Not a new thought for everyone around here, but I have just been listening to Art Rosenbaum's sampler "Art of Field Recording" (from Dust to Digital) covering lots of the highlights of his travels (though I guess one has to buy the 6 disc collection to get Scrapper Blackwell!), and I was thinking of what a debt one owes to songcatchers like him. I remember the first field recording I ever heard -- Son House playing with some pals in a garage by a railway track (Lomax at work) -- and being completely carried away by it, and one thing led to another, and I arrived at Mudcat. Similarly, I have been listening to the collection from Dylan's radio hour, now on CD, and also being charmed by the sheer luck and skill that ending up in the recording all these long gone people -- capturing talented voices that would have been gone forever but aren't! A tip of the hat to songcatchers everywhere (some hereabouts).

yours,

Peter T.