Every once in a while, I've gone to a concert of a well-known performer - Paul Simon, Bonnie Raitt, and Bob Dylan, to name three. Nowadays, tickets for these performers cost about fifty dollars, not including parking and the fee you have to pay for the privilege of buying a ticket. You have to wait in line to get in, and you have to bring binoculars if you actually want to see the performer's face. Oh, and you have your belongings searched and your body frisked as you enter the door.

Paul Simon and Bonnie Raitt were wonderful, and I'm glad I saw them. Bob Dylan was a total ripoff - fifty bucks for a 45-minute set, and a sloppy performance. I really wanted to see Doc Watson; but it would have cost me sixty bucks, so I skipped it.

I can go to a folk concert in a small venue for $10 to $20, with free parking and a seat within 50 feet of the performer. I can chat with the performers, and I often know half the people in the audience. I can afford to go to folk concerts once or twice a month, and I always enjoy them thoroughly. Why would I want folk music to be a commercial success, serving a huge market?

Not only that - "popular" music is a star-oriented market, and only a very few musicians "make it big." Other pop musicians play backup or collect unemployment, and probably don't make any more money than folk musicians do. My son has a punk rock band, and regularly performs for audiences of maybe 1,500 people. He brings in a lot of money at the gate, but much of that goes for transportation and managers and agents and all that. He still doesn't make enough to be able to afford health insurance. I think it might be a better life to have a full-time, paying job and do music for the love of it. That's what I did - and I can afford health insurance. I admit that he has thousands of YouTube videos and I have only one, but I've had a hell of a good time making music all my life.

-Joe-