". . . do you have much respect for the late Ewan MacColl, Don?...at his, among other English folk clubs of the time, folks were strongly encouraged to perform from their own culture."

David, I met Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger at the 1960 Berkeley Folk Festival. I heard them in concert and in several workshops. And one evening, I had a chance to converse with them informally at a party after one of the concerts. Then once again in the early 1980s, they passed through Seattle on a concert tour, when I met them again and had a chance, with a few other Seattle singers, to swap songs and conversation with them at yet another post-concert party.

Yes, I know that MacColl encouraged people to perform songs from their own culture. But this suggestion was made most strongly at a time when practically everybody in the English folk clubs were singing American folk songs. I fully understand his reason for urging people to sing songs from their own cultures.

I do not believe he intended that this admonition become an ironclad rule for all people for the rest of Eternity.

Here's a little tip to aid you in your "walkabout" through life, David. It is not enough to know the guidelines for a particular activity or situation, one needs to know the underlying reasons for those guidelines.

If you meditate long and hard about this, it could help you avoid saying stupid things.

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And in his post just above, Smokey is right. If I were limited to singing only songs of my own culture, first of all, I would have to figure out what that culture is. Born in Los Angeles, California, raised in Seattle in the Pacific Northwest, and subject to an early diet of pop music on the radio and opera and classical music later on, I discovered the wide field of folk music in my very early twenties.

What are the songs of my culture? Frank Sinatra? Perry Como? Opera singers like Ferrucio Tagliavini or Italo Tajo? Should I be singing California gold rush songs or the songs of Pacific Northwest loggers and fishermen (which I do, by the way, among many others)?

Once discovering folk music, I dipped into the wide ocean of songs that were available:   songs from all over the United States and Canada (both of which are big countries with a whole patchwork of different cultures), and songs from the British Isles—England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales (likewise with a variety of different cultures within each of these), along with a small number of songs from the European continent, in the original languages.

Were it not for the wide variety of songs available to me to learn and sing, my musical interests would have probably moved on to something else, and I wouldn't have enjoyed the life I have, making my livelihood by entertaining people, and informing and educating them about the infinite variety of that which we call "folk music."

So tell me, David:    What, to your mind, should I be allowed to sing?

And don't say "Amerindian" drumming and chants! There are a couple of problems with that. First, there are several dozen Native American tribes, each with its own distinctive style of music. So—which? Iroquois? Cherokee? Arapahoe? Seminole? Haida? Sioux? Apache? Nez Perce? Navaho? Which?

And the second problem:   on one occasion, in 1953, I saw an exhibition of Pacific Northwest Native American (not "Amerindian," as you so quaintly put it) singing, drumming, and dancing. And this exhibition was done by anthropologist and artist, Bill Holm—who was not Native American. This was my one and only live and in person exposure to examples of Native American culture.

It would be very difficult to make a case that Native American music is part of my culture.

So again, David:   I your view of the world, what is my culture? What songs should I be allowed to sing?

And what songs should I not be allowed to sing?

I await your edict.

Don Firth