Entertainment. Precisely my reason, too, Marty.

Actually, there was (and still is) an amazing amount of activity here in Seattle and the surrounding area. Singers who passed through during the Fifties and Sixties were pretty surprised once they got here—and equally surprised that all the activity here seemed to be one of the best kept secrets in the country. This I was told by people such as Bob Gibson (who was here for a couple of weeks), Theodore Bikel (here for several days), and many others.

That's pretty much due to the parochial nature of big eastern cities (and "Midwest" notwithstanding, I include Chicago in that). New York invariably thinks it's the center of the universe in all things, as often does the Boston/Cambridge area, the Bay Area, and of course, Chicago. The Greater Seattle area encompasses a population of about 3,000,000, all within a short commute. Lots of otherwise fairly knowledgeable people who live east of the Rockies seem to think that Seattle is nothing but a clump of log cabins and igloos. There were several coffeehouses and clubs here that were devoted to folk music, most of which were pretty damned nice compared to some of the establishments in the rest of the country. I didn't find this out until I got to the Bay Area and learned that a lot of the famous places everybody had heard about were real pits compared to some of the places in and around Seattle where I and other Seattle area singers regularly performed. Many visiting singers from back east, both famous and not so well known, were really surprised that the folk scene here was as big as it was, and confirmed that Seattle had great venues and enthusiastic audiences, and they loved performing here and came back whenever they could.

Also, there were local performers who were as good as anyone you could hear on records, but record company A & R folks didn't know Seattle existed and even if they did, considered it too far to come, so they never bothered to check the place out. A couple of local record companies were interested only in rock—they sneered at folk music, considering it an aberration.

The thousands of performers who show up at the Northwest Folklife Festivals, and the hundreds of thousands of people who attend (see other threads) should give you an indication as to the level of activity around here. And the circumstances that led to these mob scenes started way back in the Forties and built up over a period of time. In 1963, I sang several times for audiences of up to 15,000 at the weekly "Seattle Center Hootenanny" that ran all summer.   

Yeah, I've written over 100,000 words so far (first draft) with a fair amount to go yet. But those who have read parts of it, including those from other parts of the country, tell me they want more (often saying they had no idea there was that much going on here), so I have no fear that there won't be considerable interest.

Marty, I'm assuming that your question was serious. If not, then sorry I bored you once again.

Baseball here in the Fifties and Sixties? Couldn't tell you. I was too busy singing to follow it.

Don Firth