Thanks to Art Thieme for bringing this thread to our attention. And apologies for taking so long to answer some of the questions, due to travel interruptions.

Regarding the Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors book and CD:

Who was Thelma James?

An English professor, ethnic folklorist, contemporary of Professor Walton's and archivist at Wayne State University. Professor James, along with Ivan Walton and another noted folklorist, Earl Clifton Beck (who collected among former Michigan lumberjacks) co-founded a folklore interest group in 1938, which evolved into the Michigan Folklore Society in 1940. Thelma James and Professor Walton were its first two chairs. Thelma James made a bequest to Wayne State Univ to support the publication of folklore and English studies.

Joe Grimm (the contemporary co-author with Walton) is an editor at the Detroit Free Press. He has also published another book with Wayne State University Press, "Michigan Voices: Our State's History in the Words of the People Who Lived It." He is presently working on another book, a compilation of Professor Walton's journals, which will be a companion to Windjammers. It will be called "SongQuest: The Journals of Great Lakes Lore Hunter, Ivan H Walton" (Edited by Joe Grimm) and it will probably be published in late 2004.??