Roger, Thanks for the information. I'm not really sure what is implied by the phrase "folk purist" and whether it involves a moral judgement of some kind or not. maybe it's like Charlie, a guy I play with, who insists on singing Wildwood Flower a la Maybelle Carter: "...the pale and the leader and eyes look like blue..." Or Maybelle herself, who remembered the words from her mother's singing and sang them throughout her life though they make no sense whatsoever. or maybe it means someone other than an urban picker like Gibson who played and sang folk music but learned to play and sing and learned the songs, not from traditional sources from which he was a direct descendent, but from lessons and books and listening to records and from playing with other people. pardon my argumentative tone. as i said in an earlier message, I recently relistened to an old Gibson LP. I agree with your description of him as a dynamic entertainer, but I thought he was a pretty damned good folksinger and instrumentalist as well as an "entertainer."