"If Pete Seeger or Joan Baez reach an audience and stay in touch with the actual folk music, then this is a great thing because it raises the consciousness of the audience. They don't have to be authentic representatives of a traditional folk music to do this. In a sense, they are unwitting or maybe conscious educators. Folk music appreciation is not relegated to a 'butts in seats' approach to concertizing for commercial gain but as kind of a mission based on true appreciation for the idiom. In this way, it parallels the jazz artist."

Once again, Frank puts it where it's at.

M.Ted, as to "prettying up" a song, one can learn a song from a book and simple sing the words and tune straight without "prettying it up." By "prettying up," I was referring to screwing around with the tune and/or diddling with the words—generally hanging tinsel on the song. The books I mentioned and the many others like them by the Lomaxes, Sharp, and other collectors are especially good because they usually give good notes on the songs (a "provenance," so to speak). I don't see that singing a song straight, without trying to impose any gratuitous styling that is not implied by the song itself is "prettying it up."

Nor did I say anything about "imitating" what one hears on a field recording or any other recording. Once again, one learns the words and tune from a recording—and ignores the individual mannerisms of the singer. I've learned many songs from the records (and the song books) of Richard Dyer-Bennet, but I hardly imitate him. For one thing, he's a light, lyric tenor and I'm a bass-baritone. And although I think he does a marvelous job on art songs such as "The Joys of Love" (written by Giovanni Martini) or "So We'll Go No More a-Roving" (a poem by Lord Byron that Dyer-Bennet set to music), and quite a good job on a lot of English folk songs, I, personally, think there are some songs he should have left alone. But that's just my opinion.

And I've learned a few songs from the records of Dave Van Ronk, but I'm not about to try to imitate him. For one thing, I think I'd wreck my voice if I tried.

I've learned songs from the recordings of people like Burl Ives, Susan Reed, Cynthia Gooding, Ed McCurdy, Guy Carawan, Andrew Rowan Summers, and many others, not to mention learning songs from people in person. And I don't try to imitate these sources, nor do I try to impose any style or mannerisms upon the song other than what simple comes naturally to me (and I am, perhaps, unaware of).

I agree that imitating, or trying to imitate, the singing of someone on a field recording is patronizing. The singers on field recordings sing straight out, with whatever characteristics and mannerisms that come to them naturally. Out of respect for both the singers and the songs, I don't try to mimic those characteristics and mannerisms. As alluded to above, I probably have some of my own that I'm not aware of. I take a very dim view of the kind of folkie who has a naturally very nice sounding singing voice who, because they are singing folk songs, try to hide that natural quality of their voice by roughening it up and singing in regional dialects that are not their own. There's a lot of that going on, and I think that is patronizing—and downright phony.

Do I use regional dialects? Yes, if it is an integral part of the song. If the word is "ain't," I don't change it to "isn't." I don't change "goin' to Montan" to "going to Montana." And I don't see how one can sing a Scottish song such as "McPherson's Farewell" without using a Scot's dialect because the song would sound weird without it. The only alternative would be not to sing the song, and I'm not going to limit myself that way, since I can do a pretty creditable Scots dialect (it may be in the genes). One needs to use a little taste and good sense.

If you try to correct the grammar or Anglicize the dialect in most regional songs (as folk songs generally are), more often than not they will simply end up sounding pretty peculiar! But this does not mean that one is "imitating." One is using elements inherent in the song itself.

As to "cheap jokes," I do sing humorous songs. And reaching for humor, on "The Frozen Logger" (a funny song to begin with), I took to singing all but the first verse in a thick, Yogi Yorgesson Swedish accent and got many laughs with it. But—when I sang it that way for James Stevens, the man who wrote "The Frozen Logger" (he was a guest on a television series I did in 1959), he cracked up, said, "I never thought of it quite that way. Great! Keep doing it like that!" So, with the approval of the writer, I stand by my bit of whimsy. Cheap joke? I don't think so. To me, it seemed sort of inherent in the song, and Stevens thought so too, once he heard me do it that way.

But that's the song. I do not take a serious song and screw around with it. Example:   in one recording of "Tom Dooley," the Kingston Trio sing "I met her on the mountain, and there I took her life. I met her on the mountain, and stabbed her with my Boy Scout knife!" Aw, c'mon, guys! That's just cheesy! Cheap joke!

There are two quotes that I ran into early on that have made up my credo for the way I do traditional folk songs:

From Rolf Cahn—
The most ticklish question still results from that awful word "Folk Music", which gives the erroneous impression that there is one body of music with one standard texture, dynamic, and history. Actually, the term today covers areas that are only connected in the subtlest terms of general feeling and experience. A United States cowboy song has less connection with a bloody Zulu tale than it has to "Western Pop" music; a lowdown blues fits less with Dutch South African melody than with George Gershwin.

Most of us agree in feeling as to our general boundaries, but more and more we search for our own particular contributions as musicians within these variegated provinces. There doesn't seem to be much point in imitating—what, after all, is the point of doing "Little Moses" exactly like the Carter Family? Yet it seems vital to convey the massive, punching instrumentals and the tense driving, almost hypnotic voice of the Carter Family performances.

One the one hand, there is the danger of becoming a musical stamp collector; on the other, the equal danger of leaving behind the language, texture, and rhythm that made the music worthy of our devotion in the first place. So we have arrived at a point where in each case we try to determine those elements which make a particular piece of music meaningful to us, and to build the performance through these elements. By continuing to learn everything possible of the art form—techniques, textures, rhythms, cultural implications and conventions, we hope to mature constantly in our individual understanding and creativity in this music.

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And Richard Dyer-Bennet said—
The value lies inherent in the song, not in the regional mannerisms or colloquialisms. No song is ever harmed by being articulated clearly, on pitch, with sufficient control of phrase and dynamics to make the most of the poetry and melody, and with an instrumental accompaniment designed to enrich the whole effect.

Frank, I would be very interested to hear what your opinion is of these two quotes.

Don Firth