The best things about the hoots in Chicago in the early 60s--seven nights a week---each night in a different club---- was that it "gave us a gym in which to work out". That translates to "a place to be bad"---a place where we weren't going to be judged---a place to get better. Pretty much we were all singing traditional songs we had found and very few that we might've written from our limited experience.

I remember the time I first heard the term singer/songwriter. It was an Electra Records LP album called The Singer-Songwriter Project (or something like that). They sounded forced but a few were nice. I think I learned one of them.

Good things will come from these people you heard, Jerry. Just not yet. And then they'll ask, "Was I ever that young??"

Art Thieme