in the Eng dept. Sounds like the prospects for young folklorists has shrunk.

Daughter's phoning. Farewell. Hedy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (inactive)
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 04:01 PM

No, Sandy,

The rubb of "Larkspur" was stunning dishonesty and disregard for my limited intent.

I had no idea I was being impersonated on the web, that a site had been set up in my name ([e-mail]), that my teenage neighbor had given out his address as mine and had for months sent out mail, received and responded to mail as if he were I.

I still don't know the extent of what I don't know. I steadily learn bits more.

Hedy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 04:37 PM

As far as I can tell, the only Mudcat message that was fraudulently posted under Hedy's name was one posted in January, 2000, that offered to sell auauthorized CD's of Hedy's recordings. Hedy took over that membership, and has posted a few messages in August and September.
Since there was a compromise of her identity, I've renamed Hedy's old membership "Hedy West (inactive)" and set up a new one for her called "Hedy West (current membership)." She'll probably rename it to just "Hedy West" when she's sure everybody is used to it.
Now, all I have to do is get her to go through the trauma of a cookie reset...
C'mon, Hedy, it's easy. Heck, I've been able to teach even Sandy Paton how to do this stuff...
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 04:47 PM

Hedy, as a long time admirer as I mentioned on another thread, I feel it is incumbent upon me to tell you that Joe means well and is a great source of help here at the 'Cat, but he speaks in a garbled computerese that often makes no sense. We don't often know what he's talking about, but he's a nice guy and his intentions are good so we humor him.

How you could just post and have it now inactive seems like voodoo, but Joe must have it figured out. Maybe. I hope. Anyway, just keep posting and whatever you do, follow his instructions. They are probably gibberish but then Joe is a priest wannabe who turned in his knee pads and the old Latin babblespeak habit dies hard.

Spaw (Village Idiot)

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 04:53 PM

Joe, perhaps (probably) I'm dense, but why don't you just re-name the false Hedy as "(inactive)" or "NOT Hedy West?" Or if you can't edit that field on posts by non-members, at least simply change Hedy's account to "HedyWest." Just suggesting...

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 05:13 PM

You gotta trust me on this, guys. I actually know what I'm talking about, for once...
Hedy's neighbor set up an account under her name, membership number 6951. Hedy took over that account in August, and has been posting under that membership - but there's a chance the neighbor kid could access that account in the future. So, we've got messages posted by Hedy and by the neighbor kid, both under the same cookie. I can't split 'em, so I named that one Hedy (inactive) and set a new membership, number 7077, and named that one Hedy (current).
And I don't need to have you guys scaring Hedy about this cookie stuff.... Go, on, tell her what a nice, trustworthy, intelligent guy I am, and how I'd never lead her astray.
-Joe Offer, one heck of a good guy-

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 05:22 PM

I rest my case.

Joe, I already told her you were a super human being, faster than speeding byte, more powerful than a Pentium III, able to leap tall piles of Commodore 64's in a single bound..........all that stuff.

But Hedy, its like I said............Humor him and soon you'll be able to be you even though you aren't you at the moment. (Look in a mirror and check on this.....I may be wrong)

Spaw

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 05:28 PM

Well, it doesn't appear the neighbor posted any messages under that cookie - there are none under that name before Aug.

Joe is a nice, trustworthy, intelligent guy, and he'd never lead you astray. (Cash only please, Joe.)

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 06:24 PM

OK, I admit it. I'm still confused. The only message I really wanted to change identification on is this one - and it didn't change when I renamed the membership. Well, it was posted before Max started the "guest" thing, so we had a situation where the kid could easily have posted under any name he chose, without being registered. Still, I think it's best to ask Hedy to reset her cookie to a membership we're sure about - so I want you guys to assure her it's a quick and easy process.

...and although Fr. Joebro set it up, it does not require any knowledge of Latin...
Hedy, trust me on this. You may think Catspaw's cute, but he'll lead you astray, right down the Purple Path.

-Joe Offer (known by a select few as "Fr. Joebro")-

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 06:34 PM

Joe,
If the Latin becomes necessary, Talitha, Hedy's daughter is studying classical languages. Not church Latin but it will work.
Mary
former classicist

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 06:42 PM

well, durn!,...How'd I miss this?...As someone who's been singing a few Hedy West songs for 35 odd years, it is nice to hear about her...( I do "Pans of Biscuits" and "Had a Notion" regularly)

Who besides me still has the "New Folks" record that Hedy shared with David Gude, Jackie Washington and the Greenbriar Boys?

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: okthen
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 06:58 PM

i hope the real hedy stays with us

this uk guy saw her in 65/66 tour and is still in love

cheers

bill

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Abby Sale
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 08:48 PM

Hmmm. I also graduated from Penn but several years before Goldstein took over. The great Mac Leach was the folklore scholarship (with much help from Tristram Coffin.) My only contribution was inventing folk music radio shows in Philadelphia. Mac had tried for hundreds of years to split folklore off from the English Dept. He finally suceeded about 1966, just as I left. I'm sad to learn that it has reverted.

English scholars aways tended to view songs as poetry - as it the tunes were meaningless. How little they know.

Still, Abrahams is finally putting together his Caribbean material for CDs. This will be good.

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: balladeer
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 11:01 PM

I'm stunned at the way the internet shrinks time and space. Hedy, one night in 1964, I was playing a gig (from midnight to 6AM)at Curly Goss's Student Prince folk club in Soho, London, UK. You came in and played a short set that included Cotton Mill Girls. I've heard a dozen people sing that song since, but in my mind's eye I still see you tapping your foot and playing your banjo and I hear you singing about those cotton mills as if they really meant something to you. Thanks for the memory. Joanne

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 07 Sep 00 - 11:44 PM

JoeBro is really okay, Hedy, although he does occasionally make fun of his elders and their inability to fathom the mysteries of the cyber-world or accurately type the English language. He frequently rescues me from my more embarrassing depths of klutzdom. Go for the new cookie, as he urges. And welcome to the Mudcat madness.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 12:27 AM

Well, I got a personal message this evening from "Hedy West (current membership)." She reports that she was able to navigate the chicanery of a cookie reset, and is now online with her new, verified membership. She may have to have three or four days of rest because of the trauma of it all, but she's O.K.
Heck, if I can teach Sandy Paton something on a computer, I can teach anybody.
Welcome, Hedy!
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From:
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 03:55 AM

I have asked this question any number of times. In fact everytime somebody shows up here who might know the answer, I try again. So here goes:

What was the name of the coffee shop in Philly where all the good performers came. The best I can recall it was on Sansom St opposite a bar called "Little Johnnie's". (By the way Little Johnnie was the page who yelled "Call for Phllip Morris" on the adverts.) I almost lived in that coffee shop for some time in the 60s, I can remember what it looked like; but I can't recall its name.

I don't recall the name Kenny Goldstein; but then again, I was a mathematics graduate student.

Abby. The guy who ran the big folk music program was named Joe Zewacky or something like that. I was trying to remember who was there before him. Was it you? (sorry about the thread creep)

Murray

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Abby Sale
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 08:33 AM

Hedy: Downtown? The Guilded Cage, likely.

I have the owner's currernt e-mail hanging around somewhere - they were going to do a reunion.

I'm (fairly) sure mine was the first at all. At WXPN, still a student-run station at Penn at the time. I was only allowed 1/2 hour per week most of the time but I got into all the clubs free.

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From:
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 01:07 PM

It wasn't the cage. That tended to have movies rather than folk groups. The one I mean was much further east

Murray

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Abby Sale
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 01:35 PM

Murray: Times change, I guess. I left town and the Cage stopped having folk songs. That's the place where the owneress, Esther demonstrated how to play guitar when you're 12 or 13 months pregnant. I'll never forget. (Side saddle, of course). Sunday afternoon round-robin was what I enjoyed most.

There was one in front of the University dorms. They usually had Joe Aaronson. Couldn't afford 'names' no way! But those were the only two, I think, that one might call 'coffee houses.' There were a number of clubs - listening rooms rather than sharing rooms. I most often went to The Second Fret downtown. I would often tape the act (McCurdy, Terry/McGhee, Bibb, etc) and interview them and use that for most of my show. That's why I got to get in free - I'd mention the club.

Then there were several much further out east - servicing - what? - Swarthmore? I almost never strayed that far.

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 04:53 PM

The cafe asked about several qq ago was almost certainly the Second Fret, 1902 Sansom St. (I can almost hear Gene Shay's voice saying that) and not the Cage. I never saw Hedy W there, but did get to see her once at a folk festival in central NJ in summer 1971; in addition to all her traditional Appalachian material she did some Kurt Weill/Berthhold Brecht songs (not just from Threepenny Opera) and this wonderful parody of 'my favorite things' that I can still remember a few lines from after all these years.

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (current membership)
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 05:30 AM

Wow!

What a party! Everybody's come! Set this one up on me, Joe. You ARE a heck of a good guy. Catspaw49, I name you Centiscreed, on account of your looooonnnnnng list of postings and your 49 paws. Father Joe was a model guide, crafty and patient with a www-greenhorn squaring her ignorance with a bolshi swagger. At the end of no-purple-paths, I looked in the glass, & it looked like me.

Thank you all for the welcoming words. That was kind.

Abby, did you study with Mac Leach? It IS a sad twist that his separation of folklore at Penn from English has reverted. I think & hope it's no longer possible to divorce folk verse from its music.

Bill D., I'm glad you're keeping life breathed into "..Notion" and "Pans...". My portion of New Folks gives me the willies! I needed a few more years performing before recording! I'm chagrined Welk (who bought the folk portion of Vanguard) has reissued it - or my portion of it - I bumped into it at Amazon.com, where you can hear the stuff, and I mailed them a "Ouch! Don't buy it!" review. Since they're merchants, I reckon they won't post that one. The Greenbrier Boys were grand on that recording, though. I'd be happy if they'd put Johnny Herald singing "Stewball" on each of my tracks.

Mary, what does a former classicist do?

Yes, Joanne, the net changes the world, doesn't it? Just a few seconds, Click, and we're reading the English pages of nzz.ch/online! Hello, again. I don't remember Curly Goss, but I like that name.

Pete Peterson, those German songs, and that German language I was compelled to learn to work on figuring out some contradictions in the adult community that hovered about me when I was little. They knew everything, including when and why the Revolution would come; they crowded into our living room in Douglasville, Georgia (& other places) and they talked very importantly. They were from all over the place, but primarily they came from NYC. They were specific about what was good and what was evil. A big evil was prejudice. I didn't understand if prejudice was evil, how come it was good to be prejudiced against rich people and Germans, as they seemed to be. When I was 9 I visited NYC where one of those important people who knew everything met me and told me, "You're from the South. Are you prejudiced against Negroes." It was clear he had a vision of a stigma on my forehead. He saw me as a member of an evil group; a cousin of a German. It was also clear he was prejudiced. Eventually I went to Germany to try to clear up the confusion. It didn't really clear it up, because things are NOT clear. Much of what those people said was confirmed. But those "important" guys were all wet. That's how I got to those German songs, Pete. (There are some nice ones from Pennsylvania.)

Tangent finished. 5:30 am is a bad time to write!

Shame on me for the screed! Sorry, Catspaw49.

See you later,

Hedy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (current membership)
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 05:45 AM

Now I've got to learn NOT to click twice! Sorry. Hedy

---

Duplicate post deleted.
- Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From:
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 06:39 AM

Thanks Pete and Abby. The Second Fret is it!! Now I can sleep tonight. I remember the Terry/McGhee one. It was before they picked up a "hippy" image and they were really in good form.

OK, that is the last time I mention the Second Fret on this thread; but I am glad I did let it creep.

Every once a song just grabs me and I try to learn enough of it to perform it at our local informal sessions. Hedy's "Roving Gambler" is one of the current ones although it hasn't seen the light of day yet. I don't play the banjo so it has to fit on the guitar.

Murray

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Art Thieme
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 09:11 PM

I just looked into this thread. Fascinating! Went through my folk slides and found one of Hedy talking to Harlan Daniel. That was at the University Of Chicago Folk Festival in the mid '60s. Good memories are mine of all the fine people who came through Chicago to be at that one.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Downeast Bob
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 09:54 PM

Hey, Hedy, do you still have that J.B. Schall banjo with the silver inlay and the ivory pegs that I sold you in '57 or '58? For awhile, I regretted letting it go, but when you started making records, I had no regrets. Best, Bob B

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Abby Sale
Date: 10 Sep 00 - 12:27 PM

Murray: If it was the same Terry/McGhee appearance, I was up front with the tape recorder. Sonny was tired but Brownie came back to my place for the party. We often celebrated the singers & had a bit of a do. All were invited - perhaps you came too?

Hedy: Yes, happily I did a bit of study with the Blessed Leach - but only as an undergrad. I took every class he offered, though, and we talked a good bit. That was the period Goldstein was hanging out regular, Abrahams was a grad student & Lomax was a PhD candidate. That last was a bit of a joke but he needed the Credentials to get grants. He did take it seriously, though. Greenhaus was there somewhere but we never met.

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (current membership)
Date: 10 Sep 00 - 08:35 PM

Abby, You studied in Penn's Golden Age. Must have been then, and remain in memory, fascinating. I hadn't realised Alan got a degree at Penn. Bess did, but that must have been later for she was in LA as late as the 60's. Was Alan's time at Penn before or after his years in Britain and Italy? I understand that Alan has had a stroke and is in very bad shape. It's hard for me to imagine that. Not a welcome effort either.

Art, were you a student at Chicago? If you were, what were you studying other than their famous core.

Bob, I wrote you a separate note.

Fall's here.

Hedy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: John Hindsill
Date: 10 Sep 00 - 09:58 PM

It is my recollection that I saw Ms West at the Ash Grove sometime in the period between '62-'64. I was surprised at her youth...from her recordings I thought her older even then. As I further recall, it was a first date with some young woman who, it turned out, did not like folk music; it was also a last date. - John

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 01:57 AM

Hedy,

Nope, I wasn't a student at U. of Chicago. But I did attend the U. of Illinois at Navy Pier (then). We used to say it was the only university that could be torpedoed. I did manage to get to the first 7 U. of Chi Fests and many after 191970. Even eas on a few of 'em.

Didn't do well at school at all until I found the University Of The Open Road. Took my instruments and hit the proverbial hot dusty road for the next 40 years (hurt my hand) until health (actually lack of health) told me to quit. And I know what you mean about the road getting old quick. When I was 20, it was great. Even past 40 and 50. Pushin' 60, I can't believe I did it anywhere near as long as I did. Must've loved the music. Yep, that's what it was that made me go the course, I'm sure. It was really the 'road less travelled'.---------"And that has made all the difference."

Am really looking forward to the CDs release! Glad you're here. Right now, if I've got anything, I've got too much time on my hands. For years the words, "

Art Thieme

As far as the core at the U. of C. goes, there's an ominous sculpture to that first nuclear reactor where Amos Alonzo Stagg football stadium used to be. The reaction was under the stadium. Mandel Hall, where the Folk Fest concerts are STILL HELD every February, is right across 57th Street. (The sculpture is a cross between a surreal mushroom cloud and orbiting nuclear particles. I was glad they made the thing scary.)

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 02:03 AM

That just posted twice all by itself BEFORE I'D FINISHED.

What I was trying to say was, For years, on my banjo head, I had the words: THIS MACHINE KILLS TIME.

Art (sheepishly)

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (current membership)
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 02:18 AM

Pete Peterson,

What's "qq"?

Hedy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (current membership)
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 03:12 AM

John Hindsill,

"The Ash Grove" with nary an ash, nor even a tree in sight, let along a grove. Only a Pearl supported by a Forbes in a nondescript structure in a trafficked sprawl where it rarely rains on those micah-sprinkled-stucco-buildings that dry out a southern mountain salamander most at home were the springs break out from vast underground rivers to meet already moist humus, moss, trillium, rhododendron, & old Catawbahs breathing cool clean blue air.

But in trooped Johnny Cash & Bill Monroe & Doc Watson & Stu Jamieson & Clarence Ashley & Roscoe Holcomb (allowed to sing when done being a reflecting-stage-prop for his owner) & Cousin Emmy (whose histing her skirt & peeing in the sink & talking of "poontang" was what was expected of her by Scruggs & Flatt, who knew her from many another dressing room) & many a Carter & Country Joe MacDonald & the Fish & Mable Hillary & Bessie Jones & & & & & &....

The Pearl-supported-by-the-Forbes deepened his sheen with big concerts of Ravi Shankar & Joan Baez...

But the salamander's skin dried out and she wriggled off to wetter climes.

Art Thieme, that's a VERY GOOD last name. Did the "road" ever make you feel your brain was becoming a cauliflower? Perpetual motion like on a caged squirrel's wheel, and all those seductive clappers... If they're right, we surely must be glorious creatures! You don't get softened-up (or down) like that in more standard day-to-day life. I believe it's lethal for them and it's lethal for us, when we start to believe it. It's a con-trail for everybody. The performers, their audience; the celebrities, their adorers; the politicians, their convinced supporters; royalty, their bamboozlees, etc & so on.

It's late/early again!

Night,

Hedy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (current membership)
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 03:20 AM

Art,

That's an improved "variation on a theme": THIS MACHINE KILLS TIME.

Hedy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From:
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 03:48 AM

Perhaps your brain doesn't change into cauliflower in "more standard" day-to-day life; but each day it get a little more plasticized. At least the "road" changes your brain from one living material to another.

Murray (Admitting he never was on the road by necessity.)

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 10:07 AM

WOW!! What an incredible path we have all traveled to get here! Let's see: qq is my way of writing "questions" q = question, qq= more than one question. sorry for the confusion.
German songs: As I said I heard you singing these in 1971 or so. When I went to HS you had a choice of taking French, Spanish, Latin, German and Russian. I took German becasue I knew even then I was going into science. . . and took flak from Jewish friends who believed that the language itself should be allowed to die. We're all aware of everybody else's prejudices, but a lot less so of our own. sorry for the Thread Creep but this is one of the things I love about math & science, the work speaks for itself and it doesn't matter who did it-- NOT like (to take an idle example) Galax where the banjo & fiddle contest is won by locals each year-- I once said "take the absolute value of the difference between your zip code and Galax. If more than 8000, forget it."
What's not to like about the songs you sang on New Folks? Thanks to a divorce & loss of some possessions I have been unable to play vinyl for about 10 years but REMEMBER all four artists as sounding most wonderful!
I gotta remember THIS MACHINE KILLS TIME. Thanks, Art!
I think Penn had a Gilded Age (or it seemed that way to me!)sometime in the mid-80s when a couple of my friends did folklore PhDs under Ken Goldstein--

Subject: Penn's Folk department
From: Abby Sale
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 02:02 PM

For the record, I've had a few small communications with Roger Abrahams recently and decided to have a look at the return address:

Center for Folklore and Ethnography Graduate Program in Folklore/Folklife

So it's at least recognized as a "program" if not a whole department. It may be there's no undergraduate dep't or major but I guess that's the same as it was way back. PhD courses and just "classes" (I hope) for undergrads. There's at least one full-time staff. The Penn website also gives: "The Undergraduate Program in Folklore and Folklife (Folklore Minor)" There are quit a few classes offered including "Issues in Folklore Theory." Hmmm. What issues could there possibly be?

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Hedy West (current membership)
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 03:51 PM

Murray, maybe my brain got so plastic I was wrong about the change into cauliflower. Maybe it became a plastic cauliflower. Anyhow "the road" looks good to me only in limited doses.

Pete, I think the greater the distance into memory the better the sound of me on "New Folks". My narcissism begins to dance with the Topic records, and gets carried away with "From Granmaw and Me" that I'm preparing for 1st issue now. Thanks for the "pp" explanation. Was there a specific lily who got gilded at Penn in that age? Or do you think of the whole place as getting that treatment? I met that flak about studying German, and about our own prejudices.

Abby, that "issues.." leaves one thinking.

Hedy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 06:15 PM

Wow, this is why I love the Mudcat! I'd missed this thread until now. Fascinating and a bunch of fun reading about some of my favourites and the times they changed.

Thanks, folks!

katlaughing

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 07:00 PM

Jesus! She writes so damned well! Think what that book about her grandmother is going to be like! Don't take too long with it, Hedy. Some of us are getting old faster than the rest and I want to be around long enough to read it.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 08:20 PM

'xactly wot I'se thinkin', SandyGramps!

Subject: RE: Hedy West
From: Rasta
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 11:00 PM

Hedy--are you playing out anymore and if so where, I saw you at the cosmic coffee house one rainy sat. nite, when I was about 14 , You sang really great and Ive never seen any one wham a banjo like you since, thanx for the tunes --Pat