A band we once had was me and Elvis along with Patti Page and Rosemary Clooney. We called ourselves Presley, Page, Rosemary and Thieme. ;-)

Buyt seriously folks, I was always a solo. That way nobody ever quit my group. But I always was at least 90% traditional. To answer someones querie about what is traditional, I'd have to say that for me it was the generally long ballads and story songs that told real tales (probably/possibly) from folk' lives. They were stanzaic in form and each verse/stanza propelled the descriptive action forward the way a chapter in a novel would perform that service. They were almost always TOPICAL SONGS in that they zeroed in on a geographical place that was vividly depicted in the song. Or they were about a subculture of sorts -- cowboys, lumberjacks -- the whaling trade -- hobo experiences -- train wrecks - the westward expansion of the U.S.A. and the settlement of the various territories. The topical songs depicted all of the ways people tried to make their livings and what impeded them from doing that -- and how they fought back against a supressing system of things with unions and sometimes outright rebellion and violence. These serious topics were tempered by tall tales -- lies told on purpose -- humorous looks at the life they were enduring -- tales that belittled the immensity of nature and made it more endurable: "It was so hot the corn was popping on the stalk. The cows thought it was snow and froze to death." The songs were generally from the past because they showed me/us how we got from there to here. The passage of time had shown that the songs were about heroic and mythic topics; similar events happening in "the present" had not revealed themselves to be the stuff that myths are made of yet. Some of the better modern songs, ones that were written in the old traditional way, were thought by me to be worth including in my repertory: songs like Stan Rogers' "White Squawl" or Craig Johnson's taumaturgic creations. Dillon Bustin adapted and wrote some fine songs too. But I DID resist these modern songs. I saw myself as setting up a musical antique store and the newer songs were, to me, like putting a plastic table in the window. Those were O.K. and did the job, but only a very few were worth showing/learning to present with the gems of history I'd uncovered after sweeping the scum of the present off the top of the pond so I might more easily gaze down into the depths of history where the nuggets I was searching for could be found. Yes, it was like a fishing expedition, but once in a while a selacant would leap in my boat. Long thought extinct, here it was. Then it was up to me to be able to recognize it and save it in saltwater until it passed away naturally and then I (and a few I taught) could musically resurrect the fish to show it off in a way that might bring modern people into the world that had been inhabited by my artifact. Frank Warner did that when he sang the songs of, and told us about, Yankee John Galusha. Sandy Paton did it when he and Caroline and Lee Haggerty preserved and issued the music of Frank Proffitt, Dave Thompson and Lee Monroe Presnell. For me, it seems that most modern singer/songwriters look into today's newspaper and their own navels for inspiration. Folksingers (traditional), on the other hand, can and do travel through time where their found artifacts were waiting to be noticed.

Folks, thanks for enduring yet another diatribe from old Art. It's for you to note or discard. But it's been my mission for a long time now. If you don't mind, I'll knock at your door every so often and try to give you a magazine.

Art Thieme