Janice, I loved your story! If I was there, I would have been singing along too!

As far as where these people learned the song - well, my young niece, who lives in another state and is a public school second grader was visiting this summer, and she was singing "This Land is Your Land" and "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" and other songs of this type. She didn't get them from me, and, unfortunately, neither of her parents is interested in this type of music. But apparently, she has been learning them in school. I've heard similar stories from friends, so that's one avenue for keeping these songs alive. Summer camp is probably another one, and maybe religious activities. Maybe even TV, in an odd moment, who knows. Most of you probably are like me, and have your ears perked for any good song that comes your way, no matter where it pops up.

I have to confess I haven't read every entry in this long thread, but I have read the more recent entries and some of the earlier ones. I guess a lot depends on the old question, how you're defining folk music. It seems that many people here are referring to mainly songs (as opposed to tunes without words), maybe singer-songwriter type of material, singer with a guitar, protest songs, and so forth. I still think there's a lot of exactly that around, if you know where to look, although it's not mainstream.

For myself though, I guess I think of all these things and more as folk music: Irish and Scottish tunes, sea chanties, Child Ballads, singer-songwriter, Sacred Harp, Appalachian fiddle tunes, etc. etc. There is so much of this around that I have to keep a special "music event" calendar for myself to keep track of it all: concerts large and small, workshops and classes, sessions and singers' circles and more. The majority of events I go to seem to be well attended, and equally nice, there are often many new faces of people young and old who are just discovering this music and getting addicted. I am, admittedly, in a large city, but of course there are plenty of places with active music scenes of this sort. I guess my point is that the music is still very much out there.

I agree with several posters above that one of the biggest problems is simply making people aware of the music and how they can participate in it. Probably half or more of the events I go to are advertised simply by "word of mouth." You have to already be involved and on someone's e-mail list, or be lucky to have the right friend to invite you along. I am sometimes surprised the audiences are as big as they are, because there often seems to be little public outreach going on. This is probably something the folk community really needs to concentrate on more. I also agree that at times, the community is not always patient and welcoming to new members, and can get kind of cliquish. Not all the time of course, different groups have different dynamics, but it's something to think about if you truly want to bring more people in and have them become a long term part of things.

To sort of come full circle and end on a positive note, I was at a Sacred Harp sing yesterday and there were many new faces, including lots of younger ones. One person heard about it from a friend who sang, another one heard about it in their ethnomusicology class. Someone heard it in the movie "Cold Mountain" and got curious. And one woman said "I just heard this for the first time last week and I HAD to learn how to do it!"

So I respectfully disagree with this thread title - I think folk music, however you wish to define it, is quite alive, although maybe not as visible to enough people as it could be. So keep singing and playing whenever and wherever the opportunity arises, and spread the word(s)!

Zhenya