I knew that one of my guitar students has a VCR because I taped a couple of television programs for her when she went on vacation, so I asked her if she could tape the show and she agreed. Also, katlaughing, bless her heart, spotted my above post and offered to send me a copy if all else failed. In the meantime, when I moaned to my wife, Barbara, that local repair shops usually charge a $90.00 bench fee (just to put something on the workbench before even looking at it), she muttered something incomprehensible, disconnected the VCR and took it out to the kitchen table, examined it a bit, selected the appropriate sized screwdrivers, removed the cover, deftly performed a tape-ectomy on the jammed tape, and reassembled the machine. I ran a few tests and it was fine. So I got a good tape of the show, and my student, Bernice, also got it. I was nicely covered.

I have to admit to being a bit disappointed in the show, but then I was expecting a whole lot more than they put together. An hour just wasn't enough time to do justice to the subject. It would really take something like the kind of min-series' that Martin Scorsese or Ken Burns do to give an idea of just how important Alan Lomax was to folk music and to music in general. I know that a lot of Mudcatters bitch and complain about the things Scorsese and Burns have done in relation to music, but these are usually minuscule, nit-picky squawks compared to how well they cover subjects like this.

It was a good documentary as far as it went, but considering the magnitude of the subject, it was little more than an appetizer.

Don Firth