True indeed, Ron. Frankly, I thought a lot of what the Kingston Trio did when they first got under way (frequently using songs as the basis for a cheap joke) was a travesty. But the KT was the introduction to folk music for a lot of people.

". . . but frankly any artist standing on a stage singing a folk song is far removed from the natural environment."

And I'm fully aware that that includes me.

Like Richard Dyer-Bennet, who considered himself to be a modern day minstrel (a particular kind of professional entertainer), and who gave me a lot of good advice early on, I don't regard myself as a "folk singer," although that's what other people usually call me.

Don Firth