I'm here, Kendall, but not willing to go to the mat defending what I realize is now considered an archaic definition. I'm an old geezer who prefers to retain a somwhat classic interpretation of the term, namely, that a traditional musician is a person (singer or instrumentalist or both) who has learned his/her repertoire from family and neighbors who form the community from which the person comes. This may include a more or less isolated community or an occupational group, say, with a vernacular language familiar to its members, such as miner or logger terminology, etc., or the Gullah dialect of the Georgia Sea Islands. The music is generally learned for personal pleasure, not for professional performance, although professional appearances may occur later, either locally or, perhaps, for an even wider audience, should the chance arise. I think of Frank Proffitt doing programs for the University of Chicago, Indiana University, and the Newport Festival, but he always performed the music of his own community, much of it learned from his own family members. That was his tradition, and he was fully aware of it and proud of it, as well he should have been. The same can be said of Bessie Jones whose performances at Newport and Fox Hollow were so exciting.

We, who have come to learn and love the songs and tunes gathered from such "traditional" musicians, may build our repertoires from a wide variety of regional traditions, not just the one in which we were reared. We are what Richard Dyer-Bennet always carefully termed "singers of traditional folk songs," professional or amateur, and even when our chosen material is predominantly traditional, we are not truly traditional musicians. We should reserve that term for the regional, and usually non-professional artists from whom our material has been learned.

Archaic? Perhaps. But when Joe College sings "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley," he does not instantly become a "traditional musician," although the song he is singing may be traditional. If you wish to stretch the definition to include him, then the term becomes essentially meaningless, or so it seems to me.

Sandy