The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #85645 Message #1588152
Posted By: Barry Finn
21-Oct-05 - 11:12 PM
Thread Name: Who Is Your Musical Mentor?
Subject: RE: Who Is Your Musical Mentor?
During the 60's as a teen I'd catch John Sabastian(Sp?), Love seeing/hearing Dave Van Ronk, loved recordings of Donovan & Dylan
Loved meeting, talking with & hearing Ewan MacColl & Peggy Segger in the mid or later 70's at a house concert near the LA area somewhere. But most of all it was at a 1 day folk festival in Plymouth Mass. where the Mayflower was docked. It was put on by the Folk Song Society Of Greater Boston, this was back in the early 70's. Up till then I never really sang outside of the shower thought I had been an apprecator of folk music since the mid 60's going to Newport & such. I attended a workshop on blues, Barbara Canns was running it, truly a great blues woman, & at some point I had mentioned that "I know of a song that's something like that" right then I realized I'm dead meat. She asked me to sing it, I told her I didn't really know it, only a small bit of it, sing what you know, I don't sing I said, yup, give it a try she challanged. So I tried, it was a bit of a prison worksong & I got an unusal response, nice job you ought to do that more often. That's what really gave me the courage to start singing. Thirty + yrs years later she attended a workshop I was giving on prison worksongs & she approched me to express how much she enjoyed the workshop (at the time she didn't have a clue as to who I was). I've never had a nicer feeling than to tell her if she like it, then she should be thanking herself, I told her she was the reason I had been singing these past 30 or so yrs. & I reminded her of that workshop (I'm sure she didn't recall me but who knows?).
That wasa turning point for me. Up till meeting Barabra I'd been a listener after I becamer a singer. Thank you Barabra (RIP), hopefully I'll get a chance to sing with her again, in the far off future. Nice thread Jerry
Barry