Sorry to annoy you Martin!! This is only a discussion, please don't take things personally. It really should be assumed that people are giving their opinions in a discussion. I wish I was name dropping about Woody and Lead Belly, but I guess you did not understand my point. The point (MY OPINION) is that Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Ledbetter used folk music to get their message out to an audience. Guthrie is on record saying that he used popular tunes because if he wanted people to learn HIS songs, he had a better chance of getting results if he started with a song they were already familiar with. It is easier to remember new words to an old song. I (me) do think (opinion) that Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Ledbetter(no personal contact here) if they were coming up today(meaning they were two young kids in 2003) would PROBABLY (okay, I will use that word to even further distance myself from making it sound definitive) use rap music to get their message out to a new audience. In 2003, the odds are better for reaching YOUNG people in union organizing or in prisons or in schools by using RAP MUSIC (again my opinion in case that wasn't understood). I don't like rap, but that is nothing to be glad about. I detest Gilbert & Sullivan as well, but that doesn't mean I think that G&S are without merit. I am over 40 and white, and the music I grew up with remains the style that I listen to - and that is probably true for most people. Martin, I remember in another thread you spoke out against people who dismiss groups like the Kingston Trio. (I agree with you!) People choose to make their own definition of folk music, and this lengthy thread shows the same issue being applied to rap music. I really don't think their is a right or wrong. Some people will hear music in rap (I do, even though I don't enjoy the style) and some people won't. Some people hear music in Frank Zappa and others don't. Some people hear a one note drone coming from Bob Dylan and dismiss his music, others call it folk. If there were a way to definitively answer this age old question, we would probably have world peace in our time. Ron
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