In the early 1970s, I remember driving to Maine from southern Connecticut, where I lived. Sandy was giving a one-day workshop on oral history. That's how we met, I think, and it was the start of long years of fast friendship, festival production, and my own transition from singing sean nos Irish style to singing folksongs of the Northeast, closer to my own general cultural region. I also remember what a fine singer and guitarist he himself was and the joyful parties he gave in his barn. Sandy was the soul of life: opinionated, courageous, and passionate and always a formidable opponent of bull. As for his work, he wrote like a dream and thought like a genius-- one hell of a pathfinder and, yes, a great and loveable man.

What I particularly loved as a singer was his essay in "Folksong and Their Makers" (by Henry Glassie, Edward D. Ives, John F. Szwed - 1979 ) which helped me pay attention to the songwriter as a continuation of folk tradition. When we co-directed a festival at the University of Maine together-- the one Kendal attended?-- "Folksongs in February," Sandy stitched together traditional singers, local topical singers who wrote of material of interest to their own communities, and modern Maine songwriters with broader appeal who nevertheless were deeply connected to their region. His weaving these musicians throughout the festival in telling places was a tour de force and went a long way towards illuminating and mending a widening rift at that time between the folk revival's singers of traditional song and singer/songwriters.

My son, a Mainer by choice, later encountered George Magoon and the Down East Game War. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Reprinted (paperback) 1993. I think it showed us both some of the complexities of colliding sub-cultures with conflicting patterns of sustainability and excess.

One special insight of Sandy's from that long ago oral history lecture: "Honor and take an informant's digressions seriously. What you find may be far more interesting than what you were actually looking for!"

I am reeling from the loss of this wonderful friend and mentor and also from the loss of that dear friend and mentor: Sandy Paton of Folk-Legacy Records. Mike Seeger is also gravely ill-- these are three bright stars whose light will shine for years into the future, but for now I am absolutely devastated.