edited posting from an earlier thread---

I had almost NO musical life beyond playing clarinet in the band...until I was over 21, and along came the folk-scare, and in about '61,Pete Seeger, The New Lost City Ramblers, and the Beers family came to Wichita within a few short months, and it sort of caused the few members of the local Classic Guitar Society who also played 'folk' to split and form a folk group...and I knew one of them...and soon there were Hootenannies and coffee houses..
One fellow in town knew lots of Child ballads (I never knew where he learned them)and subscribed to SingOut, and our small group almost totally ignored the 'Pop Folk' of the day..(PP&M, Limelighters, etc) we did some of the same songs, but not AS copies of what was 'hot'.And I found out that the library would check out record albums...where I found Richard Dyer-Bennet, Jean Redpath...etc...and I bought a few albums..."The Weavers at Carnagie Hall", Burl Ives "Wayfaring Stranger", "New Folk" with Hedy West, Jackie Washington, David Gude and The Greenbriar Boys..added a couple Pete Seeger albums and there was no turning back..

And somehow, the owner/manager of of a very small local FM radio station heard about our little Sat. nite group, and we were invited to put together a 'live' radio program....so I guess my first 'really' public appearance...other than sitting in living room singing "SinnerMan" and 'Buffalo Gals' (I mostly played the recorder and sang on choruses in those days)was on the radio (still playing the recorder)! And then one night I was at a bar and some guys who had a little band and who had seen me at a party with my new autoharp, invited me to come play a couple of things with them.....foolishly, I agreed, and got up in front of a microphone and totally butchered 'Wildwood Flower'. Since then, I have pretty much limited my playing to those living rooms and groups of friends....seldom with microphones present....those things change EVERYTHING *grin*.