I'm glad to hear that, Alice. When I was growing up it was commonplace to get together to sing. Any house in the neighborhood with a piano was a likely gathering place. We didn't sing "folk music." I don't think anyone had ever even heard the term. Certainly, we weren't consciously categorizing music. We might sing The Blue Tail Fly or On Top Of Old Smokey, but no one said, "This is an old folk song that I learned from a recording released on the Vocallion label first recorded by Wade Mainer and His Mountaineers." Folk singers are so foolishly self-conscious about all of that. I can see old Dock Boggs sitting out on his front porch in a rocking chair on a Saturday night, introducing each song with a history of where he'd learn it, and other variations that he'd heard. We sang. Or played an instrument, if someone knew how. I suppose that because we played paino instead of a guitar or banjo, it was somehow less folkish. There'd always be a few hymns and popular songs of the time, translated into our own abilities and style with no attempt to recreat a recording. Sounds like a night on the porch with Charlie Poole and Uncle Dave Macon.

Every once in awhile when I feel everything is getting too precious at a folk festival, I'll burst into something like Blue Monday, or Searchin.' The thing that always gives me a kick is that even though it isn't pure, folks jump right in and have a good time singing along.

Sometimes we think too much.

Jerry