Without much thought, I sent a photograph off to an old friend of mine today, Luke Faust. Back in the early 60's, Luke and I performed together fairly regularly. It's the only time when I have consistently played folk with another musician, having been qa solo performer most of my life. I got a short message back from Luke and an attached photo of him and his mate, Dean. I was as glad to see how happy he looks as he was to see the loved and joy in the photograph that I e-mailed him of my wife Ruth and me. It got me to thinking.

I am rarely asked to do folk music any more. It's been several years since I've been asked to do a concert. I don't feel badly about that, because I know first-hand that the interest in folk music has shrunken a lot in recent years. There've been a couple of long threads on the topic in here, so there's no need to revisit that in any great detail.

Two or three years ago now, Ruth and I drove up to Branford, CT to hear Rick Fielding. It was one of his last concerts, and I'd always enjoyed Rick. We'd shared a couple of songwriters workshops together and we apprecaitated each other's music. It was good to hear him again, and not surprising that he "drew" maybe thirty people. It's hard to understand how folk concert series survive, drawing twenty to forty people for a concert. Funny thing is, I have been booked to do a concert a year from now, and I've been asked to just do my old stuff... Living on The River, Old Blue Suit, Handfull of Songs, etc.
I don't have a problem with that, but it's ironic in a way that for all my love of traditional music, the "oldies" that I'm expected to do are songs that I've written. Folk music has become so ingrown that I think the next generation of folk singers will be great pickers because they'll be born with six fingers. :-)

I think of all of this because it would be great to sit down for an evening with Luke, or do a concert with him where we did Penny's Farm, Blues in The Bottle, Stackerlee and countless other great old songs that only a handful of people are interested in hearing.

As I was saying to Pete, I have enough traditional folk songs, and my own songs in the folk vein to do two solid CDs. How many people would buy them? Nowhere near enough to anywhere near cover the cost of making them, let alone all the time I'd spend, and the friends I'd ask to help me without pay. At this point, I'm happy playing music. Music. Whether it's folk, my own original folkish or gospel songs, doo wop, R & B or gospel quartet music doesn't make much difference to me. I love it all. People are far more interested in my gospel stuff now. I am plerforming gospel far more than I ever performed folk music at my peak (which was barely discernible.) And, I get bigger audiences.

All of this is good. I've always played music because I love to play music. As the years go by, my audience has shifted away from folk music. If only I was a sensitive singer-songwriter!

Somewhere along the line, I'm going to self-produce a couple more folk CDs, and a couple of gospel CDs. They'll sell like cold cakes, but that's fine. I love what I'm doing, and as long as there are a few people who enjoy listening to my music, I'm happy.

Maybe I'll get Luke up to the house sometime and see if we can still play the old stuff.

Jerry