As a city kid growing up in Toronto in the fifties, I knew nothing of folk music. My life's ambition was to be a "torch singer" (although my guidance councillor said there was no torch singer in her book of occupations for young ladies. She felt I should choose one of nurse, secretary, housewife.) My eyes were partly opened when I came across Sir Patrick Spens and Thomas the Rhymer in Grade Nine Poetry; my ears perked up when I heard Tom Dooley ON THE HIT PARADE! What a breakthrough that was. But Joan was the ultimate inspiration -- a genuine female role model -- a girl with guitar. She is the reason I got hired to sing in various corners of Canada. "What's this? A girl with guitar? How novel," they would cry, and hire me on the spot. So thanks, Joan, for opening the door for me to earn my way to Europe and around Britain in my youth. (Later, of course, I discovered Pete Seeger and the Weavers and realized Tom Dooley was not the first folk song ever to be played on the radio, But even if I had known of Ronnie Gilbert when I was 16, I doubt she would have had as much power in my psyche as that beautiful young woman in her angelic white dress, commanding the stage at Newport with her soaring soprano and her lone guitar.)