The lure and the trap for me was the authenticity I heard in the voices of people who sang--Frank Warner, Leadbelly, the people on collected recordings of collected hill songs and the recordings of chain gang songs sung by people actually swinging picks and hammers on a chain gang.

I was raised in a foofy sort of town where the basic forces of existence had been prettied up and disguised by Formica and antemacassars and painted in pastels by nervous unemployed housewives.

It freed my soul to hear honest voices singing honest songs.


A