Interesting post Mandochop. I hope you stick around in this thread for a while. You've pointed out knowledgably (and certainly forcefully) what I've been trying to say with far less inside info. More articulately as well!

Frank. No, I didn't mean that Aunt Molly and Leadbelly were used by the New Yorkers..just pointing out that I've read how many seemed to think that. Actually I wouldn't put those two names together at all in a music sense. I felt that Leadbelly was a hugely inventive and original musician. Just thought that because someone (I forget who now) said that rap was doggerel (and PERHAPS) because of that was not true folk music, I could think of some VERY accepted trad style writers who certainly wrote no better than that...but were lionized solely on the basis of their politics.

Rick