Had to think about this a while. In the early 1980s I worked as a naturalist at a cave in the Mammoth Cave area in Kentucky. Every so often the famous and near famous would pull off the highway to stretch their legs and take a tour. With my (radio listening and album purchasing) musical interest pretty well focused on classical, and my childhood background around traditional English, Irish, Scottish and American folks songs, I would have been thrilled if Richard Dyer-Bennett, Izak Perlman or Beverly Sills had come through, but that never happened (at least not on my watch).

A fellow named Mayf Nutter turned up there with an actress who (a fellow guide was pleased to inform me) played Boss Hogg's secretary on The Dukes of Hazzard. Real prime celebrity for rural Kentucky back then, so of course I didn't have a clue as to who either of them were. Nutter's apparent claim to fame is as a former member of the New Christy Minstrels (he doesn't appear on this list, but I'm sure this who he said he performed with). He seemed to think I should know who he was, and clearly my idea of "folk music" and his were something different, as became apparent with my polite query about his musical oeuvre. As a conversational gambit discussing folk music did not go over well and he seemed pretty puffed up about his importance in the Nashville music scene. I remember having an autographed 4-color personal photo postcard pressed into my hand.

On the other hand, a group that was apparently quite big at the time called Triumph (who I again had never heard of) came through, and though they were a bit jumpy at first, apparently accustomed to being recognized, they relaxed and were quite a lot of fun on the tour. Since it was a quiet day they were the only ones on the tour, which helped. It turned out that in their performances in New York City they'd worked with the same group of concert organizers that I dealt with when I worked there as an Urban Park Ranger who worked at concerts in the parks. I mentioned one guy's name, a large man who despite his longshoreman looks, made wonderful lemonade that he would share with friends during those hot days of setting up the stage. The woman in the group responded "you mean Lurch?" and I had to admit I'd also had the thought that he was a Ted Cassidy look-alike, but never would have called him that to his face. She had the sad job of telling me that my friend had died suddenly of a heart attack the year before. Who'd have thought that a tour with the rich and famous would end up with the transmission of the personal and local information?

I concur on some of the remarks above about local TV personalities--they seem much more to suffer from the Big Fish in a Little Pond personality disorder than the big national news folks I've met over the years.

SRS