Hi Art,

Thanks about Yerakina. I knew it through folk dance circles in L.A. but it was recalled to me when Ted Johnson and I visited the Athenian restaurant on Halsted and Harrison street and me Spyros Skouras who had just come in from Athens. He taught us some of the song. The cross harmonies are characteristic of Mexicano music as well. I sat in with the Greek bands a couple of times but I was a ringer and didn't fool anyone. One musician looked at me with raised eyebrows and said, "Are you Irish?" I think Irish musicians were into odd time signatures.

RE: 912 Greens, well, 912 Toulouse was where Billy Faier lived. It was quite a place. It was literally walled off from Toulouse Street. They had one jazz jam session there that lasted for a day and a half. I dropped off to sleep on the matted floor of the basement room where it was held and awoke 8 hours later to find the musicians still going at it. It was kinda' a predecessor of the hippie commune. "912 Greens" is at sometimes embroidered uoon but a lot of what Jack said happened. Can't speak for the Keroac stuff though. I never heard that and I never saw him in New Orleans. The stuff about the South Coast is true, though. Mike mentioned Mary and I catching Jack's set at the Golem (a wonderful place to play by the way..one of the great folk clubs in my view). After Jack told the story about his learning the tune from me, I got up and sang it.

Jack, Guy and I were the "Dusty Road Boys" when we played on some of those small southern radio stations. One of our first trips to Wheeling, WWVA we ran into Hugh Cherry about 1954 or so. He asked us if we had heard Bluegrass music. I had only heard Pete who brought back some Scruggs style banjo playing and introduced it to the New York folkie scene. Hugh let us sit in on the radio broadcast. It was the Stanley Brothers with Ralph Mayo and we were floored. Best damn music we'd heard in a long time but it was fresh out of the box, then! Lots of stories there.

Frank