Hmmm. I also graduated from Penn but several years before Goldstein took over. The great Mac Leach was the folklore scholarship (with much help from Tristram Coffin.) My only contribution was inventing folk music radio shows in Philadelphia. Mac had tried for hundreds of years to split folklore off from the English Dept. He finally suceeded about 1966, just as I left. I'm sad to learn that it has reverted.

English scholars aways tended to view songs as poetry - as it the tunes were meaningless. How little they know.

Still, Abrahams is finally putting together his Caribbean material for CDs. This will be good.