Another story:

When I was in my senior year in college, I roomed with someone I'd only known a couple of months in the last semester of my junior year. At the time I met Randy, he didn't have a C average, but he wanted to go to graduate school. Sounded pretty stupid to most people. But not to me. When I was in my junior year, after having flunked out of college, I didn't have a C average and I made up my mind that I was going to go to graduate school. When I told one of my professors in my department of my intentions, he laughed and said, "Rasmussen, you don't have the chance of a snowball in Hell to get into graduate school with your grades." He never shoulda said that. But I'm glad that he did. I got straight A's in my Junior and Senior year and not only got into graduate school, I got a Teaching Assistantship. So, when Randy asked me if I thought he was stupid to want to go to graduate school, I told him that he should go for it.
Our senior year he asked to room with me and we took the same classes. Randy had no idea how to study, so he sutdied with me, and we helped each other review all of the material for our tests. While he couldn't get his grades up as high as I had, because he had a later start, he had terrific grades that year and was accepted into graduate school at the University of Kansas. He ended up getting a Doctorate and had a fine career as a college professor.

That year when Randy was rooming with me, I was just learning to play guitar. I was passable, but have never sung in front of a group, or anyone except my roommates, and some of the guys in my rooming house. Randy loved guitar, and after I'd moved to New York City and was taking lessons from Dave Van Ronk, Randy wrote and asked me if I thought that it was stupid for him to learn to play guitar. He couldn't sing to save his soul, and he never expected to play for anything but his own enjoyment. You can probably guess what my answer was. I sent him tapes and lesson plans in the mail, and had a chance to visit with him once, to show him what I'd sent him in person. I have no idea if he was ever good enough to perform, but that has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he should learn to play guitar and sing. If he was never good enough, he got an enormous amount of pleasure from playing for himself. And who knows, maybe he was underestimating himself. A lot of other people had. I lost track of him, so I don't know how good he got. All I know is sometimes all it takes is someone encouraging you to try to do something to unlock a potential you never knew that you had.

My best advice to folks and myself too is when someone tells you you can't do something, the best response is, 'Oh yeah!" That may not be the most intellectual comeback, but it's worked for me, and many others.

Since when did folk music get taken away from folks?

Jerry